Veg Plotting

Bluebells in yesterday's sunshine, Westonbirt Arboretum (click to enlarge if needed) Every week on my Weather ABC I've asked the question How's the weather with you today ? So I see no reason why I shouldn't ask you again now we've reached the letter Q ;) Here it's sunny, but rather cold for the time of the year. Showers are forecast for later, so I'm expecting NAH and I will have to dodge those when we go on our trip to Cirencester by popping into a convenient cafe for a cuppa and a slice of squishy cake :) There's no need to Q ueue if you hop along to the ABC Wednesday blog for more Q uintessential delights...

I'm finding it extremely hard to blog right now: I have simply too much information, so many images in my head and lots of emotions about the whole weekend at Malvern to put it into words, except that it was totally wonderful, with days filled with laughter, hugs and friendship. It was also much nicer to be part of the show instead of being just a visitor. However, I did promise Shirl some tulips from there for her Photo Fest . If you click to enlarge the picture, you'll see why these (courtesy of Avon Bulbs , who were awarded a gold medal) are just perfect for her. More postcards to follow over at the Meet at Malvern blog and luckily my fellow bloggers are being far more articulate than I am, so will be able to fill you in on the details.

My allotment - end of April 2010 My allotment - End April 2008 I had a bit of a surprise last week - can you spot what's missing?

No matter what I think about our choice of political parties, today it's really important I exercise my right to vote. People have died so that I may, so it's my way of saying thank you to them. For once it's an exciting time for me personally to be voting. I'm in a new constituency (one of just four in England) and for the first time ever in my voting life the result isn't cut and dried because today, Chippenham is considered to be a marginal seat. Since we moved here 22 years ago, our polling station hasn't been a conventional one. For most people it'll be at a local school or hall. When we lived on the other side of town there was nothing like that close by, so we voted in someone's house. It was really weird to get your voting papers in the kitchen and then move into the lounge where the voting booths stood amidst the sofa and squashy chairs. It was the same when we moved here 11 years ago. At first we voted at the back of the local supermarket, amon...

I'm really pleased I bought this simple rain gauge last year so I can measure the precipitation (rain, snow, hail and sleet) which falls on my garden. It was just over a year ago when I bought it, so I'm now getting into comparison territory. Last month I recorded 34.25 mm (about 1.3 inches) which is well below the average for April: about 60% of the average according to last night's local weather forecast. No wonder the ground's been looking so parched. I'm hoping that the gauge remains empty over the next few days as I'm off to Meet at Malvern tomorrow to have a splendid time with lots of garden blogging buddies :) Precipitation-wise, I'm not feeling optimistic that'll happen though... :( How's the weather with you today? P op on over to the ABC Wednesday blog for more P leasing P osts...

I seem to have a real problem with the Allium family at harvest time: I'm constantly coming across the odd onion I've missed when it comes to autumn digging. This time I've surpassed myself with last year's garlic. I harvested it rather late and consequently had some difficulty in locating the bulbs as their papery leaves were withering away. I was rather tardy with much of my autumn digging too i.e. a lot of it didn't get done. So last week when I came to clear the plot for some of this year's crops, I found not the odd onion but sixteen of last year's garlic bulbs were waving healthy green bunches of leaves at me. They're never going to grow to form fat garlic bulbs as the cloves are too close together, but green garlic is a rather trendy vegetable to have to hand, so I was rather pleased to harvest this little lot. Green garlic tastes milder and less bitter than its late summer dried counterpart. It's a cross between garlic and leek to my ...

Chippenham High Street is due to be transformed soon with the addition of 10 trees. If you peer closely you might just about be able to see what public planting we have at the moment on the centre right of the picture (click to enlarge if needed), so the addition of these trees to our streetscape is to be welcomed. The Town Council has been working with the charity Trees for Cities on the project, who've also been advising on what might be suitable. We're getting Silver birch ( Betula pendula ) which will be planted in very large containers. There's too many services underground which might be damaged by the roots if they were planted directly in the ground. This will mean that the trees won't reach their maximum height and will require additional watering, though the council assures me it won't add too much to the amount they already do. Silver birch is a native tree which is common locally. It also plays host to the second widest variety of invertebrates and...

Thanks for visiting after reading this weekend's 50 Best Gardens which I hope will inspire you to visit a number of them this year. I love garden visiting and you'll find more ideas here together with some useful links to help plan your visits. You may also like to visit my garden from the comfort of your armchair: I put together a tour right here on the internet a couple of years ago in the style of a NGS visit, which raised over £1,000 for WaterAid . Veg Plotting isn't just about garden visiting or vegetables: it's about the thoughts which occur to me whilst up at my plot. So it's more of an eclectic mix of gardening, vegetable growing, life here in Chippenham and anything else which I find interesting. Why not dive in and explore a bit further? You'll find a new readers section on the right hand sidebar to help get you started, or you can have a look at what's been on my mind this week by just scrolling down this page. If you like wildlife gardening ...

A couple of weeks ago I showed you the changes made recently to key roundabouts on the outskirts of Chippenham designed to welcome everyone to the town. At the time I also ranted about the design of the main planting on the roundabout itself, describing the mixture of trees and shrubs as being 'plonked rather than planted'. Unfortunately this is par for the course for many of our roundabouts and applies to many places, not just Chippenham . However, a mere couple of miles away at the opposite end of the A350 bypass is a roundabout which has the same elements, but to me has the encouraging signs that things can be done a little bit differently and better whilst using the same plant formula. Here we see trees plus shrubs as before, but the choice of plants has been simplified to a single tree species with an underplanting of massed shrubs such as Cornus and Euonymus . The tree is a species found in the local countryside (note to self: must go and identify it) and the shru...

Occluded fronts are part of our low pressure aka cyclonic weather systems and are usually a sign that they've reached maturity in their lifecycle. A front is the (unseen) transition between two masses of air with distinct differences in temperature and with our low pressure systems a cold front follows on behind a warm front . The colder air mass travels more quickly than its warm predecessor and if it catches up with it, then the warm air is forced off the ground and over the colder air. It's at this time that an occluded front is said to have formed. The weather found along these can be quite variable and can be some of the more extreme weather associated with a low pressure system, such as thunderstorms and funnel clouds. Each type of weather front is shown by a different coloured line and associated symbol on a weather map - see the example shown here . The way the symbols are pointing shows the direction of travel of the weather system. Occluded fronts are denoted by a ...