Veg Plotting is Away


I've been whisked away by NAH for a few days as we have some rather special things to celebrate. In the meantime, here's some crocuses from my back garden to cheer you up - I'll be back for the next ABC Wednesday, where my H will tell you a little bit about why we're celebrating...

Besides, I've just realised this is my 600th post today, so I think a deserve a little rest :)

If you're looking to post your URL for this month's Out on the Streets, you need to go here. And even if you don't have a URL to post, you might like to have a look at what everyone else has to say on the subject of public planting.

Whilst I'm away, how about telling me about your favourite sign of spring in the comments below. Is it the crocus like those in my picture? Perhaps it's daffodils, snowdrops, intense birdsong, swelling buds, catkins - or something else?

Comments

  1. Lucy Corrander6 March 2009 at 08:45

    I haven't seen any yet - none the less, now you mention it, I think catkins are my favourite sign of spring.

    Lucy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sylvia (England)6 March 2009 at 09:15

    VP I hope you have a lovely time. Today the crocus look really lovely, jewels of purple and yellow against white sparkling snow. The best sign of spring for me is the longer days, seeing the garden before and after work. Despite the snow we had yesterday spring is definitely in the air.

    Best wishes Sylvia

    ReplyDelete
  3. Zoë6 March 2009 at 09:41

    Catkins and especially Pussy Willow coming in to flower. Swiftly followed by my Hellebores in flower.

    ReplyDelete
  4. EB6 March 2009 at 12:10

    My favourite sign of spring is seeing our fish hungry and moving vigorously again. I always forget, every year, how much they enliven the garden. This might seem odd with a red setter about, but somehow the fish seem like the garden's true inhabitants, as though the garden itself had come to life.

    ReplyDelete
  5. CanadianGardenJoy6 March 2009 at 12:13

    VP .. Enjoy the time away with that special person .. wink wink !
    Spring is long in coming .. bird song is the first sign .. then rain washing the snow away is the second .. BUT .. I already have little heads popping up , telling me some wonderful flower signs will be calling me to go get the camera and have some fun !! : )

    ReplyDelete
  6. TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe6 March 2009 at 12:47

    600th post! Congratulations VP
    Very impressive you are a true blog guru.
    Enjoy your time away and thank you for the lovely blooms.

    xoxo Tyra

    ReplyDelete
  7. petoskystone6 March 2009 at 13:27

    the smell rising from just-thawed ground as the sun warms it!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Carrie6 March 2009 at 15:12

    Daffs, they do it for me every year. Such bright, happy faces. Oh and the longer days - turning the light on at 3 or so kills me in winter!

    ReplyDelete
  9. HappyMouffetard6 March 2009 at 20:11

    Catkins and pussy willow, like Zoe.
    And crocuses. And daffodils, the fresh smell of the first cut of lawn. The warmth of the sun on your back as you weed the newly grown weeds.

    Have a great time!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Mr. McGregor's Daughter6 March 2009 at 21:18

    You have been posting a lot lately - you could use a nice break. Congratulations on reaching the 600 post mark. That's quite an accomplishment.
    My favorite sign of spring is when the Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets return to the pond.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anna6 March 2009 at 22:00

    Enjoy your time away and those special celebrations VP :) My favourite sign of spring is that magical day when the clocks spring forward.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Matron7 March 2009 at 09:53

    Just the first thing that germinates in the greenhouse in January or February gives me hope! For me it was a few tomatoes in the heated propagator!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Susan Tomlinson7 March 2009 at 12:08

    My favorite sign of spring? The warm wind. Seriously. I love the wind.

    Have a great time while you're off the boards, and tell us all about it when you come back.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Elizabeth Musgrave7 March 2009 at 22:00

    What a beautiful crocus - which one is it? all mine are darker.
    I love catkins, daffodils, the song of a blackbird, lengthening days.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Arabella Sock8 March 2009 at 18:01

    My favourite first sign of spring is the saxifrages flowering in my little alpine bed. There is a sulphur yellow one that is lighting up the bed even now as the evening light dims.

    I hope H stands for Happy whatever it is you have been up to.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous9 March 2009 at 08:12

    I hope that you're having a good, and relaxing, time! xx

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous9 March 2009 at 15:26

    My mother always says: 'When the blackthorn in blooming on all of his thorns, than spring really has arrived' ('Als de sleedoorn bloeit op al zijn stekels, dan is de lente echt daar!'), and for that reason, it doesn't feel like spring for me, until I have seen the blackthorn blooming.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Frankie 9 March 2009 at 21:08

    Have a lovely time - and I'm watching the bluetits investigating bird box cam - fingers crossed that they build a nest...

    ReplyDelete
  19. this is my patch10 March 2009 at 21:36

    600, that's a lot of blog posts! My favourite sign of Spring is the primrose. I hope you are enjoying your days away. x

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous11 March 2009 at 19:51

    Hope you have a great break.My best sign of spring is not very gardeny but is feeling able to peg out the washing!

    ReplyDelete
  21. VP14 March 2009 at 22:08

    Thanks for all your good wishes and telling me about your favourite things about spring. I was expecting everyone to say sunshine a dffodils, but you've come up with quite a variety amongst you - hurrah. It shows that there's so much to appreciate when Spring finally arrives :D

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from you and welcome thoughtful conversations :)

Comments aiming to link back and give credence to commercial websites will be composted!

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter,
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi
Read more