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Snapping Your Garden

By Helen Wand.

Snapping is even more important for the veg garden. As like most mortals you probably don't always get around to making the detailed plan of what you planted where. For the uninitiated amongst you, I'll explain the reason why you need to make a plan in the first place. A plan is really essential in practising a proper crop rotation especially for such crops as Potatoes and Onions. They become very prone to pests and diseases if they get planted in the same spot year after year. Unless you're prepared to lash loads of chemicals about, which won't add much to your health and well being. Now to return to the photography.

Whilst you can sometimes get good results with one of those cheap disposable cameras, the trouble is that you can't vary the speed of the film. So if the weather doesn't just happen to be just right, then in my experience the results can be a disappointment. So it's a good idea to start with a good camera such as a... Canon, and a tripod, is really handy as well. Most of us have much shakier hands than we realise. If you don't fancy shelling out and buying yourself a tripod, you can probably hire one from your local camera shop.

• Take your pics in the late afternoon or the early morning, as the midday light's too harsh, and the colour'll get "washed out".
• Try to pick a day that's not too windy, or you'll just get a mass of blurred plant matter! Not what we're looking for!
• Good quality film such as Kodak or Agfa is a good idea, and use a slow speed, such as 50ASA. For nice sharp images.
• Tidy up around the "subject", removing labels, dead heads, bugs etc!

You may also find it tempting to get all techy and buy loads of filters and gadgets. It'll only make life more complicated and mean you'll need a native bearer to carry it all! So do like the professionals do, just get yourself a decent camera, a tripod, the right film and away you go!

Happy snapping,

The Organic Veg Doc