Of Awards, Women Pioneers and Missed Biscuitry


It's a bit of a mixed bag today, but I've a few things to tell you which are all demanding to be written about right now, so here goes...

First up is this sparkly new bit of bling, courtesy of Kitchen Garden, aka The Constant Gardener with her vegetable growing hat on. I also see Rothschild's Orchid has given this to me this week, so that makes it double bling. Rather cheersome, after a week of wind and wuthering weather. Thanks both of you, it's much appreciated :D

As usual I'm going amend the rules for this award so that they work for me. I see it's been doing the rounds of most of my regular gardening reads already and I'm confident it's only a matter of time before everyone I have in my sidebar links, plus all my bookmarked favourites will receive this award. So instead of nominating 15 of my gardening friends, I'd like to draw your attention to a non-gardening blog which I've come across recently via my site statistics. It's called White Girl, Arab World and chronicles the life of Shirley Dockerill, who's called the Middle East her home for the past 25 years. It's a fascinating read, which is helping me to understand a completely different culture, and that's precisely what best blogging's all about.

A fascinating watch for me last night was Carol Klein's Gardeners' World special on women gardening pioneers. She covered such a wide range, from the 'herb wives' of medieval times through to the appointment of Inga Grimsey as RHS Director General in 2006. In between were stories of artists and writers; the woman I always think of as one of the first guerrilla gardeners; the first women horticultural trainees at Kew in the late 1890s; the first women head gardeners at Sissinghurst; the role of the Women's Land Army during WWII and much more besides. It was a return to the kind of intelligent gardening programme we've been crying out for and my only criticism of it is I wanted to know even more. If you missed it and you live in the UK, do seek it out on the BBC's I-Player over the next week or so.

Finally, I'm pleased to see my latest guest post on Encounters With Remarkable Biscuits has gone up today. It's more of a non-encounter really, but you'll need to head over there to find out more...

Happy reading and viewing everyone!

Comments

  1. Helen/patientgardener28 November 2009 at 13:40

    You might find the book I reviewed here interesting http://patientgardener.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/book-review-virgins-weeders-queens-by-twigs-way/

    ReplyDelete
  2. VP28 November 2009 at 13:47

    Thanks Helen - I thought of you when I was writing this because I think you wrote about Ellen Willmott (the guerrilla gardener of my post) previously. It's a real shame that her garden's now a ruin.

    That book looks really interesting and Twigs Way (fantastic name!) was interviewed on the programme last night. Helen's written a very thorough review and for those of you looking for a direct link, you need to click here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous28 November 2009 at 15:02

    Cogratulations on the well deserved awards!
    I also enjoyed watching what I found to be a thoroughly interesting and informative programme, and like you would like to know more! Flighty xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. VP30 November 2009 at 11:34

    Thanks Flighty :)

    ReplyDelete

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