The Potting Shed Playdough

My gardening bug has extended into playdough play. Behold, the worst playdough I have ever made. It was supposed to be 'soil' playdough, but I couldn't for the life of me make brown. I ended up with a khaki green colour and because of all the food colouring I added to try and make brown it was too watery so I had to add extra flour but then it was too crumbly. Not that the girls complained!

To the 'soil' playdough play I added some clean plant pots, lollipop sticks, glass beads, pea seeds and a pen. Poppet set about filling up the pots and putting the 'seeds' in and even labelling the sticks - she was giving me the finished pots and telling me who they were for - one was for daddy, one for her little sister and the others were for little friends she has made at playgroup. 

They've been playing with it for a few weeks now. It's dried out a bit and has quite a lot of peas and pen ink in it. Little was a bit too fond of putting the glass beads into her mouth so these have been taken away now to remove the temptation.

For a change I gave her the playdough with magnetic numbers and she really enjoyed pressing all of the numbers into the playdough and then carefully removing them all again and putting them back into the tub. Very methodical. When she was done she went into the cupboard to retrieve the much-loved glass beads and a cocktail umbrella and stuck them in too. She was concentrating so hard with her tongue poking out! Unfortunately after a while the glass beads went into the mouth again and had to be removed from the play. I'm amazed at how much use this terrible coloured and textured playdough has gotten! Hopefully the next batch will be a lot nicer.

Poppet: 3yrs

Little: 20 mos

A Rather Large Gardening Update

At last, a blog post! Mostly I have been preoccupied (read, obsessive) with gardening matters. With the extension finished we can finally focus on getting the garden up to scratch and the nicer weather (especially in the evenings) means we've been spending lots of time outdoors doing just that. Even in not nice weather we've been out there; I would contend there is no nicer place to be in a rain shower than a greenhouse.

I've big plans to make the garden child-friendly so we can spend lots more time outside, including a sensory garden area on the decking, a mud kitchen for outdoor culinary creations (not that Little needs anymore encouragement to eat soil), turning the vegetable plot into raised beds so it can be more easily accessed by the littles, a wendyhouse (have to talk very nicely to Grandad), an alpine garden, a fruit patch, ooooh I get all carried away! I have been reading a lot of gardening blogs and websites for inspiration and bookmarking ideas.

So this is what we have managed to do so far. Our garden was quite a mess after the scaffolding etc... came down so it has taken a lot of work to get it looking tidy again. Behold, a lot of photos. I love gardening before and afters.

We chitted our potatoes (in bun tins) and planted them out in our lawn borders and one row at the bottom of the veg plot. I chose 'Accord', a variety known for its scab resistance as last year we had a bit of a problem with it so fingers crossed we get some lovely scab free potatoes!

Potatoes growing in the borders

I let Poppet choose what else to grow in her little garden this year and straightaway she replied "strawberries!".  So we planted 10 strawberry plants and already they are full of little green strawberries that Poppet is very excited to check up on. It's a first growing strawberries for us so hopefully it is fruitful!

Planting strawberries

Poppet's play garden is looking very productive, and this was taken a couple of weeks ago - the 4 cabbage plants are ginormous now. She also has purple-sprouting broccoli plants (we got an amazing amount of broccoli just from these 2 plants!), lavender, thyme, lupins, alpine strawberries and a willow tree. She loves having her own little bit of garden - she smells her thyme and lavender, gets rid of 'naughty' slugs or snails she spots because they 'eat my broccoli ', but any worms she finds get a very warm welcome as she picks them up and carries them around trying to find their 'mothers'. She likes worms because 'they help the plants to grow' so is always careful to place them back down near a plant. She also cautions any birds that happen to land in the garden "don't eat my strawberries!".

         

My dad gave me an early 30th birthday present of wood and stakes to make the much longed for raised beds for the vegetables! This is what the vegetable plot looked like before:

Happy Birthday to me

We did a lot of digging and weeding over a few evenings and then daddy put together the beds with some help from Poppet (with her pretend chainsaw). She loves to help her daddy,

Then a few more days spent weeding and digging and raking to get them ready for planting. Poppet really liked helping. Once Little went down for her afternoon nap, Poppet would fetch our wellies and suggest we go out to do some digging, and bring some "appletini" (which is her word for Ovaltine).
And here they are now!

Finished raised beds!

After filling the raised beds with our brussel sprouts, 1 courgette plant, radishes, carrots and swiss chard there was still loads of space so I bought lots of lovely baby veg plants from the local garden centre. So now we have calabrese, purple sprouting broccoli, romanesco, pak choi, peas, mangetout, beetroot, little gem lettuce, leeks and kale. Quite a few of these are firsts for me; already the pak choi has been a bit disappointing as the hot weather we have been having caused it to bolt. 

We have still to finish putting down weed-suppressing membrane in the pathways and then cover them with bark but it is already a vast improvement to what we had before! I love the little network of paths and the girls already seem to enjoy exploring them which was the plan with this layout. I wanted to make the veg garden a place they could play in, and I read that raised beds are much better for gardens with children because they are less likely to stand all over the plants.

                                                 

I didn't take a before picture of this area between the greenhouse and garden fence but it was basically big weeds and concrete slabs and glass. After clearing it all and digging it over we have reclaimed it as garden, with a little walkway created from old kerb stones. We planted a rhubarb plant that my dad gave us from his rhubarb so I'm hoping it takes and next year we can enjoy rhubarb from the garden, and the plan is to plant some raspberry bushes in the autumn too so it can be our little fruit corner.

                                                   

I caved and bought some new packets of seeds......it was just too hard to resist!   I love James Wong's seed collection and blog and would love his book Homegrown Revolution (hint hint J it's my birthday soon, this will be a good test to see if you read this!). It's all about growing interesting and unusual varieties of plants here in the UK. I've started off with Cucamelon which is described as a 'vigorous trailer or climber, which is relatively easy to grow. It produces an abundance of fruit resembling tiny watermelons, which taste a bit like cucumber but with a citrus tang.'  How could anyone not want to try this!!

It took weeks to germinate and I almost gave up on it but I now have 3 tiny cucamelon seedlings in the greenhouse! It was a happy day when I finally spotted a little leaf curling to the surface. Can't wait to have some exciting new fruits/veg to introduce the girls to! If these work out I plan to try some more adventurous seeds next year. The other packet of seeds I bought was Atlantic Giant Pumpkin and we have ended up with one strong little plant, so we hope to have a mammoth pumpkin come October! 

So that was a little (big) update to get me back into the swing of blogging. I felt rather a lot of pressure for the first post in a while to be good, but figured I should just bite the bullet and write one so the next isn't too daunting! 

                                              

                                                  

                                               

Poppet: 3yrs

Little: 20 mos

P.S. Sorry the fonts in this post had a mind of their own.

DIY No-Sew Curtains

I've had this material with the intention of making curtains for over 2 years but always been too daunted by the prospect so put it off and put it off, until a couple of evenings ago when I took the plunge and finally did it!

Well not really. I had intended to make 'proper' curtains - I read countless instructables on how to accomplish this feat of homemaking and swithered and swayed between using curtain tape, eyelets, rods etc,,,, but in the end I am just not that confident in my sewing machine skills and didn't want to risk messing up such a large piece of material. So I resorted to the old iron-on hemming web tape and a pack of curtain clips (from Ebay). I've used this method before to make the curtains in our old flat so I know that it works well - the result is not the most polished set of curtains but they serve the purpose and don't break the bank so it works for us.

It is quite straightforward - all you need to do is measure the size of curtains you need and cut your material to size (add a couple of inches to the length and width to allow for the hems). Then iron a hem onto all four sides of each curtain, following the instructions on your hemming web packet. Then it is just a matter of clipping the curtain clips onto each panel of material and hanging them up on your pole! I find the hardest part the measuring and cutting of the fabric, once that is done the ironing is time-consuming but simple. I did it while watching TV one evening.

I like how these curtains have an in-built safety feature - if anyone tugs or gets tangled in them (ahem, who could I possibly be referring to), the material would simply be released from the clip and fall to the floor leaving the pole intact. Handy when you have little ones around that like hiding in the curtains (especially since that scene in Tangled where Ana wraps herself up in a curtain while singing).

A Very Eastery Good Friday

We managed to squeeze a lot of Eastery activities into our Good Friday this year, with egg painting in the morning and hot cross bun making in the afternoon. This was the first year the girls' decorated boiled eggs for Easter and they both loved it. Even Little was taken with it and didn't try to suck the paint brush once.

They both had lovely new egg cups from Grandma and Papa to sit their eggs in and let their creative side run wild. Poppet's design involved a lot of pink whereas Little went for a more multi-coloured approach.

I'm not sure how they will feel about flinging their eggs down a hill tomorrow; both are really fond of eggs and in particular of their painted ones. The whole practice may seem a bit twisted to them. Little especially, I am guessing, will not want to waste good food. 

In the afternoon, we tried our hand at some homemade hot cross buns for the first time. These were a big success and tasted amazing hot from the oven so we will definitely make them again in future years.

     

The dough was very sticky so Poppet only tolerated it for a short while before an extended hand washing session was called for. She loved grating the nutmeg in and rolling the lumps of dough (not sticky by this point) into balls. 

She was very excited to see "they got bigger!"after we left them to rise, and loved using the 'special pen' and 'special paint' to do the crosses (she needed some help holding the bag to squeeze it out). We did some hot 'A' buns, as well as some N, M, S, and D ones too. Tasted lovely!

Poppet: 3yrs 3mos

Little: 18mos

Cress Heads

My sister recently sent me a picture of some cress heads she found online so we rose to the challenge and attempted some ourselves;

I was a bit confused with the concept initially but my sister was very understanding and helpfully pointed me in the right direction.

So with our eggs hard boiled and the insides carefully scooped out (and used to make sandwiches - we'll call those the control group sandwiches), we were ready to start work on our cress heads. First Poppet very gently stuffed the empty eggshells with cotton wool. She was very gentle indeed. Then she had to make their faces. The first egg got goggly eyes but the other two she only wanted to use pen on. She carefully drew on eyes, a nose, a mouth, eyebrows and ears. She also requested "sparkly bits" (sequins) so one cress head got some extra embellishment.

Now her favourite part - water spraying. She sprayed the cotton wool to make it damp and sprinkled cress seeds on to it.

Then we left them on a sunny windowsill and she sprayed water on them everyday, waiting for 'their hair' to grow.

Poppet was very excited to see the shoots start to appear!

She obviously took the hair thing to heart as we found the cress like this one day ..................

After a week it was time to give them a haircut. By this point the goggly eyes had fallen off and Poppet's excuberant spraying had washed off their pen faces so they were just egg shells with cress growing in them. Next time we will use permanent markers!

Poppet was in charge of the cress cutting, Little was a surprisingly accomplished egg peeler.

Our egg and cress sandwiches went down a treat! Poppet polished off her whole plate, which was amazing considering she just nibbled at the 'control group' cressless sandwiches the week before. It goes to show you that when little ones have helped make something they are far more likely to eat it. Little however was not a fan of the cress. 

Poppet: 3 years 

Little: 1 year

Some Spring Sowing

We spent a lovely afternoon in the greenhouse eagerly sowing seeds; as usual I have probably planted far too many but I get a bit overwhelmed by the choice. Poppet was my trusty helper as usual. She loves having her own little bench down at her level where she can potter about planting seeds and watering them like mummy.

I have tried very hard this year to not spend lots of money on seeds so have been using surplus from last year, along with a Funky Veg Kit I got for Christmas from my sister, and some freebies we got as well.

Poppet chose what seeds to sow first and chose Purple Haze carrots. She was quite excited by the prospect of purple carrots. These will be ready to harvest mid August and should be interesting! Together we filled up the seed tray with compost - Poppet has her own little trowel that she loves using. Then we wrote a plant label - I wrote on one side and Poppet carefully scribbled on the other. On later plant labels if she ever found one with a blank side she would exclaim "you missed one!" and add some scribbles to it.

Carrot seeds are really little so quite hard for little ones to sow; Poppet's ended up all in one side of the tray so I spread them around a little bit for her. Then she 'put them to bed' by covering them with a light layer of compost. Finally we watered them, although we should have really done that first as Poppet's overzealous watering means the seeds got washed around the tray a bit.

We planted tomato seeds, which we got free from Heinz Ketchup - they are the San Marzano variety which I can't wait to try because they are the ones I really like from Marks and Spencers. Plus I love a freebie. We also planted Tigerella tomato seeds that were in my Funky Veg Kit and produce striped tomatoes. We used a sheet of perspex that we found as well as some old tomato and grape punnets as mini propagators for the tomato seeds.

Poppet planted some more pea seeds by herself, they are much better for little fingers to plant. First she makes a little hole with her finger and then pops a seed in. A couple of holes were left seedless so I had to point them out to her. We planted some peas last autumn that will be ready early in the summer but these will be ready a bit after that ensuring we have a continued supply of fresh peas! We only use them for snacking; Poppet loves eating peas like sweets straight from a peapod, Little has yet to experience it but she is not one to turn down food.

We also planted Little Gem lettuce, French radishes, Swiss Chard 'Brightlights', Chantanay carrots, red brussel sprouts, Mazur lettuce, yellow courgettes, coriander, parsley and a singly solitary jalapeno chilli pepper seed (for daddy). Poppet was very interested to see what the seeds looked like and especially liked the big courgette seeds. 

We have even had our first harvest of the year from the garden - our purple sprouting broccoli was finally ready to be picked from Poppet's garden. She was very proud of it and rightly so although the fact that it turned green after cooking disappointed her a bit!

Poppet: 3yrs 3mos

Little: 18 mos