Alas...


... there was almost a complete failure of this year's Rocket crop.

So...

... hurrah! The raspberries are still producing - these are Autumn Bliss and Fall Gold.

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Your essential reads

Hopes for the New Year

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I've walked many miles over the holiday season and seldom does the view match my mood as perfectly as this graffiti did in the footpath tunnel under the local railway this year. It's not the most salubrious of places or views, but it's a sentiment I wish for us all in 2026. Happy New Year everyone, and here's to a peaceful 2026 for you and yours. I also hope we get to do more of what I saw on the opposite wall! 😊
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Unusual Front Gardens #40: A very hungry caterpillar

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Here's something to cheer up those January blues with a look back at the hot days of last July and a discovery I made on my Cheerful Chippenham  judging round. It made me chuckle a lot at the time and I've only just realised how ironic it is now as most of Chippenham's box hedges have been decimated by the dreaded box caterpillar. Cheerful Chippenham is a great project to be involved with. Around 30 volunteers are each given a specific part of Chippenham as their patch and have around a month to have a look at everyone's front gardens alongside some judging criteria to ensure we're all consistent. Those who have done something positive with their plot are deemed worthy of a Good Front Garden award. It's surprising how many aren't, including me! Long Covid meant I lost the plot big time last year. Roll on summer 2026!
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Close encounters with AI

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  To be honest I feel quite ambivalent about AI and largely avoid its use, where I can. I try to ignore the AI information presented within search engines and I don't usually use it to create anything etc etc. I'm worried about copyright issues for instance, and how it's already replacing garden writers who have extensive knowledge gained over many years of experience. Articles can be generated quickly, often with dubious content which is often published without fact checking first. I'm reminded of a central tenet from my time in IT; Garbage In, Garbage Out (aka GIGO), right? However NAH recently benefitted from AI technology when a surgeon assisted by a robot using CT scan data peered deep into his lung and determined the small lump there is benign, thus avoiding him losing around a third of his lung. The latter operation was the preferred approach until the robot technique was developed and often the removed material revealed a benign lump rather than a tumour. We...
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Weekend Wandering: the festive doors of Lacock

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Lacock village is always a good bet for a good door display and Christmas is no exception. Here's a small selection of various wreaths I found on a wet and windy day recently which really helped to dispel the gloom and provide plenty of festive cheer. I hope you like them too. Have a wonderful Christmas and a peaceful New Year. See you all again in 2026!
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For Valentine's Day

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  Here's my copper foil glass heart lovingly made for today in a workshop at The Pound arts centre recently. It's perfectly paired with a stand lovingly crafted by NAH in his garage workshop here at home. We're also a good match in many other ways and celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary next month 😍 Happy Valentine's my love x
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That's shallot!

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This year's constant rain has given me plenty of thinking time about the garden, but today's sunshine (at last!) tempted me out for a good, long walk with a little detour for seed buying along the way. I've been pondering my patio pots and what I could try for the first time as a bit of an experiment. My local shop provided the ideal solution: aha, why not try some shallots!? I've grown these before on the allotment, though pesky onion white rot there meant I had to give up and give the soil a chance to heal. I've chosen shallots over onion sets this time as I think they give more bang for my buck, plus they feature in one of my favourite new lunch recipes, a creamy mushroom pasta. At 3 packets for a fiver I think they're worth a try. They're shallow rooted so ideal for pot growing albeit they'll need quite a bit of width to bulk up rather than depth. I'm eyeing up my Plantbox troughs as part of my experiment as well as more conventional pots. I ha...
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Weekend Wandering: Public Art Discoveries

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  It's been great to find lots more public art around Chippenham this year; enough to make this collage for your delectation. From left to right and top to bottom we have: Mustard Bustards  by @lucas_antics  next to Cousin Norman's and Artel31 on Union Road; Morris Dancer by the ever reliable Chippenham Knatty Knitters  on Chippenham High Street for this year's folk festival; In Unity Beauty Unfolds by Sophie Mess at Rivo Lounge Kingfisher by Nathan Pritchard in the Kingfisher pub car park on Hungerdown Lane; Chippenham collage by 2024's Fringe February contributors; Canal scene by Ed Poster at the bus station Winnie's Barbershop by @hardlytryinganyway  on Sheldon Road; Mystery horse next to St Andrew's church; Rainbow High Street project led by Public Art Chippenham for Chippenham Pride 2025 Sadly the Morris dancer was the last topper for the post box as it's now gone solar as have at least 2 others in Chippenham. Fingers crossed the other locations get th...
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Weekend Wandering: Candlesnuff

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My latest find just yards from our house is this intriguing candlesnuff fungus (aka Xylaria hypoxylon ) growing on a pile of logs by Hardenhuish Brook. It looks like little reindeer antlers adding a festive decoration on my walk into town, though the Woodland Trust tells me * it can be found year-round. I'm delighted to see it for the first time. Apparently the greyish white part contains the spores, so I hope the recent high winds have spread them out a bit as we have tons of fallen deciduous wood in need of a little decoration. Although it's the first time I've seen it, this fungus can crop up pretty much anywhere, from woodland through to urban parks. Have you spotted it in your neighbourhood? * = scroll down to item 7 on their list
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Happy Easter!

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I've had a lot of fun experimenting with various flowers and combining them into a seasonal wreath for our front door as I've noticed lately that a year round door wreath display is becoming a bit of a trend around here. Have you found that? I'm not usually a great follower of fashion but I do like the idea of adding a visual welcome to our front door which extends beyond Christmas and New Year, I've chosen snowdrops, daffodils and forget-me-nots for mine as these add a lot of cheer in the guerrilla garden on the public land next to our house which adds a little rebellious twist to the convention. I planted the snowdrops and daffodils and nature decided to lend a hand by bringing in the forget-me-nots* to extend the season of interest. Have a blooming good Easter and see you soon! * Forget-me-nots are also a poignant nod to the Alzheimer's Society as it's their official symbol and daffodils remind us of the work of Marie Curie Cancer Care.
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Friday Bench: Self portrait

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I had a brilliant day at Lacock Abbey last Sunday with Justin 'Pinhole' Quinnell playing around with various traditional photography techniques including Camera Obscura, turmeric printing and pinhole photography. The latter was most apt as it was World Pinhole photography day  - the website is well worth a look with participants and a wide variety of viewpoints from around the world. Justin loves making unusual pictures using this technique and delighted in taking pictures up our noses and of our ears as well as more conventional views. Many of his techniques use recycled or very cheap materials and he has full instructions for various projects you might like to try on his website . We all got to have a go with pinhole cameras made using old beer cans and traditional wet chemical developing techniques. I was pleased when it came to my turn to pose on the bench in the botanical garden and the results are shown above. True to my Veg Plotting roots I was also pleased to take a ph...
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