Hi VP, a very happy day of your birth, or belated if it was yesterday! You and Barbie, the cosmos were busy that year creating creatures of wonder and delight. :-) Frances
Happy Birthday! and an anniversary, too! That is why you were whisked away! I hope you had a wonderful time celebrating both these important events! gail
I seem to have perused this list and not actually got round to wishing you happy birthday and congratulations... Doh! As Homer Simpson is wont to say. I know you had a great time away and looking forward to hearing allllllll about it!!! And many many happy returns my dear. xxxxxx
Happy Birthday! Sorry I am a little late in sending wishes. Many congratulations on your anniversary too. We celebrated ourselves last year, although for us, 25 years of unmarried bliss! x
Veg Plotting 's Blooms Day would be incomplete without the occasional foray into Grow Your Own flowers, so I'm pleased to bring you my 'Just Add Cream' strawberry plants for this month's floral focus. This is a relatively new variety from Thompson & Morgan 's own breeding programme, who also provided me with a few plants to try in 2017. Naturally I've given them a tough time by forgetting them entirely deliberately growing them on in the smallest of trays for a year before I finally planted them out. I'm pleased to say they've passed this test with flying colours. I'm growing these at home instead of on the allotment where VP Gardens demands food plants look attractive as well as being productive. Apparently pink flowered strawberries have proved rather bland and unproductive in the past, but this variety is bucking those particular trends. It's an everbearer strawberry which means the crop is spread over many months in the su
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
From my door to your home, I hope this time is as merry and bright as it can be under the current circumstances. This year's wreath is foraged greenery on a straw base with ornaments saved from previous ones. It's bearing up remarkably well after nearly 3 weeks despite no moss or oasis base to keep the foliage moist. New-to-me greenery used in this way are the Clematis 'Winter Beauty' I pulled from the pergola, plus lots of fragrant rosemary from a friend's garden. I spent a lovely morning at my neighbours recently where we all managed to create something beautiful for our front doors in aid of Dorothy House , a cause dear to her heart as they looked after her late husband so well. Enjoy the turning of the year towards the lighter days again and I'll see you in 2022!
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
The New Year is the traditional time to review the time just gone, and I can't think of a better way than by showing you some of my favourite photos from my Instagram account. They're a nice mix of seasonal scenes from local walks; little vignettes courtesy of VP Gardens ; plus a few from our times away in Dorset and Yorkshire. It's good to be reminded of some of the good times after what has been another trying year for us all. May 2022 be a much better one for you and yours x
Firstly, thank you for reading Veg Plotting ! It's good to know you like the blog enough to subscribe. This month the service I use for emails and RSS feeds - Feedburner - is withdrawing the email facility, so I'm in the process of finding an alternative supplier and working through the (invisible to you) technical changes I need to do to keep everything working. Rest assured that the RSS feed - used to supply blog readers such as Feedly - remains unchanged. It's highly likely that the next email you receive will look different and from an email address which may arrive in your spam folder. It will also ask you to resubscribe to the email service. I'll blog again with more information and screenshots once I've worked everything out. In the meantime, comments are open below should you have any questions. Have a great weekend and I hope there's sunshine and good gardening wherever you are in the world.
Sunshine, spring flowers and the Easter bunnies have been. It's a perfect day. A bunch of British daffodils is my weekly treat from January through to now, they are such happy flowers. This year in an unexpected turn of events NAH has made it two bunches! Have a good Easter everyone 😊
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,
In the second year on my allotment, I sowed a freebie packet of mixed nasturtium seeds to draw nasties like blackfly away from my crops. Their cheerful orange and yellow blooms were a most decorative addition, even though they declined to climb up the arch provided but decided to sprawl over my beds instead. And yes, blackfly were drawn to them like a magnet. Since then, I've had tons of nasturtiums blooming away at the bottom of my plot every year. I've tried in vain to keep them under control, but to no avail - even last year's 'Chelsea chop' experiment only dented them for a little while. I don't really mind their presence, after all they are attractive and I've even managed to persuade NAH the leaves and flowers are a great addition to our salads. As he doesn't take too kindly to vegetables at all, I'm surprised he's cheerfully eating flowers, but then their peppery flavour is very similar to the watercress he loves. I've been aware
Happy Birthday!!!
ReplyDeleteDid you know you are the same age as Barbie? So here is your virtual cake served at one of your favourite places
clink
Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary. Two great achievements. I wish you all the best for the next half-century!
ReplyDeleteBest wishes Sylvia
Hi VP, a very happy day of your birth, or belated if it was yesterday! You and Barbie, the cosmos were busy that year creating creatures of wonder and delight. :-)
ReplyDeleteFrances
Happy birthday and anniversary -hope you have had a lovely break to celebrate
ReplyDeleteCongratulations - happy birthday and happy anniversary. Hope you had a wonderful break. What a clever post for H!
ReplyDeletecongrats & much more! hope that there was plenty of happy-cake (to quote an almost 3yrold) to go around!!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday and Happy Anniversary, VP! I hope you and NAH have had a wonderful getaway celebrating these milestones.
ReplyDeleteWishing you a most Happy Anniversary and a Happy Birthday VP. I hope that your special days have been filled with fun and flowers !
ReplyDeleteCongratu-congratu-congratulations! see you tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteHeartfelt happiness on your half century, and also congrats on your wedding anniversary. It warms my heart when couples can stay together so long!!
ReplyDeleteMost hearty congratulations, twice doubled, VP! I'm glad you got whisked, though I missed you while you were gone. Welcome back.
ReplyDelete--Kate
Many, many happy returns to you and congratulations to you both.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations for your 2 happy events! Hope you had a great time away and that the weather was kind to you. Great to have you home though! xxx
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary & Happy Birthday! What a great celebration you must be having.
ReplyDeleteHi VP. Double congratulations.
ReplyDeleteSimon
Happy anniversary and birthday!
ReplyDeleteI hope that you've had an enjoyable, and relaxing, few days away! xx
H for Helena Here! Happy birthday and Happy anniversary!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHow lovely!! Congratulations x
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday VP ...
ReplyDelete... and a late happy anniversary to you and NAH for yesterday. Hope you had a really good holiday.
Love,
Juliet
Hope you had a wonderful birthday and anniversary!
ReplyDeleteMY ABC Wednesday post is at
More of Me - EG
Happy Birthday! and an anniversary, too! That is why you were whisked away! I hope you had a wonderful time celebrating both these important events! gail
ReplyDeleteWhat fun - Happy Birthday! Happy Anniversary! I love parties. :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations. I was in Chippenham yesterday, getting lost trying to find The Causeway. At least I got to Lacock garden centre ok.
ReplyDeleteOooh, a double celebration!! Our birthdays are close to our wedding anniversary too! We had a big combined party on our 25th.
ReplyDeleteHappy anniversary and birthday! :)
Thanks for your good wishes everyone - needless to say we've had a fab time the past few days :D
ReplyDeleteI'm playing catch up at the moment, but will be over to yours for a visit very soon!
Happy 50th...I did that last year and it's awesome.
ReplyDeleteI seem to have perused this list and not actually got round to wishing you happy birthday and congratulations... Doh! As Homer Simpson is wont to say. I know you had a great time away and looking forward to hearing allllllll about it!!! And many many happy returns my dear. xxxxxx
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday! Sorry I am a little late in sending wishes. Many congratulations on your anniversary too. We celebrated ourselves last year, although for us, 25 years of unmarried bliss! x
ReplyDeleteHappy belated Birthday and congratulations as well - what a great week!
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone :)
ReplyDelete