A Little Garden Update on a Rainy Afternoon

All of the girls' toys, games and art & craft supplies have been packed away and dust-sheeted up as the extension has been broken through to join onto the existing house now (this equates to a whole lot of dust and rubble!). We have been setting up camp in the imaginatively named 'TV room', which is a small room downstairs where we have our TV that is unaffected by the building work (apart from the fact that it has been crammed full with displaced stuff from the rest of the house).

My lifeline has been the TV. We have been watching far too many DVDs than is healthy, trying to keep the girls out of the way from the building work going on in the house - I've watched Cinderella, Anastasia, Tangled and Swan Lake (just terrible) enough to last me a lifetime. Poppet has rather enjoyed this lifestyle and I think I will have to wean her off DVD's slowly!

We get out most days for some fresh air and to stretch our legs as the girls have dancing classes and toddler groups on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on our days off we go to the library, the shops or the park. I don't drive so we walk everywhere (well me and Poppet do, Little goes in her pushchair). 

Today we hadn't been outside at all; we had to stay in in the morning to help Uncle Mike while he got the heating in the extension up and running (house is now all toasty thank you Uncle Mike). In the afternoon, Little was napping and Poppet was requesting yet another DVD. Our garden has been out of bounds for a while because of the building work but I decided to take Poppet out to explore all the changes. It was windy and raining but Poppet has been given a lovely new cosy waterproof all-in-one from Grandma, just perfect for our wet and wild weather!

We managed to make our way to the back garden after navigating around the scaffolding; Poppet was most disturbed by the 'broken' steps and general mess - "we better go inside mum". But we persevered!

We hadn't seen the back of the house since the brickwork and roof went up on the extension - it looked so big! 

Pea seedlings have survived the winter

We checked on our little winter veg plot - and were very excited to see a row of little pea seedlings just poking up through the soil. Our garlic has all grown too, I'm  really looking forward to our garlic harvest in the summer and seeing if it tastes any better than shop bought.

Our garlic is getting big!

Poppet checked her 3 purple broccoli plants, (except she called them pink broccolis until I reminded her they were going to be purple) - she declared them to be 'not ready yet', and was also disappointed to find no strawberries on her plants. After our short but fresh trip outdoors we felt a lot better.

Poppet: 3 yrs

Little 16mos (as ever, napping - I promise to do a Little post shortly!)

A Digger in the Garden!

Things have been getting a little messy around here but it's all for the greater good! Grandad's been 'making a mess' according to Poppet, who has been keeping an eye on him. The arrival of the digger was a very exciting event for Poppet who has been watching all the developments in the garden with interest. Of course her own little digger had to join her while she watched him work. 

Helping Grandad dig the foundations

She even got a shot on the digger with Grandad, which she was a bit unsure of at first, but at the same time fascinated.

Daddy got a ride on the digger as well (not on Grandad's knee though), and managed to not hit any water mains! Whereas Grandad the experienced professional hit two in one day, but this just added even more excitement to Poppet's day!

The building site is set to continue for a few more months as we get an extension built so there will be lots more excitement in the garden in store for the girls (and mama who loves seeing the progress!).

Poppet: 2yrs 9 mos

Little: 1yr 1mos

Toddler's Greenhouse Area

I love my greenhouse, I potter around in it nearly every day and Poppet loves to join me and help. Today their daddy made a wee area that she could claim as her own - this is what he came up with, I absolutely love it!

At the end of the greenhouse he put up a lower level bench and secured it, and then I collected all her gardening bits and bobs to lay out. I gave her a modular seed tray, her trowel and fork, her gardening gloves, pea and pumpkin seed packets, watering cans, plant pots, toilet rolls, egg and yoghurt cartons, and some sweetcorn and fuchsia plants. I also put a bucket of compost on the floor next to her bench.

Her Papa took her down to see it when she woke up from her nap, and I think she adores this area almost as much as I do! I envisage many hours are going to be spent here this summer and I'm so happy she can share a hobby with me. This afternoon she planted up some pea and pumpkin seeds in her little tray with some help from Papa, and watered them about 5 times. She was very happy!

A Fairy Garden

I remember creating little gardens in seed trays when I was little, so thought it would be a nice thing to try with Poppet. I had all of the things already apart from the glass beads which I picked up in town this morning for  £1.50.

We started off by sitting down together and reading some of Flower Fairies to set the scene, this got Poppet pretty excited about the prospect of a fairy garden but I have to say she did seem pretty disappointed at the lack of actual fairies when we were finished!

I laid out a seed tray, bucket of compost, trowel and rake, glitter, already painted shells, green glass beads, little bird house and some flowers from around the garden. We did this in the back garden, it's been another lovely warm day.

She started off filling the seed tray up with compost but lost interest so I finished filling it for her. I gave her a bit of direction as to where the fairy house should go and started off the garden path and she was away. 

For some reason she buried a lot of the glass beads. I can't remember if I did any seed planting with her last year which she might be remembering,  I don't think we did, but it seemed very much like she was treating them like seeds. The glitter as ever was very popular. The finished garden looked very pretty!

Ideally it would have been finished off nicely with a couple of toy fairies but unfortunately I don't have any so the garden is currently home to a panda and a horse. The fairy garden now has pride of place in her play garden. I'm hoping to sneak some fairies in there at some point to surprise her!

Toddler play garden

As an enthusiastic gardener myself, I have always intended to encourage the gardening bug in my children. I think its a really healthy interest to cultivate in little ones, and is something they are naturally drawn to with all the creepy crawlies, mud, fresh air and water play. With this in mind, we wanted to create a small toddler garden for Poppet to play freely in.

We chose an area that used to have a mini greenhouse thing on it (excuse the mess of the garden it is a work in progress) so it already had brick edging and good, diggable soil.

Poppet & Little's daddy knocked it all down so we were just left with a rectangle of soil. Then he rearranged some of the bricks to create a little entrance into her garden. I did some research online for ideas for elements to include, and this is what I came up with!

What is in the garden:

• A Flamingo Willow Tree (Salix Integra), that I had brought with us in a pot from our old flat and needed a new home
• A lavender plant for its lovely smell
• An alpine strawberry plant (miniature strawberry)
• An old Ikea candle lantern (spike removed). 
• Lots of pine cones
• A garden gnome, and angel wind chime that we found in the garden
• Ceramic bunny rabbit, bird on a stick and wooden bird house all from Poundland
• An upturned ceramic pot to encourage creepy crawlies
• Plant labels to stick in the ground.
• Plastic plant pots and a windowbox, for collecting things in
• Large pink quartz stone
• Watering can and children's gardening utensils
• Upturned vegetable crate to be used as a work bench

It has been very popular! One of her favourite things to do is to make 'hot chocolate' in her bucket using mud, water, and pinecones.

She can spend ages in there. Note the bunny in the lantern, apparently that is his house. Nana and Grandad also kindly got her a little pull along gardening truck so she has all her tools to hand!

It's not quite finished yet, we want to tidy up the brick work and aim to have a few more plants (hopefully some sunflowers, a fushia and maybe a vegetable like pumpkin). 

She also likes to wander into the greenhouse and water the plants with her little watering can!