I don't care about the seeds, I'll poop where I like!

I'm so glad to see some signs of Spring in the garden, even if the cat is less than chuffed to have her hunting and pooping grounds hijacked for seed planting.

We've even had a solid few days of nothing but blue skies and sunshine here, it's great being able to do the school run without bundling up in coats and scarves for a change.


We even have some colour to look at in the garden, although it is only a teensy tiny little bit, but the fruit trees are back again. I don't know why but I'm always a bit of a pessimist about these trees every year so I'm even more chuffed to see the trees completely covered in apple and pear buds just waiting to blossom.


And I know it's only parsley but it's one of the brightest greens in the garden and one of the precious few things out there which is ready to eat. The poor thing's been a bit savaged by us lately, but it's nowhere near as bad as the chives which are in two fat bunches and the grand total of 4 inches long. Every time they make a bid for the sky we pounce on them for everything from soups to sandwiches. We're trying to give them a bit of a break, really we are!


And my dogwood isn't just a tangle of pink branches any more, well it is really but there are a couple of little lime green spots in there to break things up.


And finally a little apology. I've not been around an awful lot lately, one thing and another keep cropping up and robbing me of days at a time. I've missed my early morning blog reading, commenting and coffee reading but I'm hopeful that things will start to settle down somewhat in the next week and I'll be back to my usual routine and catching up on what you've all been up to.

To Let

One small, green fingered, occasionally cheeky but easily bribed child suitable for planting vegetables


There comes a time in your life when you just have to admit that you just aren't very good at something. For me that something is gardening.

I'm good at the grunt work like weeding and turning over beds and getting everything ready to plant, but the planting itself is a wee bit of a problem.

Although not a problem that Chloe shares, she's obviously inherited her granny Freda's green thumbs. A woman who could probably have grown deep sea coral in her own back garden if the notion had ever taken her.

I've never been so glad we let Chloe do much of the planting in our own garden this year because it's really coming along well.

This is a pot of what should have been micro salad leaves, designed to chuck in a pot and start eating in 2-3 weeks (we're impatient). Instead, after Chloe had planted the seeds, we waited 2-3 weeks and the salad counter at Sainsburys appeared. We've eaten salad every day for at least three weeks from this pot now and it's still growing like weeds.



The potatoes she planted have went absolutely bonkers. They're very nearly as tall as me and just about to flower. The two bags filled with Robert's slightly less impressive attempt are buried somewhere in behind that monster up front.


And the peas. Keep in mind that these are even last years peas, peas which I did plant last year and not one single thing grew from them and she's managed to get them to grow. There is a third pot in behind these two with one pathetically lonely little plant in it. That's the one I planted, with this years peas, or I should say that's the only one of a dozen I planted that bothered to show up to the garden party.


Watercress! A tiny little tuft was brought home from school growing on a piece of soggy kitchen roll which had been stuffed into a little cardboard egg box. As soon as Chloe arrived home that day, she walked into the garden, scratched a hole in the dirt alongside a palm tree (which should have been sent to mum's house) and planted it egg box and all and look what happened! It's hard to tell from the photo but the cress is at least a foot tall and probably just as wide.


Herbs. I'm chuffed to bits with the parsley. I use it often and always wanted to grow it in the garden, but I've tried again and again and it always dies within a couple of weeks of planting. I even went so far as to call Robert out for "wasting money on it" at the garden centre and behold what a parsley plant in the hands of Chloe will turn into. And trust me this plant has been pillaged by me since it went into the ground and I still can't keep up with the rate it's growing.

We'll have to start having parsley on our breakfast cereal at this rate.


And the leftovers. Robert took an empty salt cellar from the house and filled it with all the leftover seeds from last year. He still isn't entirely sure which seeds he put in, but we dug over a patch of dirt and left Chloe to shake the seeds in at random, figuring that we'd know what they were if they started to grow.

There's mint, and it's growing so I'll have to get up there today and rip it out. That sounds terrible but we already have two large pots of mint and if we leave it in the ground it'll take over. Mint is about the only thing I can grow successfully so that should give you some idea of its hardiness and determination to grow!


There is definitely rocket which has been pillaged again for salads. We have thyme. I have never been able to grow thyme, not even when I've bought a plant and just moved it from one pot to another and Chloe can knock out bucket loads of the stuff with year old seeds.


There are also more lettuce plants in the mass of green too, not to mention sprouting broccoli (another of my failures), spring greens and I think what looks like the beginnings of a couple of dwarf french beans, all from duff old seeds.

I'm not bitter though, because I get to eat all of these wee lovelies. Now I just have to bide my time until she wakes up, a nice pancake breakfast for daddy and daughter and then I'm sending them out into the garden, because I really think that this year might be the year we manage to grow proper carrots:)

Menu Plan Monday and some general destruction

As far as a menu goes this week I've got nothing. What I do have is a freezer full of leftovers, stews, lasagna, shepherd's pie, all the boys are in there so I'm just going to work through as much of those as possible this week.

In other news, Robert's off to a new job. He was offered it a couple of weeks ago and starts on Wednesday doing access control and biometrics. I means more money, less hours, he finishes at 4pm every day and most importantly an end to call out so we'll hopefully get some semblance of a life back again.

To celebrate I put him to work in the garden, cause I love him that much:)

He emptied the large trough planter in the corner and he and Chloe planted up the first layer in the potato sacks with three early varieties.


Sack planting potatoes is really easy, you just put about 6 inches of soil in the base of the bag, place four or five sprouting spuds on top and cover with about 4 inches of soil then every time the greenery makes its way above the surface of the soil, add another handful of potatoes and another four inches of soil until the bag is full. We should see 15 - 20lbs of potatoes out of each bag and they take up very little space.



To make more room for other veg in the garden, all of my trees and plants are being re-homed. This one is on its way to my mum's house so at least I'll still get to see it regularly:)


,
And we managed to get some herbs back into the garden too, starting with oregano, garlic and thyme. I've even managed to sneak in a lavender plant, after the plant I had (which had become more tree than shrub) was removed by someone who, in his great wisdom, decided it was getting too big.


One whole side of the garden has now been turned over with course sand and compost dug in and should be ready for planting next weekend.

Which only leaves this madness to sort out...

Folksy Friday - Gardening on the brain

Garden, garden, garden!!! If I hear one more thing about that bloody garden I might go spare.

I've been digging and weeding and emptying and filling and planting and transplanting and lifting and laying and I've come to realise a few things about gardening in the past few weeks.

I'm no longer young enough to be doing without a kneeler.

Garden Kneeler - Recrafted

Now that I want to use all or as much space as possible for fruit and veg, there's a serious lack of colour out there. I know green is a colour but even so, sometimes it was just nice to stand with my coffee in the morning and look out at the flowers. I've realised that if I can't have a flower garden, I can still have flower garden bunting.

Flower Garden Bunting - Hollie Lollie

For reasons I won't go into for fear of revealing my own stupidity and the downfall of trying to look over and through one's specs at the same time, I wish I had some cane toppers.

Terra Cotta Cane Toppers - Caroline Nash Crafts

Figuring out where to put up a bird house or bird feeder becomes a question worthy of Mensa when taking a very agile cat into consideration.

Bird House - Buns Stuff

And to think I could have just paved over the lot and filled it with beaded flowers instead.

Lavender - Fleurs de Perles

Garden 1 - Me 0

I'm trying, really I am, but my garden is kicking my ass this year.

Normally by this time of the year I have the garden pretty well cleared and at least an idea if not a full blown plan of what I'll be planting and where.

This year, not to much!



The poor thing is all just so ratty and unloved looking at the minute. Ideally what we would like to do is move some of the larger plants to the front garden which will free up a lot more space for vegetables at the back, we just haven't really got around to do it yet. Although if it is going to happen, it'll have to be done in the next three or four weeks to then allow us time to get the ground ready for replanting.

I'm thinking that it should be easy enough to move everything which is currently along the front of the top level and of course there are a load of things which are already in pots and it's just a matter of picking the things up and carrying them around to the front garden. Go on, ask me why I haven't done it yet, you know you want to?

We didn't use the decked part of the garden much this year and it rained a lot more so it's a bit lethal up there, a bit like a slip and slide so that will need a good clean and scrub before it's safe to use again.

That trough planter thingy needs completely gutted and refilled, nothing we planted in it last year grew so the soil is pretty much dead and the cat has made it her own personal sandbox since then.

The stairs badly need to be sorted out and scrubbed down, there are even a couple of ferns growing on them now.

And if there's time, I'd quite like to give it a lick of paint. I hate that drab grey cement colour and I much prefer the soft green we used around the decking. Well when it's clean and had a freshen up I prefer it, but I think while I'm doing that I'll carry on across the back wall behind the trough and the very front wall below the little hedgerow too.

And because none of that is going to happen while I'm sitting here, guess where I'm off to. Maybe I'll even move those pots round to the front garden, or maybe I'll just stand out there for an hour chin resting on broom handle, coffee cup in hand wondering where to start first, you never know!

Before I go, I've just realised that, and I have to say this very, very quietly, but it hasn't rained all week, not so much as a drop so I'll even be able to mow the lawn for the first time this year too:)

Fun in the Sun

We're just not cut out for this kind of weather in Northern Ireland. Don't get me wrong we appreciate it and are very grateful (if anyone in particular is listening) we're just not used to it. Especially when it sneaks up on us. The rain just stopped one day last week and the temperature rocketed and hasn't dropped since.

The poor child is suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion. She spent Saturday playing in the above ground swimming pool my mum mistook for a paddling pool. She woke at my mum's house on Sunday, stripped off her jammies and ran nekid out to the pool again. My mum just about managed to wiggle her into a swimming costume and force feed her some breakfast.

for some dinner. I know, we actually ate out for a change, but I just couldn't face the thought of cooking. I've cooked outside all week because its enough of a headache to cool the house at the minute without adding any more heat to it. So fish on the We then had a gorgeous afternoon at Knockinelder and Quintin Bay, before heading to Kircubbinbarby, salad and bread has been the order of the day, every single day.

Monday we played in the garden and took a few short walks and on Tuesday we spent over four hours at the duck pond and then on the way home Toots bought herself a petite stitch junior sewing machine in a charity shop so that she "could be like mummy". Sometimes she's almost too cute.

I did have photos planned for this post but my micro drive has gone walkabout. I will deliver as soon as it turns up though.

Wednesday was another day for running around. We had to go food shopping in the morning and with a very active four year and the obvious lack of a driving license it turned to be a nightmare, but we managed.

Yesterday we vegged in front of the TV in the morning and replanted all of the seeds destroyed by frost earlier in the year in the afternoon. Toots even planted up a little kit garden my mum bought her a couple of months ago. Its the type with a few packets of seeds, a little seeds tray and cover and a rock hard block of "magic" compost which needs to be reconstituted with water. She had a lot of fun with it to. The whole kit only cost £2.99 and had a pirate theme so inside the box, along with the necessary bits and pieces were a pirates eye patch, three flags to mark the position of her seeds and a treasure map so that she could mark an X at the spot she planted each seed. Even the seeds are themed. She planted monster sea gourd, some money plants and sea holly. I really hope something grows because she checked on it countless times yesterday and she's been outside twice this morning already to see if anything has grown yet.

She's also learnt how to open the side gate which is amazing because even I have trouble opening that gate at times. It weighs a ton and the lock is really stiff. It does mean that there has been no shortage of chase scenes around here lately because the side gate leads to the driveway which leads to a pretty busy street.

Guess what I'm doing today?

Yep, adding another lock to the bloody gate. I'm all for independence, but I'll be damned if she's going to play in the street like some little four year old urchin. When she's older fair enough, but not yet.

My house, my rules kid!

So we're a bit tired and worn out round here. I can already feel the sun burning the back of my neck through the window and it's not even 9.00am yet.

Its going to be another long, hot day.