Guest Posts


I don't reserve all of my best content for Veg Plotting, some of it's found in my guest posts elsewhere. It's great to have the challenge to write something suitable that's different to my usual style.

I've written guest posts for...

Publishers, companies and organisations

  • Battlesbridge Mills Garden Centre
  • BBC Gardening Blog
  • Gabriel Ash
  • Garden ER (TV programme)
  • Garlic and Sapphire (Sarah Raven's company blog)
  • Heritage Open Days Blog
  • Reader's Digest
  • The Garden Furniture Centre
  • The Guardian Gardening Blog


Other Blogs

  • Emma Cooper's Gardening Blog
  • Encounters With Remarkable Biscuits
  • Fennel and Fern
  • The Garden Monkey's Book Flange
  • The Sea of Immeasurable Gravy
  • thinkinGardens
  • UK Veg Gardeners
  • We Love This Book
  • Work From Home Wisdom (answers to interview questions)

A full list of links to my guest posts are listed below. If you’d like me to write one for you or to commission an article, drop me an email at vegplotting at gmail dot com with an outline of what you have in mind.

Note: I don't publish guest posts on Veg Plotting, unless we've got to know each other well through chatting away via our blogs, or other social media.





BBC Gardening Blog 


Colour Theory in Gardening Design - 20th March 2011

Encounters With Remarkable Biscuits 


A Little Conundrum - 6th December 2010
A Halloween Special - 31st October 2010
A Pome - 18th October 2010
And Now the News... - 11th October 2010
Stop Press**Stop Press**Stop Press** - 24th August 2010
The Dunksafe - 15th April 2010
Easter Bunnies (and Biscuits) - 5th April 2010
The Worcester Dunker - 18th March 2010
Dog Biscuit - 11th March 2010
A Biscuit Haiku - 4th March 2010
Cosy Biscuit - 22nd February 2010
Valentine's Day - 14th February 2010
Singing in the Biscuit Tin - 28th January 2010
Double Dutch - 21st January 2010
Chocolate Spice Cookies - 12th December 2009
Missed Opportunity - 28th November 2009
Woooooooooo! - 31st October 2009
Biscuits of the Rich and Famous Pt 1 - 31st October 2009
A Bit on the Side - 21st October 2009

Gabriel Ash


See my Author Page for the full set of posts I've written for Gabriel Ash.

Garlic and Sapphire


Get growing your own salad leaves - 2nd April 2013

Heritage Open Days


Garden Visit: Poppleton Community Railway Nursery - 27th September 2012

Reader's Digest


 See my Author page on the Reader's Digest site for all the articles I've written for them.

The Garden Furniture Centre 


Bringing the Harvest Home - 5th September 2011
Get Out and About This Autumn - 9th October 2011
Autumn Gardening Jobs - 4th November 2011
Christmas Decorations to Make - 6th December 2011

The Garden Monkey’s Book Flange


Hedge Man - 3rd January 2011
Guest Blogger Goes Bookaging – 23rd July 2009
Hybrid Vigour – 25th November 2008
VP’s Writing SP – 8th November 2008
Book Review: Gardeners’ World Top Tips – 1st November 2008
I’m the Firestarter – 29th June 2008
Soupcon Sir? – 8th June 2008
Deeply Dippy – 5th June 2008

The Guardian Gardening Blog


Pilgrim's Progress: Two French Gardens with Religious Roots - 22nd June 2017
The Kingdom of Plants 3D - 25th May 2012
My Malvern Show - 13th May 2011
Best Autumn Gardens - 15th October 2010
Spuds you'll like (about potato days) - 20th January 2010
All is not well in the gardens of our dreams - 25th August 2009
Got a glut? Try mangetout and mint soup – 14th July 2009
How to spot the arrival of summer – 1st June 2009
Hot composting: trying out the green Johanna compost bin – 5th May 2009
Gardeners’ World: the verdict – 6th April 2009 (with several other garden bloggers)

The Sea of Immeasurable Gravy


Separated at Birth? – 19th July 2009

ThinkinGardens


Review of Parks, Plants and People by Lynden B Miller - 1st March 2010
Review of The Well-connected Gardener by Sue Minter - 27th December 2010

UK Veg Gardeners (NB need an account to view this content)

Work From Home Wisdom



How to Lose Weight When You Work From Home - 6th November 2012


The ones that got away - no longer available online 


Writing samples available on request - contact vegplotting at gmail dot com.
  • Battlesbridge Mills Garden Centre - Herbs in My Garden - 18th March 2015
  • Emma Cooper's blog - Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner - Your Help is Needed 
  • Fennel and Fern - Like a Child in a Sweet Shop - 25th March 2011
  • Fennel and Fern - Victoriana's End of Season Review - 13th September 2011
  • Garden ER - My Summer Fruit: Allotment ER Needed! - 26th August 2011
  • We Love This book - Writing Great Web Content (review of workshop at Cheltenham Literature Festival) - 12th October 2011

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Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

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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
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Jack Go To Bed At Noon

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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
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Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

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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
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Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

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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
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VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

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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
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#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

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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
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The Resilient Garden

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  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
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Testing Times: Tomatoes

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  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
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Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

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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,
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Make Use of Mildew

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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
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