'Prize winning' pickings

We still haven't got used to the HUGE shield we won at the Emsworth show, nearly a month ago. Our meagre offerings were enough to impress the judges in the novice categories, and the lack of competition certainy helped. The shield was surprise enough, but the prize money was even better - £41! I don't think we'll be entering the 'pro' classes any time soon though. Our carrots will need to be ten times as long.

A fun day and 14 prizes!

This week we dug up the rest of the potatoes and beetroot. Not as many potatoes as I would have liked, but the ground is very stoney and I'll have to work more compost in next year. Meanwhile, I've got my 'green manure' seeds ready to plant. Low maintenance ground cover which we can dig in next spring to fertilise the soil as well.

Spot the potato

Spot the child

Flower fairies at the bottom of the garden...

So many pastimes and hobbies are about appreciating nature, from walking to stargazing and of course the ultimate - gardening. Today I've found another, particularly for children... Fairies!

Flower Fairy door in the silver birch

By adding a few mini features around the garden, you can turn it into a truly magical place for children. I found a few bits and pieces around the house and in second hand shops and flea markets. For inspiration, Furzey Gardens is a brilliant place full of fairy doors (and even a fairy swimming pool).

We then invited a few friends over to explore the garden, make some flower fairy collages from petals and leaves, and of course to eat fairy cakes. Like fairies, no two were the same.

I'm gearing up for the Show - it's a whole new world but a lovely way to appreciate what we eat. I've just about got enough apples, but several have holes in and have been eaten away by wasps. My tomatoes aren't ripe enough yet, which is a shame because I have loads. And I've entered into the tea cup flower arrangement category, just for fun?! As if I haven't already got enough to do...

Meanwhile we've been enjoying watching several bees at a time getting drunk on a globe artichoke flower. This photo was taken before it was completely in bloom - it became even more spectacular and covered in happy insects.

The globe artichoke with several insect species

Puds to spuds in the height of summer

Neglected but wonderful

The poor garden is having to look after itself at the moment, but some welcome rain means it's generally happy. Just in time - I've got prize winning veg at the Emsworth Show in my sights, Monday 26 August 2013. I can't wait!

The little ones haven't been much interested now the soft fruit and peas are all but over, but we're going to have some time out there tomorrow to get our hands dirty again.

Meanwhile, here are some of the highlights of the last few days...

Hidden jewels - redcurrants

My best summer pudding yet!

Beautiful hollyhock sprinkled with rain and buzzing with bees

Espalier apples ripening nicely under the window

The mummy and daddy of the garden

My potato stems got squashed by the sprinkler, now they're growing again

A garden full of fruit

The prolonged heatwave is doing wonders for my fruit. I've not long come in from 1.5 hours of picking soft fruit - namely 1.3kg of raspberries, wild strawberries and blueberries. It could well be a full time job out there. But I'm not stressing, if something goes to seed from lack of watering, or if a few raspberries go over, so be it. I'm doing what I can.

Stinky nettle and comfrey tea

I love compost and feeding the garden, so it's been worth putting up with the stink of soaking nettles and comfrey for a few weeks. The new neighbours said they didn't notice the smell, but I made sure to keep them happy with a fruity breakfast, picked with their help.

There have been countless mistakes made, and lessons learned. I should have thrown the net curtain from the downstairs loo over the cherry tree, but by choosing privacy I lost the much-anticipated crop to blackbirds. And my Dad wasn't too impressed when I gave him a marigold to eat, when it should have been a nasturtium flower.

I loved watching a bunch of three year olds pulling off the pea pods. I've been less impressed by the broad beans... black fly has spoiled most of the pods, despite taking the growing tips off. On one stalk I got one pod with four beans in it. Disappointing. And I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw a dead hornet. Not sure what would have happened had it been alive, but it's kind of nice to see unusual wildlife in the garden!

And whatever the stinky smells, pest-ridden crops and supersized wildlife, there's always more fruit to cheer me up. Always.

Super speedy gardening to the test

Summer in all its glory

To me, summer is a season, not a series of disappointing weather fronts. The days linger longer, the trees are in full glorious leaf, and the garden holds so much potential.

My globe artichoke has been drooping in the heat

But now the solstice has passed, I'm feeling less energetic, less super speedy, and more overwhelmed by how much needs to be done. A busy couple of weeks at work hasn't helped. On top of the usual weeding, tying in, and transplanting, not to mention all the other jobs that aren't getting done, I now need to check the crops, harvest them, wash them and cook them. I should be jubilant at my bounty, but instead I'm worried that all our hard work will go to waste.

So I need to remind myself of the precious moments, no matter how small or fleeting.

Strawberries, just in time for Wimbledon

There's the bees - I've really enjoyed looking at them a bit closer and noticing the differences between the species. Then there's my fussy three-year-old picking chive flowers and spinach for her sandwich, and gobbling it up. I think a pink flower sandwich will be hard to beat, but with strawberries, raspberries, cherries and tomatoes on their way, I'm hopeful. And the free all-you-can-eat salad bar every night has already saved us a ton of money.


My own appreciation of where some of our food comes from has vastly increased, and so I'm sure growing our own will have the same effect on the children. Watching a strawberry ripen in the sun, hoping the bees will pollinate every tomato flower, and understanding just how much water it must take to grow and wash perfect supermarket veg... we take so much for granted.

It's so easy to be sucked into the supermarket culture of year-round perfect veg. I just hope growing your own will get easier in time!

We all appreciate where our fruit and veg comes from now

From gigantic leaves to blurry bees...

Another rainy day... another chance to take stock of what we've been up to.

Well, the garden party for my little one's baby naming and 1st birthday went ahead. It was beautifully sunny for most of the afternoon, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves, including baby. The kids enjoyed looking for bee-friendly flowers, and wearing their bee deely boppers. The garden, weeds and all, looked 'lived in', and I enjoyed showing my veggie lawn to interested guests.

The evening light was perfect for the party

I'm always reluctant to start harvesting veg because it looks so nice, and I deliberately didn't pick anything before the party. I'm now paying the price - the pak choi is HUGE and the spinach has already started to bolt. But, we are enjoying fresh leaves every night, including salads sprinkled with chives and chive flowers, which taste as good as they look.

Chive flowers are edible too and taste AMAZING

The slugs have been busy to, they started to chomp away at my lupin flowers, so I tested the 'organic' slug killer, ferric phosphate, which is supposed to be harmless to children, pets and other wildlife. It's worked, the lupins are coming out in force, and I have now used it round my young pumpkins and courgettes.

I'm uncomfortable killing slugs in the first place, but I don't think I have a choice if I want to have a productive garden. I'm also worried about the wider effects of the pellets, but the RHS and BBC seem to think it's OK. Here's a quote from the BBC Gardening guide:

Ferric phosphate seems to be working. Sorry slugs.

"Slugs top the list of problem pests for gardeners who ask the RHS for help and advice. But, says Chief Advisor, Guy Barter, there are now workable options to using metaldehyde-based pellets (which can poison dogs, cats and wildlife if eaten in large quantities). For example ferric phosphate pellets, which are harmless to creatures other than slugs, and a range of barriers and traps."

Talking of wildlife, I've loved using my Friends of the Earth bee ID chart. I've defintely seen Great Yellow Bees and Red Tailed Bees. Taking their picture has been impossible, however, and I've now given up chasing them round with my camera. This is one of the less blurry photos!

A brilliant photo, if only it were in focus

Sunny raised beds, a quirky arch and the world's tallest raspberry canes

Quick, it's raining so now's the time for a speedy blog! We've been busy with our seedlings, potting on into the mini greenhouse, moving them to the patio to get used to the elements for a while, and then 'putting them to bed' in the raised beds.

Our seedlings in their new bed

This is the pak choi/spinach/lettuce bed on May 7th, and again on May 27th. What a difference a bit of sunshine can make!

Just 20 days later and we can start picking

Baby's been 'cruising' round the pea bed

We've also been getting ready for our upcoming garden party - the first birthday and baby naming of our youngest daughter. Handy Dad constructed a beautiful quirky archway *almost* without picking up a tape measure. He didn't get it done in an afternoon, but I think he enjoyed doing it. Thanks Dad, it's perfect for one of the plum trees. We also copied a tyre balance beam from Aldingbourne Country Park.

Our quirky (quonky) garden archway

Bob the Builder getting ready for tyre toy time

Wobbley tyre balance beam

When we moved here we inherited a load of raspberries, which we've tried to nurture, but they're getting out of hand! The only ones with proper support have now outgrown their support and pulled it over. Some of them have been pruned but they're still too heavy, and I don't really want to use concrete. I've just secured them temporarily for now. I'll see how well they crop, then have a rethink before next season.

Tall raspberry canes toppling over

But overall, with a bit of sun, some pressure washing (mum's favourite job) and a good tidy up, I'm really pleased with how the garden is looking. There's a long way to go, but it's so satisfying to watch it all grow and develop in it's own haphazard way.

The veggie lawn is coming into its own

Perennial cornflower - amazing colour and shape

Small blue butterfly. That's its name, honest!

Aquilegia, which the bees love

A bee-line for my fruit trees

The first cherry blossom. Come on bees!

I'm absolutely delighted with my little cherry tree this year. Well, so far, so good. After an uneventful first two years, it's set to be completely covered in blossom this year. As you can see, it just looks gorgeous in the evening light.

But with so many flowers for the bees and butterflies to magic into fruit, I've realised that I have very few spring flowering plants to attract them to the garden. There are a few bulbs - bluebell, snake's head frittilary - and a couple of flowering currants which I only planted last year. Not much for our hungry pollinators.

So I need to do more for next year - perhaps a hawthorn or two and some forget-me-not seeds strewn about the place. That's my kind of gardening!

A sunflower, lettuces and peas in loo rolls

Meanwhile my veg seedlings are waiting patiently for the raised beds to be filled with top soil, hopefully this weekend. My lettuces are raring to go, as are the peas and spinach. They're enjoying their new home in a mini-greenhouse which CP helped to piece together. Well, when she wasn't stirring up her cauldron of stones and weeds. Apparently, she's going to learn how to ride her broomstick at big school. Perhaps it's time to get the first Harry Potter book out.

I've also potted on my leek seedlings. I've no idea if they'll come to much but they look promising in their yoghurt pots.

Yoghurt pot gardening - baby leeks

Homemade raised beds - on grass

Busy in the front garden now the weather is improving

My little veg seedlings have been responding well to the raised temperatures (although only about 8-12 degrees still) and longer days. So I thought it was about time I sorted out where I'm going to put them all.

With one day's notice, I managed to order a load of reclaimed wood from Aldingbourne Country Centre - my new favourite place - and some free labour, AKA Handy Dad. I had a quick measure up with Mr Realistic in the front garden, and ordered 15cm wide planks for four raised beds, 180cm long and 110 wide. Stuart at Aldingbourne cut all the pieces to size, along with 16 stakes, and we picked them up in the car, along with some cake from the cafe.

I love the character of the reclaimed wood

Handy Dad reckoned it would take us three weeks to put them all together. I said we've got two hours, so we'd better get on with it! It ended up taking three hours, but I'm so chuffed with the result. They're strong, gorgeous and going to last years and years, all for £75 and a glass of sherry for Handy Dad. All I need now is a load of topsoil to put straight onto the grass, which will compost down underneath. No digging or time required, excellent.

So today, while baby had her 1.5 hour nap, and CP was quietly tangling up her kite string with the full 30m of tape measure, Mr Realistic and I carefully positioned the beds and hammered them down. I couldn't help but think - they're huge, how on earth am I going to fill them all?

The Picasso carrot and onion bed

CP and I then had lots of time leftover to plant our red onion sets (12cm apart) and carrot seeds (the onion's best friend apparently). I can't bring myself to plant in straight rows, so we marked out our efforts with little stones, accidentally creating a large, sad face :-( Perhaps because there will be no room for the leeks I had planned for there too.

We then planted our first ever potatoes, very exciting, at 22cm apart and 60cm between rows. Ditto - no room for lots of broad beans and peas.

I looked at the new beds again and couldn't help but think - they're never going to be big enough! Where am I going to put everything?!

Speedy, cheap Easter presents for children

A DIY Easter present idea for children

I'm not really one for giving children huge amounts of chocolate on 'Easter Egg Day'. So this year we've been planting special sunflower seeds with homemade measuring sticks. They're good for all ages - the little ones can enjoying 'colouring' their cut out flower shapes, and older children can practice their numbers and measuring .They're practically free, AND they'll last longer than any chocolate-induced tummy ache.

For an even speedier option, all you need is a packet of wildflower seed and a child-size patch of bare earth. You could even trace round their footprints with some sand and fill in with the seeds.

Lettuce, broad beans in loo rolls, courgettes... so exciting!

It's been so utterly cold this week that we've not really ventured out into the garden. Instead we've been admiring our little seedlings, and planting some more veg seeds at the kitchen table.

The tidying-up stage wasn't exactly super speedy, but we couldn't believe our eyes when the pak choi seeds came up just three days later. The perfect match for oodles of noodles in a few weeks' time. Far more interesting than bunny-shaped chocolate!

Pak Choi, just six days after planting

How to choose an apple tree in 5 minutes

Plans are for a plum arch

I love the idea of having the freshest, tastiest fruit, for free. Well, almost free. So having persuaded hubby, AKA Mr Realistic, to help me collect my two plum trees, I couldn't resist dashing round for a quick look at the apple trees.

Not being indoctrinated into the Super Speedy School of Gardening yet, he looked interested for a moment then wandered off back to the car. He was busy thinking about how we would get the two plum trees to fit in said car without them poking one of my eyes out as I sat in the back seat.

I, meanwhile, was chatting with the tree expert at Arundel Aboretum. That's SS gardening advice #1: go to a specialist nursery rather than a garden centre. You don't have to waste time looking for someone to ask for advice, only for them to not have a clue what you're talking about.

SS gardening advice #2: Ask them what you need to know about the plant you're buying.

In this case you need to know about rootstock, ie how big is this tree going to grow? I chose M26, ultimate height 2.4-3m. And pollination, ie do I need to buy more than one tree to ensure cross pollination and lots of fruit? I chose something incredibly exciting: three different varieties of apples all grafted on to the same tree. I'd originally seen an example of this only on a much bigger scale at Paul Barnett Trees near Chichester. So I'm over the moon at having my own mini version, ready to be planted as a centre piece in the middle of our new veggie lawn. Watch this space.

I suppose the last piece of advice is, will it fit in the car? 5 minutes later, with a bit of cajoling, Mr Realistic did manage to fit all three trees into the front passenger footwell, and I really didn't mind having our aptly named 'Family Tree' poking my eyes out all the way home. Baby was highly amused.

My fabulous new 'Family Tree' Apple

P.S. You can taste a huge range of apples sold by Paul Barnett Trees at his tasting events. We orginally met him at Apple Affair at West Dean College, near Petworth in West Sussex.