Veg Plotting

It's the final day of this year's National Tree Week today and I want to celebrate the tree which stopped me in my tracks recently. At other times this has been a very big week for me, having organised and helped to plant thousands of trees in south Wales as part of an Earthwatch project in the 1990s. Those days feel like they're part of another life, but it's good to be reminded how important trees still are to me, simply by just being there.  The pictured tree is towards the end of my walk into town and I must have walked past it hundreds of times, but for once I saw it properly for the first time. It was just as the different combinations of colour from green through yellow and orange to red were at their finest which helped to catch my undivided attention. It's not the tallest specimen in the world, but wow, it really helps to soften the brutalist concrete of the shops behind it. Then I looked at the leaves more closely, and realised it's a liquidambar aka...

Happy New Year! It's a gorgeous day here at VP Gardens , so I've been out planting hope in one of the large pots in my front garden. It currently has some deep red Alstromeria , which more than takes care of the summer, but I reckon these daffodil and tulip bulbs are just the thing for spring. You may think these are rather late to plant, but I've checked the bulbs and they're still sound. Fingers crossed for some frosts and they'll still perform magnificently, though probably a couple of weeks later than if I'd planted them last autumn. I've also looked around the garden this morning and there are plenty of signs of other bulbs pushing their noses through the soil. It's always a good time to do this when the nights are at their longest because it all adds to that feeling of hope. Let's face it we all need as much of that as we can get these days. More floral hope can be found by taking part in this year's New Year Plant Hunt , which ends tomorro...

Winter reminded me she's not quite dead when I stepped out this morning to photograph these daffodils. However, it's clear today that spring is beginning to win the battle of the seasons, with winter's snowdrops just beginning to look a little on the tired side and the daffodils definitely looking perky in the stiff breeze, even on a dull day like today. I can't remember A.A. Milne 's poem from childhood, but it must have been there somewhere as I often think of them as 'daffodowndillies' or 'dillies' instead of their real name. Perhaps mum read the poem to me when I crept onto her lap for a story, or maybe she gave me the name from her own childhood memories. Here's to spring and daffodowndillies, wherever you are x

I was surprised to find a snail had hitched a lift with me to Westonbirt on Friday and whilst John Bunyan's musing upon a snail is quite different, these few lines fitted this photo perfectly for Muse Day . Where's the strangest place you've found a snail?

I spent some time this morning looking for a suitable poem about spring or blossom to mark today's World Poetry Day and the first day of spring. For some reason nothing seemed quite right, so I set off on my daily walk to help clear my head and come back refreshed. Little did I know I'd find some quite different inspiration towards the end of my walk. We must have a Dylan Thomas fan amongst our midst, who has hung up various covers of his works along the path by Hardenhuish Brook. A quick look at the pictured work online, and at last I have my poem - albeit nothing to do with spring or blossom - in the form of the extract below. It's the line about seeing the best side of people, not their worst which stands out for me. I readily admit I don't always manage that, but I do strive to see the best in a situation, and that resonates particularly in these strange times... "Every morning when I wake, Dear Lord, a little prayer I make, O please do keep Thy lovely eye On...

  I love how looking for a suitable quotation for a photo and Muse Day can lead on to further investigation... "Bees do have a smell"... do they? Indeed they do, honeybees at least. It's all down to the pheromones they release. According to this article the alarm pheromone which prompts honeybees to attack and sting - sometimes en masse - when threatened is strong enough to be smelt by humans and is similar to bananas. I had to read this quote twice because I'd mentally added 'sense of' before smell. Another quick googling and I've learned their  sense of smell is far better than taste. According to the North Shropshire Beekeepers Association their sense of smell is far greater than dogs and some bees are used to detect landmines. Under normal circumstances this highly tuned sense is needed for pheromone detection and they have smell sensors in their mouths, antennae and the tips of their legs. Back to my photo... I had a wonderful time on Saturday wat...

This photo may not look that enticing but it's deceptive as it shows the start of a marvellous adventure I've had this year. It's the footpath which runs by the side of our house and marks the beginning of nearly all the walks I take locally. When I set myself the goal of walking 1,000 miles in 2020 my heart said yes and my head said no. It's a mind boggling number and even dividing it by 366 didn't make the target seem any easier. Could I really walk 2.73 or so miles every day ? The answer to that question is no, because I didn't walk every day... but on many of them I walked far in excess of my daily walk allowance. It took my head nearly three months to acknowledge that it might, just might be possible. Then in March NAH had his heart attack and Lockdown happened and amongst all the angst and sleepless nights walking kept me going. The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other helped calm my whirling mind. I deliberately parked my car in Bristol fa...

I've made no secret of my love of apples and it gladdens my heart to see it's the best year ever for my crop here at VP Gardens . Despite giving up my ten trees up at the allotment, two out of the three I have here have outdone themselves this year. Blossom time coincided with April's warm weather and the sound of happy bees droning through the flowers led to pretty much 100% pollination. Even with the drastic June Drop I showed you during the dry months of early summer, the branches of my 'Herefordshire Russet' and 'Red Windsor' are groaning downwards with fruit. I've been harvesting them since late August and we still have hundreds of apples to go. Freezer space has been cleared so I can load it up with chopped, cooked apples to go with my winter porridge. This takes care of the damaged fruit and soon I'll wrap the perfect specimens for storage. Of all the crops in my garden, apples are proving to be well worth their space in terms of both beaut...

I couldn't resist another visit to the sunflower field at Kellaways after my recent Weekend Wandering   there. The first four lines of William Blake's poem are the perfect sentiment to accompany our return and you can read the full poem here .

I viewed this calendar picture throughout March whenever I was in the downstairs loo. It struck me as somehow appropriate for the times we're currently living in, though the dreams aren't exactly wonderful and the actual season we'll wake up in probably won't be spring. If only we could hibernate! I hope everyone stays safe and well in the weeks to come.

Words of wisdom from an 19th Century Poet, and that's where I plan to be today 😊 Have a great weekend everyone!

Today is National Poetry Day and this year's theme is 'Truth'. I've chosen Rudyard Kipling's poem at the end of the Elephant's Child because its guidance helped me through most of my career. When I worked in IT I'd often write What, Where, When, How, Why and Who at the top of my notebook when I went off to meetings, especially at the start of a project. I was even given a nickname -  Mrs Why  - by my colleagues! Before then I must have had them in my subconscious as a scientist, and I've since realised these simple words are at the heart of my blogging too. Now they're worth bearing in mind when reading and watching anything on the internet 😉 I took the photo at the top of this post earlier in the year; staring out of our bedroom window to the birch tree at the bottom of our garden is where you'll often find me pondering... or day dreaming. There's a display of poetry in Chippenham's shop windows today. I'll take a stro...

Thanks dear Dee for posting this quote on Facebook this week. It sums up succinctly my recent thinking about this time of the year, also hinted at in my Blooms Day post last Sunday. I feel like I'm in an odd, twixt time; the meteorological calendar says it's autumn - since September 1st - yet  the horticultural calendar doesn't say so until the weekend. The current spell of warm, sunny weather is more summer-like too. I love the light in the garden at this time of the year. It has a softer, more translucent quality which makes the garden sing at any time of day. My chosen photo of the Monk's Garden at Avebury Manor echoes my feelings well. It looks like summer there, yet the chosen colours for this part of the garden are more autumnal in their hues. It turns out that the Manor's gardens are in a twixt phase too. Box blight has devastated the garden and much of the formal lines are in the process of being stripped out in the hope that the larger topiary it...

We've had a friend from Oz staying for a few days and whilst she's from the UK originally, she hasn't seen much of the wonders of our canal system. Therefore we deemed it necessary to take her to see the  Caen Hill flight straight away. Besides, there's a jolly cafe towards the top where we could watch the narrowboats as they lock through the flight. After lunch we walked along the canal to Devizes Wharf, speculating as we went on which of the moored boats are hired and those used for living. Which category do you think the photographed one belongs to? Whichever it is, I like the owner's philosophic musing together with the natty plant that echoes the paintwork. On the way back we had the delight of following a majestic heron along the canal and the photo below shows our first sighting. All in all, we had a wonderful afternoon together just wandering and not being lost. It's a philosophy I'd like to subscribe to more often.

O the pleasure with trees! The orchard—the forest—the oak, cedar, pine, pekan-tree, The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and magnolia. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) from Poem of Joys  - in: Leaves of Grass The magnolias are magnificent this year, helped by the unseasonably warm weather of the past few weeks, plus the lack of frost. Views like this one of my neighbour's tree reaching peak magnolia, and those at Westonbirt Arboretum last week (like the one below) make my heart sing. The pleasure with trees indeed.

A poem by moi, for once; I must show it to my Creative Writing group. This is what happens when you're trying desperately not to quote that poem for Muse Day 😉

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. ~ Robert Frost in Fire and Ice Frost went on to say he favoured fire. I wonder what he'd make of today's frosted VP Gardens and the reports of the polar vortex with numbing low temperatures in the USA? We have snow forecast for later on today. Stay warm everyone.

A philosophy for life and a poem to mark the New Year. You can read the full poem here (note especially the last line). The scene is part of Jephson Gardens in Leamington Spa, taken on NAH's 65th birthday last September. May 2019 be filled with dreams and wonders for you and yours 😊

NAH's Great Uncle - remembered especially today, one century on. Verchain is a tiny cemetery of just 110 men - Harry Taylor is at rest at E2 He was one of 15 men from the regiment killed whilst road clearing during the Battle of Valenciennes , one of the last fought in WW1 In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. Lt. Col John Alexander McRae (1872-1918) WWI Centenary Commemoration at Fleetwood, October 2018

Brent geese take flight at sunset at Keyhaven nature reserve, Hampshire, late November 2017. "Do something today your future self will thank you for" ~ Unknown. This is a great quote for New Year's Day and the ultimate resolution! Looking at the last few Muse Days I've posted, it's obvious I'm ripe for trying out new things, just like I was when I started this blog. I've signed up to try walking netball and Rock Choir already, and I'm looking forward to the Try Something New event at the Neeld Hall soon. I wonder if this is the year I finally pluck up my courage and go to the Chippenham Ukuleles sessions ('scuse pun). Garden and travelwise, I'm looking forward to a trip to Ashwood Nurseries in February and the Garden Bloggers Fling in Texas in May. It'll be interesting to see gardens from a totally different climate to mine, as well as experiencing what Texas has to offer, Austin in particular. I'm going to try growin...