Veg Plotting

  It's Apple Day, one of my favourite days of the year and what better way to celebrate than to tell you about my recent trip to Longney, where Gloucestershire Orchard Trust have 18 acres of apple orchard under their tender care. Here you'll find older orchards with some trees well over a century old, plus their newer plantings of around 94 Gloucestershire cultivars which have just acquired national plant collection status at Plant Heritage . The jury's out on the actual number as DNA testing has revealed at least one locally named variety is actually a more well known one: Ribston Pippin in this case. Don't worry, there are dozens there which definitely have their origins rooted firmly in Gloucestershire and their cultivation at Longney is vital to their continued presence and preservation. There were around 200 local varieties at one time and today it's around 100 still in existence. Steve Mason - the Trust's Curator - was our knowledgeable guide who invited ...

I'm exhibiting my first ever quince for all the world to see 💛 I've had the tree for years and I've monitored it carefully previously for any signs of flowers or fruit; then I threatened its days in my garden as numbered many times when none appeared; so of course the year when I've ignored it completely is the time when it presents me with one solitary fruit. Naturally, it is truly a prince amongst all quince. I made the discovery when harvesting the figs, which have gone bonkers this year and screened off the quince tree from the rest of the garden. Perhaps that's the secret to success? At first I had quite a time deciding whether it was ripe, but that initial lime green I saw has now morphed into a wonderful warm yellow and a fruity fuzziness that tells me it's time. Now what shall I make with it? 🤔 Your ideas are welcome... You may also like: I've just fished out the link to my recipe for poached quince , which in turn links to my recipe for quince tar...

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...

I've been thinking about trees a lot lately: partly because it's National Tree Week currently, but mainly because they've featured prominently on my walks over the past few weeks. It's been a spectacular autumn and even now there are still a few leaves left providing a last shot of colour to brighten the first few days of winter. When they're gone, their structural forms will still be there, quietly doing their thing and helping to lift my mood. There is much to be grateful for in their sturdy presence. I've said before we're blessed with whoever selected the trees for our estate and I was pleased to find Chippenham now has its own Mr Treeman again. He's new to the job as the town council has only recently taken over the management of our open spaces from the county council and NAH found him surveying the trees by us earlier this week.  I hope he approves of the choice trees we have alongside the usual suspects. I made my own discovery a couple of mont...

There's hardly a day that goes by when I marvel at the strangeness of blogging and social media. It's attracted a lot of attention recently for its downsides, but today I'd like to celebrate its positive side. When I tentatively set foot online with my blog in 2007, I never thought it would give me all kinds of opportunities; best of all are all the new friends I've made here in the UK and all over the world, all connected by a love of nature and gardening. One of the earliest of these was Lucy, who has a wonderfully different way of looking at the world and generously shares it via her blogs and photos . I had the good fortune to visit her and her family a couple of times when they lived in Weymouth, but now they are much further away in Halifax. Those of you who read or create Tree Following posts may not know that it was Lucy who created this meme, which has helped many of us slow down and view one object over time and in finer detail; something she does ...

It's late summer and three months since my last update on the ash tree I'm following. As you can see, May's Green Shoots of Recovery have grown both in length and profusion. Nine months on from November's Drama , it's clear my tree has indeed survived and grows stronger by the day. The form of its recovery is intriguing. My tree stands in the small clearing which marks the extent of its former canopy and as a result is lit pretty evenly all round. Yet all of the new shoots are coming out of just one side, which is the location of one of the two 'prongs' the tree surgeons left last November (see right). Could it be only one part of the tree survived? What role (if any) does the ivy we can see curling around the other 'prong' play in the tree's regeneration? A closer inspection is required... Visit Loose and Leafy to see what the other Tree Followers found this month.

You may remember my previous Tree Following post last December was rather dramatic as most of the ash tree on the public land next door was removed by tree surgeons. It left us with the view of a tall stump from our bedroom window and a shady-no-more side border in the garden to have a think about. In that post I wondered if the stump would resprout as the tree surgeon said it would and I'm delighted to report he was right. Our spring stirrings have included the pictured three green shoots of recovery. I nearly posted last month that I thought it would happen. You may remember I showed you a 'stealth seedling' which had crept up unnoticed at VP Gardens until I spotted it last  June . I couldn't chop it down completely as by then there were too many other plants in the way, then in late March I spotted the remaining stump was beginning to sprout. However, I didn't post about it last month as when I came to take the photograph of a tiny twig against a bri...

With a dramatic start and a stately tree in the middle, who could have foretold 2014's dramatic ending?  Who said trees are boring? When I started Lucy's meme last year, I did wonder how I could say something different about my ash tree every month. However, seasonal changes, plus dramatic bookends to 2014's posts, meant my anticipated struggle never materialised. Mr and Mrs pigeon have moved to another tree along the hedgerow at the side of the house to continue their canoodling and my tree's stump currently forms the favoured spot for a song thrush to sing the day's darkness. It's a pleasure to hear its bubbling calls and whistles ringing out at the end of the day. Thanks to those of you who commented last month with some reassurance the stump will most probably regenerate. Until that happens or the rot visibly sets in, I'll be calling time on my tree following posts. I feel I've invested too much in this particular tree to follow another one f...

This month's Tree Following post is completely different to the one I'd planned. I was going to explore the myths and folklore associated with my ash tree. The above picture contains a couple of clues to show why I abandoned my research. Can you spot the taped off area and the ladder propped against my tree? The slideshow below shows you what happened next... On November 17th my ash tree had visitors! After the tree's unexpected visit to VP Gardens last December, the local council decided the remainder of the tree was a potential safety hazard and commissioned a local firm of tree surgeons to give it a bit of a drastic trim. The slideshow gives you a flavour of what happened. I apologise for the quality of some of the pictures, but it was a typical drizzly November's day. NAH and I hung out of our bedroom window watching what went on - judging by the tree surgeon's remarks, the trunk was quite slippery, so he was quite glad to be using crampons as we...

Not quite green beginning to turn yellow, 21st October 2014 As I anticipated last month , Lucy's Tree Following project has allowed me to see how Autumn affects my ash tree in some detail. This tree species is usually one of the later ones to turn around here and 2014 is no exception. Initially they spend some time deciding what to do and look more not quite green than properly autumnal. My tree looked like that from the beginning of October, and then on the 18th, the change began properly. Just one single branch - the lowest one - started showing distinct signs of yellow. At peak yellow on October 25th, but already there's a hint of brown Then in what seemed a flash, the rest of the tree followed suit. It was at this point I tried to film what I call the 'the quiet rain' I remember from previous years. There is a point when the ash's leaves rain down silently on the garden, each twig quietly and suddenly letting go of its golden load. Alas it was ...

This month we're playing the waiting game. September's warmth means my ash tree is still clinging determinedly onto its leaves, though plenty of other trees started to shed theirs ages ago. Autumn's come early. It's not the mellow season of poetry, but instead there's a darker crispness of leaves frazzled by the heat of summer and the record dryness of September. My ash tree's roots must run deep as it's looking relatively untroubled so far. With the advent of October the weather's turned. The jet stream swung back over Britain from its summer station to the north, bringing lashings of rain over the weekend. It's left behind the autumnal coolness we expect at this time of the year. I hope it's enough to let the drooping, dusty trees on our estate present a proper display of autumn colour and for my ash tree to join them in a last hurrah before it stands naked for the winter. In previous years I've noted it's hard to pinpoint ex...

This month my ash tree forms the backdrop to the plant activity happening below it. As in other years, the plants growing against the garden fence have stretched themselves upwards to meet the lower branches of the tree. These are the ones NAH is so sure he wants to get rid of . The thin, diagonal 'branches' you can see in the foreground are from my Rosa 'Rambling Rector' . This rose certainly lives up to its name and makes regular bids for freedom beyond my garden. I often have to untangle it from the ash tree at this time of the year. The main plant you can see is Clematis 'Kermesina' , a more delicate looking clematis of the viticella type. Don't be fooled, those stems are quite wiry and just like the rose it strives upwards in its bid to bend other, more sturdy plants to its will. This clematis always surprises me as it's usually hidden amongst the rose, then it pops out into the open in the autumn. I love its rich red blooms, especially wh...

Just a quick post for now as I haven't had time to do the project I'd planned for my tree following this month. I was going to lay a white sheet on the ground and shake the branches that stretch over our garden to identify some of the smaller critters which inhabit my tree, but I ran out of time :( Those branches are a constant source of irritation to NAH, who doesn't like them bending further over the garden under the weight of their now fully grown leaves. He's convinced they'll crash through our fence and onto the garden one day, just like what happened last December. I then remind him that those branches help to keep our privacy. It's a circular conversation we have at least once a month. NAH also says he needs to be renamed as 'The Drastic Gardener' for the purposes of this blog as he tends to act on his irritations without consulting me just before he gets started. So we have another circular argument on how his help is welcome, but cou...

If the embedded video doesn't work, try this link instead. The ash tree is fully clothed now, so I thought a short video would make a nice change from the usual still photo taken from our bedroom window. There's no visual sign of Mr and Mrs pigeon this month, though at least one of them can be heard. Sue Garrett from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments neatly anticipated today's post last month when she commented: Do you get lots of debris from the ash and lots of self sown tree seedlings? My sister's garden is plagued with one that overhangs her garden. I think this photo answers Sue's question! I'm forever finding seedlings from the ash tree plus its neighbouring birch and maples. As you can see, some of them still manage to get through and make a substantial seedling before I spot them.  As for debris, yes we do get quite a lot of small branches and twigs dropping off the ash tree. It does seem to be one of those trees which tends to lose ...

As anticipated in last month's Tree Following post , the scene for May looks very different. As you can see, my ash tree has sprouted plenty of fresh, zingy new leaves. These appeared on April 9th, well ahead of the oak up at the allotment whose buds finally decided to break on April 27th*. Have you noticed when you start watching something closely, how lots more questions form in your mind? In this instance I'm intrigued how the ash I'm watching from my back bedroom window is much further advanced than the ash tree neighbouring our front garden. The trees are only a few yards from each other and in similar situations, so why has one so much more leaf cover than the other? I shall be watching both trees from now on for clues as to why it might be... This might be the last time we get to see Mr and Mrs Pigeon canoodling on the branches (click to enlarge the picture if needed) as the leaf cover is beginning to hide them from our sight. No doubt I'll still be abl...

My photo is a little out of synch with Lucy's Tree Following day as I take mine on the 23rd of the month, the day anniversary of when the rest of the tree came crashing down in our garden last December. However, I went out in the rain to inspect my ash tree yesterday and can confirm nothing's changed in the intervening time. Whether the same can be said for April/May remains to be seen. This time Mr and Mrs pigeon have indeed paired up for the season as I thought they might last month . It's unusual to see them acting as kind of bookends on the tree as they're usually much closer. We've observed pigeon pairs being quite devoted to each other and these two are proving to be no different. The tree's also been host to some rare visitors to our garden since last month. We don't usually see bullfinches ,* but we've had four of them parading around the garden lately - one proud and very fat male plus 3 females. I've tried to find out if bullfinch ma...

I've decided to join Lucy this month for her Tree Following project. This isn't a new-to-me-meme, but I confess I hadn't taken the time previously to think about a particular tree I'd like to get to know better. However, that all changed on December 23rd 2013, when one of the neighbouring ash trees crashed into VP Gardens , narrowly missing our house. Since then, I've been taking a picture of the remaining parts of the tree on the 23rd of each month, to see how it changes over the year. An Unexpected Visitor - 'the tree which came for Christmas' Here's the tree in much happier times... If the embedded video above doesn't work, try this link instead. The picture quality isn't that great, but I wanted to capture the tree's sound as well as an impression of it ahead of any potential demise due to ash dieback . How ironic! Here's the tree as it looked on February 23rd from our bedroom window. This was after its tr...