Veg Plotting

It's still early days as far as my echalote grise allotment experiment is concerned, but already there's a noticeable difference between my shop bought and seed varieties. The ones on the left of the photo are the sets I bought. Their growth is much more spidery in appearance and it looks like they're shaping up to give me lots of new shallots. To the right are the shop bought ones and their growth is much more onion-like. I suspect I'll be getting fewer shallots per bulb. Whether they're also much larger remains to be seen. The picture shows another allotment experiment I'm trying this year. Despite the plentiful rain we had last month and for most of this one, the recent dry weather has taken the allotment back into really parched mode. So I'm trying out mulching around my crops with grass clippings to retain as much moisture as I can. I saw this being used a lot at Glendale , a fantastic garden I visited on Vancouver Island last year and as they...

Before meeting Sir David Attenborough: Kew's Herbarium was our HQ for the day. Here we're being shown how specimens are collected in the wild A few weeks ago I received an email out of the blue inviting me to Kew to meet Sir David Attenborough and to preview his new series Kingdom of Plants 3D , which starts tonight on Sky 3D (with a simulcast on Sky Atlantic HD). I sat there for 10 minutes emitting feeble cries of Wow! , until NAH asked me what on earth was the matter. Naturally he thought I was joking until I showed him the email. After all, the chance to meet a childhood hero, someone who's shaped the key choices I've made in my life doesn't happen everyday. The result of my day at Kew was published yesterday over on the Guardian Gardening Blog (welcome if you've come over from there), but of course I have a lot more to tell you about the day itself. One of the plants featured in the programme. Darwin predicted the orchid was pollinated by a ...

My final post about this year's Chelsea Flower Show - and suitably for this month's Salad Days - is to bring you this picture of salad looking at its very best - if you ignore the QR code! There was quite a bit of salad on view, if you looked carefully enough. Sadly the living wall of nasturtiums didn't make it onto Tom Hoblyn's garden for Arthritis Research UK . I'd been looking forward to telling you about seeing them just after their germination last November and how Jekka McVicar had had to chop them back and eat them several times so they'd be just right for the show! However, having seen the garden on Monday, I can see how they wouldn't have fitted in with the rest of the planting. So I had to hunt around a little for an alternative salad fix. The  Crocus Kitchen Garden Blog  has featured most of the prime spots from the Great Pavilion already so I'm not proposing to repeat them here, even though I was blown away by Jersey Farmer Union...

In my previous visits to Chelsea, I've always been a little disappointed in the small number of exhibits which have a connection to Wiltshire. Not so this year :) And what could be better than Best in Show ? I loved Cleve West's show garden for Brewin Dolphin, a Wiltshire based company who are celebrating their 250th birthday this year. When I first saw the design, my first reaction was the gates reminded me of peering through those at Avebury Manor . Cleve told me they hadn't formed part of his inspiration, but I like to think serendipity played a hand in his choice. I'm delighted the sponsors will be donating the beech hedges and some of the stonework to Cleve's current commission, Horatio's Garden  for the Southern Spinal Injuries Trust in Salisbury. More on this garden to come. I found quite a lot of Wiltshire gold in the Great Pavilion. The best story is the pictured Bentley Ferns . The exhibitor, John Wilson, only had 2 weeks notice...

Things are happening thick and fast at VP Gardens at the moment, but I couldn't let this morning's momentous visit by the Olympic Torch Relay team pass this blog by. Here's the first of the runners going through Chippenham at just after 10 am. NAH and I had a short walk to find our spot in front of the town's football ground. Whilst we were waiting every cyclist passing by was treated to a massive cheer from the crowd, as were the many vans taking police officers to their assigned places. Then we had a cavalcade of police motorcycles with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring, plus various sponsors lorries and the coach taking the torch bearers to their designated spots. I don't think I've ever felt so emotional about a complete stranger running by. The Olympics were  here :) Update: There's quite a few films of the torch relay in Chippenham posted up on YouTube now. Here's just one of them  plus another which was taken just a few yards d...

The absolute highlight of my time at Chelsea this year was meeting Ringo Starr. The combination of my favourite Beatle opening this Artisan garden for my favourite charity - WaterAid - was irresistible :D I have Victoria to thank for this moment. Not only did she cover this story for the Indy , she made sure I got introduced too. So I had the opportunity to shake him by the hand and have a chat about Sing for Water and my Open Garden . Ringo and his wife, Barbara Bach weren't token celebrities as far as this garden and WaterAid are concerned. They are passionate supporters. Victoria asked why. It's simple , was Ringo's reply, one of these pumps changes people's lives. Clean water is a basic right and WaterAid can give it to them. What could be better than that?  So my Chelsea cup of happiness runneth over - especially when I bumped into them again later and they remembered me (with no prompting) and said hello.

... but I did them anyway :D I got a view of the showground from on high (AND unlike lots of others I didn't queue - a benefit of getting there early to see Roy Lancaster on the Plant Heritage's fascinating Veitch exhibit beforehand)... ... before whizzing down on a gert big slide. A bit of a scream on the way down (when I sped up), followed by lots of giggling at the end :D If you can remember the scenes from Dr No when James Bond has to slide down lots of slippery pipes to escape from the cell where he's being kept prisoner, then I can tell you it was like that, but without the background danger. I had to tell lots of people where I'd got my lovely buttonhole from (thanks to Georgie and the power of Twitter!) because they were pretty envious - apologies for the naff photo, but it was a bit of a positioning guess when I took it. I also had to avoid all the candy floss I'd got on my fleece - another surprise find (the candy floss, not getting it ...

Apparently British Tomato Week starts today. So here are a couple of mine out frolicing in the garden in celebration ;) Sadly the dedicated tomato website to this event doesn't seem to have much on offer. We have until 27th May to think of our own celebration. Shall we go Tomatina style or Totally Tomato ? Which tomato varieties are you growing this year? And your favourite?

I'm off to Chelsea Flower Show for a couple of days, so I thought I'd leave you with this teaser of a picture of David Attenborough at Kew when he met himself constructed from plants by 3 times Chelsea gold medallist, Joe Massie . As well as tales of Chelsea, I have another to come about the great man himself :) NB Picture courtesy and copyright of Sky 3D.