Something Has Happened To Our Broad Beans...

The blame is our own - we failed to get the soapy spray out in time. We allowed the Black Fly to make our beans their home and they have clearly made themselves very happy there. But I will not dwell on what I can no longer fix. The bright side is that, if nothing else, the broad beans have distracted the black fly from all our other crops. Only recently have they moved onto our squash but I am wiser now and have armed myself with soapy water.

More Weeds, More Puddles

Garden Dad has spent the weekend clearing more weeds while I have spent the weekend clearing up puddles.

Garden Boy seems to have made weeding the entire country his life's ambition. On our last visit to the zoo Garden Boy, along with Garden Girl and their friend were happily occupied pulling weeds from between the paving stones. Then, this last week, while we enjoyed a walk, Garden Boy stopped to pull up the weeds on the roadside. So it seemed a good idea to spend the weekend pulling up weeds in our garden. It would surely be the ideal task to keep Garden Boy outdoors during the first few days of potty training. But no. He was happy to be outdoors weeding with Garden Dad but somehow he always managed to find himself indoors when the moment came to create puddles.

But progress has been made on both fronts. All the massive weeds have now been removed from our garden. Garden Dad had a lot of fun digging out some particularly big roots and all our plants can now grow, free from competition. Garden Boy, although still not making it to the potty on time has started to tell us when he is ready to go which has reduced the size of the puddles, in that, at least the second half lands in the potty. On both fronts then, not a bad weekend.

Rain Isn't Always All That Bad

We returned home on Wednesday from a short trip up north where in true holiday fashion it rained pretty much every day. In fact the weather was so bad some local roads flooded. On a particularly windy day we even had to wear bob hats. Thankfully Grandad North broke with his usual holiday tradition of eating fish and chips on a wet bench in the wind and rain, however Garden Girl and Garden Boy did take the opportunity to jump in muddy puddles. In fact Garden Boy has been wearing his welly boots every day since in the hope of finding more muddy puddles, running to the hallway for his boots everytime he spots some rain drops shouting 'Its raining, its pouring, old man is snoring, me jump in muddy puddles'.

The highlight of the holiday for Garden Boy, aside from the puddles, was feeding the animals at the farm we visited, in particular the calves. Garden Girl enjoyed the play barn where, for the first time she had the confidence to run around without me following behind and she even crossed the rope bridge which would have terrified her a few months ago. She also loved visiting the caravan and camping shop where we went to buy a sleeping bag for Garden Boy. We looked around the caravans while we were there and Garden Girl pretended to make tea and sat at the fold out tables for her dinner with Garden Boy. She now keeps asking if she can holiday in a caravan. I wonder if our tent will be good enough now she has seen the luxuries of a carvavan!

But I digress. All in all everyone had a brilliant time despite the wet weather and the rain did mean that Daddacool was let off lightly and was only required to water the greenhouse plants and hopefully it will have helped to revive some of our more unhealthy looking plants. Rain isn't always all that bad.

Helping Plants (and babies) to Grow

All the time we have spent in the garden over the last couple of weeks has obviously had a big impact on Garden Boy. Whenever I take him out and about he will grab a handful of soil from anywhere he can. Then he will carry it very carefully and slowly until he finds a suitable plant pot in which he can deposit the soil, where it will, he says, 'help the plant grow'. There is a particular plant in the corner of Garden Girl's playgroup playground than must surely have reached the clouds by now, so often does he 'feed' it.

He has also tried to help Garden Lass grow with one of his larger handful's of soil. Amazingly she didn't seem to mind being covered from head to toe, so she is obviously already well adjusted to life as a Little Garden Helper!

A Trip to Oz

Garden Girl was delighted today when she was able to view a live extract from the Wizard of Oz in her own back garden. The winds howled, the trees moaned and the Wendy House was lifted high into the sky, flying across the garden and luckily landing on our own side of the fence. After the initial panic that we might have lost the Wendy House for good, Garden Girl calmed down and remarked that 'it was just like Dorothy Girl'. I speculated whether the Wendy House might have landed on top of a bad witch but Garden Girl said 'no, just some tomato plants, but if I had been in the house I would have met the good witch'. I love the way she can so easily remove the bad bits of the story and just enjoy the beautiful bits.

The wind also tried to take our greenhouse but had to settle with one window pane which Garden Dad is stoically refitting in the darkness as I type. I wonder if he will find a pair of sparkly red shoes lying around?

Getting Back On Track

Since we started the mammoth task of restoring order to our garden we have managed to make quite a lot of progress. The front garden has been weeded. We were lucky that the weeds had grown tall enough for us to hide behind in shame whenever a neighbour walked by, but we can now hold our heads high and smile between the newly planted sunflowers, interspersed with the rosemary plants. I am quite proud of the small rosemary plants as they are a product of the cuttings we took last year and I am looking forward to watching them grow in their new position. Not least because they will hopefully stifle the many many weeds that have made our front garden their home. 

About thirty tomato plants can now stretch out their roots into the extra space provided by their new, larger pots and the goosberry, whitecurrant and redcurrant bushes have been disentangled from the weeds which were trying to strangle them. We have found the rhubarb! It is holding on literally within an inch of its life but we have our fingers crossed it will grow back. We have also finally put some netting over the brassicas so the woodpigeons can no longer peck them to shreds.

And best of all we harvested our first crop of vegetables and have since been tucking in to some tasty meals made with homegrown courgettes, broad beans and peas.

Musings on Weeds

Gardening with children means that you have to accept delay. You will not always get into the garden when you want to and when you do, you will not always achieve eveything you had planned to. Last week was an example of this. After a good start at the weekend our attempts to restore the vegetable patch to some levels of productivity were interrupted by a very busy week. On top of all our Little Garden Helpers usual activities we had school and playgroup meetings for new starts in September, a follow up x-ray for me at the hospital and a glut of visitors coming to meet Garden Lass for the first time, their visits having been delayed due to my pneumonia. All this meant that, despite the sunshine, we spent very little time working in the garden. So when I eventually came to thin out the carrots and leeks on Monday morning, only a week after I weeded the entire raised bed, I was of course greeted by a large number of very healthy looking replacement weeds. And so, tonight you find me musing on the biggest garden pest, the weed. 

• Weeds are never invited, but never leave.
• For every weed you pull out of the ground there are at least two more waiting just below the surface of the soil to pop out and laugh at you.
• No matter how carefully you look there are always some weeds that manage not to be seen. I am convinced they have chamelean qualities and can blend into the soil when they see a garden hoe.
• Weeds can be starved of everything they need to grow and yet will still grow. This suggests they have befriended Garden Goblins who take great delight in giving weeds the water, sunshine and nutrients we are trying to deny them.
• Weeds run around the garden at night scattering their seeds everywhere so they will grow over the whole garden (although Garden Boy may have a hand in this).
• Weeds that have been pulled out of the soil can jump out of buckets and reroot (possibly Garden Boy again).
• Weeds can repel children so they will not pull them up, but will whisper to children that the well tended plant you are so proud of is ready for picking (and yes, Garden Boy seems particularly susceptible to the whispering weeds).
• Weeds know when you are busiest and grow even more vigorously when they know you don't have time to remove them.
• Weeds invite their friends over for huge parties when you go away on holiday but never send their guests home.
• Weeds are, in short, a menace.