more snow!

Meet the newest member of the Clueless Household! He doesn't say much, maybe he's just a bit shy... (plus his mouth appears to have fallen off....)
Looks like not much gardening is going to get done here today or the rest of the weekend!

I have discovered that the girls are complete and utter pansies! Mini Madam wouldn't walk in it, even when I dug her a path and Madam stood by the back door crying that her hands were cold within about 3 minutes of being outdoors... C'mon girls, you were born in Scotland! You're supposed to be 'ard!

Snow!

Not much for me to add today, but thought you might like to see the snow at Clueless HQ!

I'm back!

Well sorry for the delay folks! Sick children, bad weather blah blah...

Anyway, I've finished digging the veg patch!!! I know I know, I thought it would never get done either! 

Just the rhubarb and strawberries in situ (plus a gardening fork and a random plastic bottle!). There is currently snow on the ground but hopefully the ground will be treated to some compost/horse manure in the next week or so, then I can plant some broad beans. Since we last spoke I have also made a list of seeds and constructed a chart of what gets planted when and so on and so forth, so all has not been lost over the last 10 days. However, I decided to get all technical (by my standards) and made a list of what sort of light each of my planned seeds requires – full sun or shade or... the one in between. Much to my distress EVERYTHING wants full sun, greedy seeds! Given that very little of my veg patch IS in full sun (next doors tree and my house are in the way and I can’t see either moving any time soon) they are going to just have to lump it! The patch is in the sunniest part of the garden though so hopefully as most things are planted around March-May when the sun is higher in the sky they should have little to complain about.

I have also been perusing the seed catalogues (Mr Fothergills, naturally) and am trying to decide whether to invest in blueberry bushes; the only think my youngest likes more than blueberries is kiwi (and after the last nappy we’ll be cutting back in her intake of those!) so I’m thinking it could be a wise investment... still deciding though!

Ooh, I forgot to mention in previous posts, I also have a few fruit trees in the garden:

 a cherry tree on the left, which didn't fruit at all last season and an apple tree (right) which produced a dozen or so apples, braeburns I believe.

In other news the girls have harvested their cress which was declared ‘yucky’, so no more has been planted, however I rather enjoyed the alfalfa:

 so more of that is currently sprouting! Looking forward to growing some lettuce and cucumber to add to my sandwich! 

However, the coriander plant I bought from the supermarket seemed determined to die and is currently rather dramatically draping itself across my kitchen windowsill vying for some sympathy from the neighbouring alfalfa (the alfalfa is way too busy growing nicely and behaving to give the coriander the time of day though) 

On the plus side my beloved pineberry is doing well and is even sprouting new runners despite the temperature which can just about be seen in the background.

 

I am also pleased to report that since the purchase of my funky pink gloves the incidence of splinters has been reduced to nil! Long may it last!

Bonus Parsnips!

Well eventually I made it outside to finish digging the garden! Thanks to a certain grumpy little Madam I still haven't dug the whole patch but almost there. I reckon another 2 hours and I'll be ready for compost!

However, I did come across a few bonus parsnips that I'd completely overlooked - which almost doubles my yield from last year and means we have parsnips to go with tomorrows roast pork (for hubby and the girls - veggie burger for me!).

We also tried our hand at growing cress and sprouting some alfalfa to add a bit of interest to sandwiches next week. We have done cress before, previously in egg shells, but today we tried a different approach - a toilet roll cut up and folded up into little pots (easy to do, something for me to write about in the future!) then decorated with bits of felt (or sucked to death and scribbled on with a wax crayon if you are 18 months old!)

 We then stuffed the middle with damp cotton wool and sprinkled on a few seeds.... not overly evenly but they'll look pretty I'm sure!

The alfalfa were soaked for 8 hours before being rinsed and left on the windowsill. I've not tried this before so interested to see a) how they turn out - I have to wash the seeds twice a day, a big deal for someone who  only waters house plants when they start going crispy! and b) how they taste!

I shall keep you posted!

Custard slices

So, I got to the garden centre... and I can confirm that their new cafe does a cracking custard slice....! THIS is the side of gardening I, a) love and b) am not clueless on!

We spent a fair few hours there (combination of the eldest child constantly needing to go back to the toilets and the youngest being distracted by the parrot on every trip past its cage!), resulting in a serious lack of gardening taking place today. However, I have some pretty new pink gloves. The only pair that fitted me, apparently I have odd shaped hands - all the others either had fingers so wide I could fit two fingers in one or else the palm was too short, rendering my thumb useless as it was pinned to the side of my hand. And I already have enough trouble in the gardening department without attempting it thumb-less (besides, how would I pick up my custard slice without my thumb?!)

I also bought some new seeds - all from my new best friend Mr Fothergill (I'll not bore you with details and save that until I do some actual planting!).

However, I have a confession to make... despite my KIS mantra (KEEP IT SIMPLE!) I couldn't resist and bought, what I think has to be the COOLEST fruit plant I've ever seen a Pineberry! That's right, a Pineberry - looks like a strawberry tastes like a pineapple! Who could resist?!

Its currently sat in my greenhouse looking rather lonely and I think I'm going to plant it in a pair of the girls old wellies which have a hole in, because how fabulous will these look cascading down the sides of a Peppa Pig Wellington!!

So apologies to anyone who was on the edge of their seat waiting to find out what state my compost was in (riveting stuff this!) but you will have to wait until tomorrow to find out. I'm off to stare lovingly at my pineberry now, n'night all!

And so it begins....

 A Blog: usually one writes a blog on something they are knowledgeable about. When it comes to gardening, I am not! But I am trying to learn!

In theory I should have fingers greener than the hulk; my grandparents were market gardeners/ farmers and my mum is also a gardener. And herein lies the problem, I've never NEEDED to garden as the people around me do it for me! My Mum rescues my house plants every time she comes to visit and well timed visits to my grandparents’ house are bound to result in being sent home with a bag of broad beans, a punnet of greengages or a basket of apples. However, with my 30^th birthday fast approaching I feel I should be learning to do these things for myself. I am also a vegetarian with two fruit-crazy children to feed and the things I want to grow are the things that make up the bulk of my weekly shop – the more I can grow the less I have to buy! Also, when I was growing up I remember the sheer joy in picking blackberries to squash into an apple that had fallen from the tree, in trying to eat my lunch having spent a morning gorging myself on strawberries when no-one was looking, daring each other to eat sour gooseberries and watching my Grampy bent over his veg, lovingly weeding, thinning and picking the fruits of his labour. Although my garden is a postage stamp compared to what my grandparents had, I strive to recreate just a little bit of this for my children.

When I say I'm clueless I know a few things – I can identify a few herbs. I know what a blackberry bush looks like but when it comes to how to grow them I'm in uncharted territory! I did attempt this growing malarkey last year. The pepper plants I kept in the house did well, although the fruits had a very odd bitter and not overly nice flavour but they looked pretty. The girls got a few berries from the raspberry and red currant bushes and the strawberry plants that were inherited with the garden. The inherited rhubarb was very successful (how ironic that this is the one fruit my children do not like, maybe it’s because rhubarb is actually a vegetable!) and I also grew 3 potatoes, one carrot (which I stuck the fork through while trying to dig it up), 7 peas (and yes, that’s 7 individual peas, not pea pods) a few courgettes and a few parsnips. That doesn't sound too bad written down, but with the plethora of seeds planted there should have been MUCH more! The slugs had a feast on my kale and purple sprouting broccoli, things rotted in the strange weather patterns, my children trampled seedlings... in short, I spent way more on seeds than on saved money in Tesco.

So this year, I have a new mantra – Keep. It. Simple!

I am also going to stick with quality seeds – the seeds that grew last year were mainly Mr Fothergill seeds so this year the gray-moustached gardener is (hopefully) going to be my ally in gardening success! My gardening book also recommends you work out what sort of soil you have – is it clay or sand? Well after a thorough prodding I had ascertained that my soil is of the brown muddy variety. I also refuse to spend money on soil testing kits to check the nitrate levels and all that jazz. That doesn't agree with my KIS mantra!

So yesterday I started digging through the soil with the ‘assistance’ of a 3 year old and an 18 month old which made it slow going! There were also a multitude of sticks and small branches to remove. Next door has a large tree up against out fence so the ground always has an abundance of sticks knocked down by the idiot pigeons who refuse to acknowledge that they are heavier than their sparrow counterparts and try to land on the spindliest little branches which inevitable snap under their bulk.  I was also stalked by a robin. When the kids were out of range he would sit in on the fence and chirrup at me incessantly and puff out his chest until I found and threw him a worm. I'm going to have to buy him some meal worms if he keeps this up or there’ll be no worms left in my soil! The aforementioned tree also has a squirrel living in it so it’ll be interesting to see if he decides to steal anything from the garden. I don’t think he’ll take seeds – he doesn't seem interested in bird seed anyway, but time will tell.

Still, half the patch is dug and awaiting compost. I have a compost bin (also inherited) but I have never turned it or done anything to it so it’ll be interesting to see what is in it when I take that little door off the bottom later today!

I did learn one important lesson yesterday though. I need some decent gardening gloves, having spent yesterday evening digging splinters from the palms of my hands I shall be visiting the garden centre this morning before work resumes!

Well that’s me signing off for now! Sorry the first post is a bit long, I will endeavour to waffle less in future (although I'm promising nothing!).