Jumping in Muddy Puddles

There are some days when no matter how hard I try, I acheive absolutely nothing. While on others I get so much done I wonder if someone has stretched the hours to last a bit longer. We had one of the latter days today and I feel very chuffed with myself. With the help of Garden Girl and Garden Boy, I managed to change and wash the bedding, sweep the floors, remove all weeds and unwanted bugs from the greenhouse, clean the entire greenhouse on the inside, jump in a big muddy puddle, clean up two very muddy children, bake cakes for the playgroup bake sale, fill the dishwasher and clean the children's wellies. And somewhere, in the middle of all that, I drove our Little Garden Helpers to the swimming pool so they could swim with Garden Dad in his lunch hour.

The biggest acheivement for me however, was not the amount of things we got done, but the fact that, having discovered the huge quantity of spiders, snails, baby slugs, centipedes, earwigs, peabugs and unidentified insects squatting in our greenhouse, I actually did manage to clean it. It must have been the amount of fun our Little Garden Helpers were having that distracted me enough not to run away, batting my head with flailing arms, every time a drip of water landed on my head.

I feel certain that would have been my behaviour had they not been there. The fear that something crawly or wriggly might land on my head, or fall down my neck, was alleviated by the intense scrutiny Garden Boy was giving each and every insect he found. The total delight he had on his face when he shouted 'Look' and pointed to an insect, just could not be ignored. For the first time, I really watched some of these creatures going about their business, instead of flicking them away as quickly as possible and somehow it made them a little bit more bearable to be around. I managed not to jump away when, with each weed, I disturbed yet another family of insects. (The baby slugs did get a knock on the head with a stone though and the snails were all removed after being admired.)

And by the time we came to washing the windows, we were having too much fun getting wet to worry about the drips not being drips. The 'greenhouse clean' ended with Garden Girl scooping up a lot of soil into the bucket of water, sloshing it about and then tipping it up to create a muddy puddle Peppa Pig would give her tail to jump in. The most mundane of garden tasks was turned into a fun, giggle-filled morning and once again I am grateful for the huge rewards I get back from my children.

Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

The old rhyme that distinguishes girls and boys seems to bear some truth in our household. Yesterday when we were weeding the herb bed I observed in Garden Boy a very different approach to gardening than that of his sister. Garden Girl concentrates on her task with a furrowed brow. She listens carefully as we explain to her the processes of sowing, planting and growing and asks relevant questions which reveal how much she is trying to understand what we are telling her. She will intently watch what other people do and when she feels ready will have a go herself but is cautious and will not be cajoled into starting a task until she is confident she knows what she is doing.

Garden Boy on the other hand will listen only for a short period before trying to make us giggle. He won't allow too much serious business and when he thinks he has listened long enough he will do anything to make us laugh. He will watch quietly for a short time, but as soon as he thinks he will get away with it he gets stuck into a task without a second thought and without a worry for the consequences of getting it wrong. He is more likely to get injured, although his sister worries about getting injured more.

When Garden Girl helps me weed the garden she asks me which things she should dig up and she carefully digs round the actual plants so they won't get damaged. She digs deeper to get the roots because she knows if she doesn't it will grow back. She carefully places the weeds in the bucket so they don't blow around the garden and re-root elsewhere. If she comes across a worm or ladybird or spider she is startled and a little fearful. She steps back with worry and waits till it has gone before she carries on. She is equally worried that the creature will sit on her arm which would be scary and that she will accidentally hurt the creature with her garden fork, because she likes them when they don't come too close. She will look at a frog until it jumps, when she will jump as far as possible as in the opposite direction to the frog. She will look at the lovely patterns on a snail shell but will not pick one up to move it away from our vegetables.

Yesterday however, Garden Boy helped me weed by digging anywhere he felt like. Nothing he dug up went into the bucket, but rather it was moved to another part of the garden from where he toddled proudly back. He concentrated for a while, but as soon as he spotted a ladybird his attention was focused on bugs for the rest of morning. He watched the ladybird with great interest. He shouted at it to wake up and it did. He grinned at me as he told me the ladybird was walking. He showed the ladybird a picture of primroses and told the ladybird all the primrose colours. He tried to pick the ladybird up and shouted for it to come back when it flew away. He got excited when he saw a worm and eagerly tried to hold it, disappointed when it burrowed into the soil to hide. The snails we found were a bit more accommodating and they didn't seem to mind being held by little hands. 'Look Mummy, snail' he gleefully announced as he held out snail after snail for me to inspect. He had found a little stash of them underneath the lavender, all of which now reside in our green bin waiting to be taken away by the bin men. He wanted to try and eat one till I stopped him. If he sees a frog he wants to chase it, not jump away.

And puppy dog tails, you ask? Well Grandma and Grandad North have a lovely energetic border terrier which Garden Girl approaches with caution. She likes him and will stroke him gently when he is calm but if he gets excited she clambers on the sofa out of the way and tells him to leave her alone. Garden Boy meanwhile will happily grab a handful fur and try to catch the tail.

They are so different. Perhaps its boys versus girls, perhaps its just personality. But it definitely makes the world a more interesting place and I wouldn't change either of them. I just can't help but wonder how Garden Bump will approach all these things and the anticipation of discovering a third personality makes me smile.

Homemade Lemonade, A Late Harvest and a Sunday Stroll

I have dirt in my finger nails, scratches on my hands and a small bruise on the end of my nose, all evidence of time finally spent in the garden. The bruise, you ask? Oh, just Garden Boy trying to make me smell a sprig of lavender, holding it up to my nose with a little bit too much energy and a little bit too close!

The weekend started with more talk than action in the garden as Garden Dad was indoors painting, while our Little Garden Helpers and I were baking a long desired Queen of Puddings and making homemade lemonade. The latter was at the insistence of Garden Girl who insisted that if we were going to do some gardening we absolutely must have some homemade lemonade to drink outside because Fifi the Flowertot always drinks homemade lemonade when she is gardening. And who am I to argue with the wisdom of a Flowertot?

The fact that we had drunk every last drop before we had even stepped into the garden early on Sunday morning is neither here nor there. It was so delicious and so easy to make I might just have to buy a lemon grove. I'm guessing an unheated greenhouse won't be hot enough to grow our own. All I had to do was grate the rind of six lemons then hand the lemons over to Garden Girl  and Garden Boy to squeeze out all the juice. Then we measured out 8oz of sugar and mixed it with the grated lemon rind. We poured 3 pints of boiling water over the sugar and rind and stirred it till the sugar dissolved. Then, all you need to do is leave it to cool, add the lemon juice, strain and drink. Quickly, before someone else drinks it all.

But back to the garden. On Sunday we spent a lovely day outdoors, harvesting the last of the vegetables we had left to overwinter. There was a massive plant pot full, which we started to cook up on Sunday evening. We had a lovely winter veg and lentil soup on Sunday night and there are now tubs of cooked vegetables in the freezer waiting to be added to various dishes over the coming weeks, but there is still more to prepare and cook; a task for the week ahead.

I also managed to finish cutting back all the herbs on Sunday. Feeling pleased with our acheivements we ended Mothering Sunday with a gentle family stroll. Garden Girl roller skated, while Garden Boy pushed his Teddy Bear in the push chair, stopping to show his teddy all the important sights; aeroplanes, trees, twigs, stones, cats, birds, squirrels, other people, leaves and his roller skating sister.

And with a warm sunshine this morning we were once again in the garden, this time pulling up the weeds which have appeared suddenly over the last week. Garden Boy and I weeded half the herb bed while Garden Girl was a playgroup and with fingers crossed for more sunshine tomorrow we hope to do the other half tomorrow morning.

Sickness, Cuddles and an Emerging Manager

Perhaps it is a good thing that spring is appearing late this year. For the past week we have had some lovely sunshine begging us to get outdoors and start work in the garden, but hot on the heels of chest infections, Garden Boy chose the nicest week of the year to fall ill with a sickness and diarrhea bug. On the plus side, the sunshine did provide Garden Girl with a means of distraction from all the attention Garden Boy was getting and she must have cycled a marathon in circles on our patio while I changed Garden Boy's nappies and clothes, cleaned him up, carpet shampooed the rug repeatedly, washed bedding, pillows, duvets and cushions and sat pinned to the sofa by a sick boy who could only find comfort in cuddles. 

On the occassions Garden Boy managed to sleep soundly in his bed or on the sofa I would join Garden Girl on the patio and try to pull up some weeds in the cracks between the paving the stones. I soon gave up on this task however, when I started to fear for the safety of my fingers which were in danger of being squashed beneath bicycle wheels. Instead I made a start at cutting back the herbs and have managed to tidy up about half of the bed. Beneath all the 'old wood' it was heartening to see the beginnings of new growth. I was ruthless with the rosemary and sage. I took cuttings of the rosemary last year so I knew I could replace it if I overdid the cutting back, but these big herbs were suffocating the oregano and marjoram and as these are amongst our favourite herbs I would like to encourage them to spread some more this year.

Other than that the only progress made in our garden during this lovely weather was at the weekend and not by myself but by Grandma South, who tirelessy hacked away at the ground behind the greenhouse which was filled with large rocks and stones, so that we could plant our raspberry canes there. Garden Girl was initially going to help but when she saw the size of the rocks buried in the soil, announced that it was 'too hard work' and went back to riding her bicycle before deciding it was too cold to be outdoors. She would occassionally visit Grandma South with words of encouragement along the lines of 'Keep up the hard work Little Digger', returning to tell me Grandma South was doing a good job.

So once again little progress has been made but I have enjoyed an abundance of cuddles from a little boy who is usually too busy to stop for cuddly moments and I have confirmed my suspicions that Garden Girl has management potential. When her playgroup leader asked her who was boss in her house she did say 'Mummy' but I feel that this is a precarious position and I must hold on tight as long as I can!

Is Spring finally here?

I am so pleased the sun has finally decided to shine. It was beautiful this morning. We had the patio doors wide open and the sun was shining into the living room making everything seem brighter. Garden Girl was at playgroup but Garden Boy was able to come and go from the garden as he wished and I could actually put my washing out and leave it there all day. I even sat outside to drink a mug of coffee while I watched Garden Boy run around and enjoy the slide. I hope we have many more days like this to come. A little bit of sun does wonders for my motivation and now that I am feeling a bit more awkward with the bump, dry, sunny weather is very welcome.

Our Garden; A History: Part 5

One of the first things we wanted to do in the garden was put up new fences. The old ones had holes and were falling apart at the bottoms. And with big plans of training fruit trees up at the back and having rows of raspberries up the sides, we needed to sort the fences out earlier rather than later.

First up we needed to work out what fences and posts to order. We are responsible for the back and the right side fences. At the back we had 5ft fences but at the side we had a range of 3ft to 5ft panels. Plus there's a slope at the side, so that the smaller fences seemed even lower and the taller fences even higher. We wanted to reverse this, to make the fence look fairly level across the tops of the panels.

So first up I took out a tape measure and a spirit level and Garden Girl helped me draw a scale drawing of the site. This meant I could really see where the garden was flat and where it sloped and how many of each panel size I needed to order. I could also see where I'd need to use some extra gravel boards on the really steep bit.

I decided to order all the bits from a garden centre although if I were doing it now I'd consider a timber merchant as trekking to the shop to order it was a bit of a pain. On the other hand I was able to return some bits that I hadn't used. And the Garden centre does sell all the screws and such.

On the day of the build, Grandad South and Uncle M came to help out. My memory of what happened next is pretty fuzzy but I'm pretty sure I took down the old fences while they drank some tea and ate some of Grandad South's famous rock cakes.

At the back, the previous owners had a special removable panel. Maybe so they could put a caravan on to the lawn. Anyway, this meant that they'd "taken out" a half sized post by smashing it into the ground with a sledge hammer. Of course, that meant we had to remove what was left before we could put in a new post.

Most of the rest was fairly easy. At the back we attached wooden posts to the mini-concrete posts that were already secured in the ground from the previous fence. And at the side we concreted wooden posts about a foot deep into the soil. By the end of the day we had all the panels up and some of the gravel boards too.

I started to do some more of the gravel boards a few weeks later but Garden Mum decided to go into labour instead and completing the gravel boards remains, nearly two years later, a note on our jobs list.

Catching a Moment

It is snowing once more, so I am very pleased that yesterday we managed to catch a moment in the garden.

Before getting started we checked on the worms and decided not to feed them for a while. They still have a lot to work through. I think we were adding food to fast to start with. The wormery came with some bedding which also served as food so we probably need slow down a little bit until some of that has been gobbled up. The worms are no longer trying to escape though, so they are obviously feeling more at home now.

Then we got down to the real work; planting the last batch of broad beans. We did our first batch at the beginning of the sowing season with the intention of sowing successionally every couple of weeks, but good intentions went awry and now it is the end of the sowing season and until yesterday we hadn't returned to sow more. So yesterday we sowed a second and final batch of seeds to give a second harvest later in the season. Our Little Garden Helpers were eager and helpful and they were both happy to pop seeds in holes and cover them up. The ground was wet so the soil was soft, making the conditions ideal for sowing seeds in our usually hard soil.

Then we harvested a good selection of vegetables we had left in the ground over winter, including some spindly leeks, some lovey turnips and swedes, and a fresh, healthy looking selection of greens. They will make a lovely winter stew for dinner tonight to warm us up after playing in the snow. I also pulled up the last of the beetroots, which I should have done long before now. I will cook a few for tonights dinner and then pickle the rest. So at least whilst the snow has returned we can enjoy eating, if not planting, our vegetables.