Veg Plotting

Apologies for the poor quality picture, but I had to show you VP Gardens' latest new visitor, a Lesser Redpoll . I found a pair of them attacking the seedheads on my Verbena bonariensis last weekend, a great advertisement for not being too tidy in the garden in the autumn/winter. These red listed birds are a more familiar sight in Scotland, Wales and eastern England, though they may visit gardens like mine in the south west during the winter. Their acrobatic antics were a joy to behold - fingers crossed they make a reappearance during my Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend! Update 31/1: My count this morning was - wood pigeon 5, crow 2, long tailed tit 3, great tit 1, magpie 3, wren 1, blackbird 3, blue tit 2, robin 2 and goldcrest 1. Weather dull and mild. Not bad for diversity (though it has been better, usually on a sunny day), but numbers were down considerably.

The Hugh Garner Housing Co-Operative from the communal garden - with not a clue to the delights above Many of the green roofs we hear about in the UK tend to be at the high end of the market, such as the Sky Garden in London. However, my visit to Toronto's  Hugh Garner Housing Co-Operative   highlighted the possibilities for any housing development seen in our towns and cities. View towards Toronto's iconic CN Tower It wasn't just a roof full of sedums either; this scheme showcases how a fantastic communal resource can be achieved, suitable for both entertaining and quiet relaxation, with an amazing view. I was delighted to meet Amanda from Cooking in Someone Else's Kitchen at last I learnt so much during my time in Toronto which deserves to be blogged about, but this garden was the one which really touched both my head and heart. I nearly burst into tears of rage at the time as the UK doesn't have the kind of legislation Toronto has had since ...

I've had a lot of fun putting together the latest edition of Puzzle Corner.  Can you match the flowers and fruit/vegetables with their plant kingdom Families? There is a flower and fruit/vegetable for each one. The Families are: Amaryllidaceae Apiaceae Asteraceae Fabaceae Polygonaceae Rosaceae I think - like me - you'll be surprised how some of these pair up with their families. I hope you enjoy this fun quiz and I'll give you the answers next week .

I love it when work and blog fun collide. The company blog I look after always reports on their efforts for Sport Relief , both of the sporting kind and in the ever popular baking department. It's great to join in with them this year in a small way by showing off my Orla Kiely designer Bake Yourself Proud apron courtesy of the nice people at Sport Relief.  The Great Sport Relief Bake Off starts next Wednesday (January 27th 2016) on BBC1, where another of these aprons will be presented to each episode's winner. It's also available in the shops* at £12.99, with at least £5.25 going to their fundraising. I'm going to donate the full cost of my apron to the cause, so it's win-win all round. I've also been inspired to restart my baking efforts by making this scrummy chocolate cake . I was given the dry ingredients last year, but family events prevented me from making it at the time. * = HomeSense, TK Maxx or the Sport Relief website .

A bright daffodil nestles amongst the decaying Echinops stems in my winter garden.  It's been a record breaking winter. There was record warmth and rainfall for December, possibly January too for the latter. Now we're poised on the cusp of the coldest spell of the winter thus far, possibly the coldest for the past few years. So it seems fitting to enjoy my garden's solitary record breaking daffodil whilst I can, possibly sentenced to doom in tonight's forecast frost. It flowered just before Christmas and has had to stretch itself almost impossibly high to get itself noticed amongst the Echinops stems. It's a record breaking winter for blooms in my garden too. I expect many of these will get nipped in the bud tonight, so it's fitting to record the full list for this month's Blooms Day and posterity. There's a total of 35 flowers and even if you take the 4 new-to-the-garden snowdrops away from the total, this is still my most floriferous January...

Apparently Emily Dickinson was also a skilled botanist. I wonder what she would have made of my new wellies! Happy New Year - may 2016 be a good one for you and yours.

Haworth , Yorkshire - late December 2014 Haworth in West Yorkshire is famed for its connection with the Brontes and is a popular tourist destination as a result. Its steeply cobbled main street has many tea rooms and shops, so it was great to spot one place where there is a home with much evidence of the hopes of at least one small child. All the pansies were frozen into submission when I passed by last year, but once the seasonal cold snap stopped they'd soon be springing up again to brighten the stony street . Veg Plotting  will resume in the New Year; may you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, wherever you may be.

Solstice dawn 2015 - from our bedroom window A winter day, the summer grass turned hay Frost in the field 'til the dawn of May A summer's light never shone as great or as bright So dance in the shadows of a winter's night ~ Halsway Carol - Music by Nigel Eaton, words by Ian Frisk * We've been learning a wonderful new carol at choir and it's great to have one which is about the turning of the year at the time of the winter solstice. I took the above photo to match the words. However, the scene I found at Crewkerne , Somerset on Saturday was quite unexpected - and it looked wrong when I matched the words to it. What a topsy turvy December we're having. Coincidentally,   Halsway Manor is also found in Somerset and is the only residential folk centre in the UK. If you thought the solstice was the 21st (which I did), this year it's today at 4.49am instead. Apparently the date can vary between 20th and 23rd December, though the 21st is the...

Every family has its own set of Christmas traditions and it's no different for NAH and me. One of our favourites is the Radio Times  (RT) bumper Prize Crossword of 60 or so cryptic clues, which marks the start of our festivities. Puzzles such as this and the RT Trackword are a shared activity we both enjoy. It's a shame they seem to have dropped the Trackword Christmas special; perhaps they've run out of suitable Christmassy phrases for us to puzzle over. Those of you unfamiliar with the Trackword may like to try your hand with this online version I've found whilst writing this post. There's also an App if you're interested. Over the past few years the crossword's become doubly delicious as a few of us get together on Twitter to exchange news on our progress. The first few days are sacrosanct: everyone is on their own to solve as many clues as possible, then little tidbits of help are offered in exchange for help elsewhere. It's only an extra hi...