An idiots guide to gardening - Lesson 1

In last weeks post I explained that the Kate Takes 5 crew were taking on a new challenge courtesy of Chris at Thinly Spread.

Well we have been given our instructions and followed them as closely as possible.

Week 1 has been all about planting Nasturcians, Tumbling Tomatoes and Sunflowers.

We bought all the gear as instructed and it was such a pleasure to walk into the garden centre with my little list and sound like I knew what I was doing. In the past I've panic bought or grabbed something that looks good on the packet only to realise that I either need a greenhouse or be able to magically fast forward the seasons.

The kids and I settled into a spot at the bottom of the garden to step through our instructions, and everything was going swimmingly until we realised that the were in fact no seeds in the tumbling tomatoes packet....Chris denies any foul play but I suspect she was trying to hamper our brilliance.

Anyway, the situation was rectified by a quick purchase of some of the same variety on an emergency run back to the garden centre.

I was surprised at how easy it was for the children to get involved and how even the demon three year old instantly settled down - a look of pure concentration on his face that is rarely seen away from a Nintendo DS.

Then....

And now...

After a delightful hour in the sunshine here is our work. 

(Chris if you're thinking they look a bit dry don't worry - that was pre-watering!)

Now if they would just grow I think we might be hooked.




I'm linking this post up to the 'Come sow with me' meme which is being run to support @ONECampaign 'LetsThrive' campaign. It so easy to help - for more read this.

A new challenge

My Dad was an amazing gardener. He grew so many varieties of so many fruits and vegetables it was hard to keep track.

Mealtimes would include baby new potatoes that had been dug up an hour before and purple sprouting broccoli. We would steal peas straight from the pod and gorge on strawberries and raspberries whilst wandering the garden. Apple pies, jams, jellies and gooseberry and rhubarb fools would be made from the fruits that made it into the kitchen.

And of course we took all of it for granted.

If my poor Dad actually tried to talk to us about what he was planning or planting we would roll our eyes and make our excuses.

But then when I finally developed an interest in it all it was too late. All that knowledge had passed away with him.

So Chris is giving me my second chance.

If you'd like to join us and (hopefully) learn some greenfinger-ness along the way then we'd love to have you. We can share our successes and disasters and hopefully have something to show for it at the end.

I'm rather excited!

(Update: For Week 1 instructions pop over to this post on Thinly Spread)