Favourite Photo Meme

I'm not always very good at passing on blog meme's however when Zooarchaeologist at Being a Mummy passed on the favourite photograph meme it seemed silly not to join in, especially as I have been spending a lot of time sorting through photos following our hard drive breakage. It was very, very hard however to find a favourite photo. We take so many and most of them are of giggling, happy children having fun. In the end I decided to narrow the choice down to a picture of our Little Garden Helpers and in the spirit of my blog this also reduced the choice to pictures that did not show their faces. So here is my favourite picture of our Little Garden Helpers from behind:

I chose this because it shows how much fun our Little Garden Helpers were having on our camping holiday last year and is full of fabulous family memories.

I pass this favourite photo meme on to

Four Green Acres
Fennel and Fern
Carrots and Kids
My Little Vegetable Garden
Kella's Veg Plot and Other Musings

Getting Ready for Spring

It was with much excitement we sat down last week and rummaged through the seed packets left over from last year. It turned out that we had some seeds left over from most of what we grew last year so there was very little to buy. The main items we ordered from the seed catalogues therefore, were fruit trees and bushes, as well as raspberries, which we hadn't got around to sorting out last year. They are being delivered on Tuesday and we are very excited. Garden Boy is thrilled with the idea of having apples in the garden and we are also planting a gooseberry bush, whitecurrant bush and redcurrant bush on the shadier side of the garden where only the weeds seemed to thrive last year.

With a birthday party to go to and a trip to the zoo we didn't see much of the garden this weekend, but Garden Dad is taking some time off work in February while we have some work done on the house and we are hoping the weather will be good enough for us to prepare the beds and get everything ready for spring. As my pregnancy progresses I am going to become less and less able to help out with the heavy work so the earlier we get it done the better.

Despite our lack of gardening however, we were able to enjoy the fruits of our second sprouting attempt at dinner tonight, although our Little Garden Helpers might have eaten more if they hadn't been trying to use chop sticks! Using a seperate jar or tray for each type of seed seems to have worked better although the smallest seeds we tried this time (alfalfa) didn't sprout at all. I think they were so small they just dried out too much so next time we will try to rinse them a bit more often than the others. Both are Little Garden Helpers are eager to start the sprouting process again so I have feeling we will have the opportunity to try again this week and hopefully we will head outside and plant some more broad beans as well.

The Great Escape

Our worms keep escaping. In quite large quantities. We have put a large tray underneath the wormery so we can catch them when they wriggle out but they are obviously not happy in their new home yet. Maybe they need more exposure to light to help them burrow down but we don't really want to keep leaving the lid off. The only other thing I can think is that their bedding is not moist enough, but it seems OK as far as we can tell. Does anyone have any ideas?

Meeting the Worms

Our Little Garden Helpers had to wait till yesterday to meet our worms as the roofers fixing our loft roof were using tools in our garage on Friday. We were munching on marshmallow muffins when I suggested we go outside to feed the worms and Garden Boy instantly discarded his cake and ran to get his boots.

While they were getting their outdoor clothes on, I explained that the worms would eat our food scraps and turn it into compost for our garden. With the lid off the wormery, they watched as the worms wriggled about and spotted a few that had escaped. Garden Dad rescued them, returning them to the tray and then our Little Garden Helpers delighted in putting handfuls of potato peel and uneaten apple in the top tray.

We left the lid off for the rest of day so the worms would burrow better and hopefully not try to escape again and after lunch today Garden Girl and Garden Boy have been promised they can go and check on the worm's progress and give them some more food.

In the meantime we are going to set up our mushroom plugs which Father Christmas kindly left in my fridge this Christmas.

Wriggling Worms

Our wormery arrived today in a big box and so it was with much excitement that Garden Dad and I unpackaged the contents this evening and started to set it all up. I will take Garden Girl and Garden Boy out to the garage tomorrow to see the new arrivals who are currently wriggling into their new home. Not knowing how the worms were packaged up we thought it best to put everything together while Our Little Garden Helpers were asleep, mostly to avoid Garden Boy grabbing handfuls of worms to taste. He has been known to indulge in slug, snail and soil, so the worms might well have looked appetising. Now the worms are safely contained in their tray I am more confident I will be able to hold back eager hands and I am sure both Garden Girl and Garden Boy will be thrilled to learn all about worms and how they help us out in the garden. It is nice to be creating our own compost once more.

Shredded Snow

Garden Girl enjoyed sledging in the snow yesterday with Garden Dad and her friend. She particularly enjoyed riding on the sledge to get to the park, Garden Dad pulling her the whole way while she sat back and enjoyed the view. Garden Boy set off to join in but didn't seem to have the balance to stay on the sledge and soon became upset and cold so was returned home to help me with some paperwork.

So, still not entirely convinced by the cold snow, Garden Boy decided today that he would do better to recreate the snowy world outside in the warmth of our home. While Garden Girl was helping me choose a cake recipe Garden Boy was quietly poking a hole in the big black liner filled with shredded paper that stood 'securely' fastened in the hallway. I blame the mouthwatering pictures in the recipe book for my failure to notice what was happening, but by the time I started to wonder why Garden Boy was so quiet the hallway was covered in a lovely layer of shredded paper snow. Garden Boy was in the middle of it all picking up handfuls and throwing them over his head, dancing about with a big smile on his face. All the fun of snow, without the cold.

Trying to clear it up was impossible as, having come to investigate my sighs of exasparation, Garden Girl decided that Garden Boy had come up with a fabulous idea and a 'snowball fight' quickly ensued with me, on my knees trying to clean it all up, becoming the main aim for all the shots. It was only when Garden Dad returned from the garage that order was restored and the shredded paper was double bagged and removed, ready to be added to the wormery we have ordered. Garden Dad has told us all to behave ourselves this afternoon so we are sitting peacefully watching the Snow White movie. No more snowball fights for us.

Will we fall in?

The snow remains and as a result we have been busy indoors. Today it is drizzling snow which isn't quite as nice as the big fluffy snowflakes that came down earlier in the week and we are less tempted to go in the garden and play in it. So instead we have been painting lots; cards, canvas and a tea set. We have also moved all Garden Boy's things into his big sisters bedroom as they are now going to share. Garden girl loves having her little brother in the same roon, while Garden Boy who is still confined to his cot till his bed is delivered is just waiting till he can escape at bedtime. I think we have fun and games ahead!

We have also been busy in the kitchen, with today's yummy creation being the trifle we never got around to making at Christmas. Being stuck indoors therefore has its benefits. Jobs are getting done, yummy food is being made and fun is being had. The snow is also bringing out the best of Garden Girl's imagination (or perhaps just the most delightful of her misunderstandings), so I will leave you with another amusing thought.

The car across the road had been sitting in their driveway when the snow came down but was driven away yesterday morning to leave a snow free patch of ground where the car had once stood. Garden Girl seeing this was worried; 'Look Mummy, there is hole in the planet. Will we fall in?'

A lovely thought

This morning Garden Girl looked through the window and said 'Wow. It's like a big family of snowflakes cuddling each other on the grass.' The thought has kept me smiling all morning.

Planning for 2010

A new year has begun and there is a lot to plan. We need to sit down and look through the seed catalogues, plan the garden and make a start preparing the ground for planting in spring. We have also decided to get ourselves a wormery. After our unwanted garden guests early last year, we decided not to have a compost bin in our garden, however we still want to be able to compost so a wormery seems like a good compromise.

We also aim to sort out our photos while the weather is cold. You may have noticed that over the past couple of months the numbers of photos appearing on this blog have been scarce. This has been due to a hard drive malfunction that has made it awkward for us to access and use our photos but with the determination that comes at the beginning of the new year and the cold keeping us in the warm, we will soon have things back to normal and there will be more pictures.

We also have a new bird bath to home and a family mosaic paving stone to make together, as well as hopefully creating that much longed for seating area at the back of the garden. Our Little Garden Helpers have been dreaming of having a 'their size' bench to sit on rather than just as wall and I have been dreaming about having a 'me size' bench to catch the evening sun.

So plans are being formulated for 2010 and a new year begins with anticipation for the new growing season which will no doubt creep up on us faster than we expect. Just take a look at the photo below; the seeds in our bird feeder have already started growing and they aren't even supposed to be!