Saturday 19 March 2011

Keeping a Clean Garden

Grandma and Grandad South visited on today. As well as a delicious cake and flan, they brought soil with them; good quality top soil, to fill in the gaps created when we were raising the lawn and building the final couple of raised beds. We still need a bit more in a couple of the beds but the lawn area is now fully prepared and ready for the grass seed we had intended to sow weeks ago and never quite got around to doing. Although it was probably for the best given that we have had a few frosts since then. Grandad South has even raked it over for us so if I can keep our Little Garden Helpers away from it we should be able to sow the seeds in a couple of weeks. It has been frosty the last few mornings so it is probably better to leave it a little while longer.

With the ground prepared for lawn seed, Grandad South, (with a little bit of help from Garden Dad), added some wood to our kitchen chairs so our Little Garden Helpers can reach the table without kneeling up. Although Garden Girl has been waiting a long time for us to do this she was less than happy when she saw the work in progress. 'Oi! You are making a mess of my garden. Stop that!'  I am pretty certain there was a stamped foot and a scowl to accompany her demand but it is pleasing to know she cares enough about her garden to make sure people treat it well - and sawdust scattered eveywhere will just not do!

I have to admit that, with the extra hands, Garden Girl immediately took on the role of site supervisor and kept everyone in check. She certainly cracked the whip with Grandma South who has done a brilliant job of pulling up newly rooted sycamore trees, once again threatening to grow a forest in our back garden. She was certainly determined to make sure the roots and not just the leaves were removed and made sure Grandma South kept at the task. As a result, a large portion of the raised beds are sycamore and weed free and ready for sowing seeds. I am very very grateful to have been saved some of the weeding.

Garden Boy, started the day off playing at the water table, filling buckets with water and soil to make 'worm concrete'. I am not entirely certain about the uses of worm concrete but he poured bucket loads over the patio so perhaps he was filling in the cracks. He was then thrilled to be able to help sow tomato seeds. He has been excited about sowing tomatoes ever since we started talking about this years planting. He helped me fill the pots with compost, carefully placed each seed and gently covered them with soil and then drowned them in water. To be fair, I think his watering can is a little but too 'fast flow' and mine has a broken rose, so we were relying on the childrens watering cans. I think there will have to be another trip to the garden centre this week.

By the end of the day Garden Boy and myself had sowed 4 types of tomato (Mirabelle Bianche, Tumbling Tom, Gardeners Delight and Tigerella), Telegraph Cucumbers, Curly and Flat-leaved Parsley, Basil, All Year Round Lettuce, Stir-fry Lettuce leaves, Noisette Brussells Sprouts, Hispi Cabbage and Dwarf French Beans. I was then ready to sow some Broad Beans directly into the raised beds before I realised it was five o clock and time to make dinner. Time really does fly when you are having fun. So the Broad Beans will have to wait until tomorrow when we will hopefully also sow some squash and turnip seeds. Then it will be back to weeding for a little while, but at least it does not seem quite as daunting now that someone else has made a start.

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