little green fingers

Cutlery holders, Peppa Pig and Pre-School Gardening

I have to admit something rather embarrassing.  My youngest son isn't exactly a fan of gardening.  It's not that he hates it, it's just that it plays a very poor second to Peppa Pig... and cars... and trampolining... and the playground... and, well, pretty much everything.

This is particularly tricky as I run the gardening club at his pre-school. This has, in general, been a great hit with the children and most will come and do some planting, sowing or harvesting.

And then there's Archie.

He wouldn't plant bulbs, or sow carrots, or plant nasturtiums, or show the remotest interest in anything - not only at pre-school but also in our own garden.

But he is nothing if not surprising because this week, after months of indifference, when I asked if he wanted to stay on and have his packed lunch at pre-school he said "No, I want to do gardening with Mummy".

"Really?  Are you sure?  Well that's... er...  Did you actually say 'gardening'?"  It's fair to say I was quite surprised.

But thankfully, I had a few bedding plants to hand, plus some new planters I had found.  These were actually cutlery holders from Wilkinsons but in perfect child-friendly shades and at £2 a pop, pretty good value containers.

You need to line the sides, but this is easily done with sections of old compost bags, and the holes on the bottom are perfect for drainage. Then Archie simply added a few stones to the bottom to stop the holes clogging up, added compost, planted up and watered in (or more accurately, flooded).

When we'd finished, I was starting to feel quite excited by his new-found love of horticulture.

"So, shall we plant something else?"

At which point, he gave me a look that said "Nice try" and wandered in to watch Peppa Pig.

 

The first rule of Secret Gardening Club is...

To the untrained eye, this might just look like the dumping ground behind our shed, but I will have you know this is actually 'Secret Gardening Club'.

Yes, I know, the name needs some work, but Ava and Oscar have commandered this delightful spot for their first clubhouse. As a pliable adult, I was drafted in to help, so I hastily erected some brushwood screening and put up the shelf and blackboard.  I even carted out an old chest of drawers from up the loft, but now I am surplus to requirements. This is their space.  I am not welcome. Let their plotting begin...

They have of course made substantial improvements to the property.  Note the well-stocked outdoor library, and the slightly nationalistic flower arrangement.  There is also a supply of pens and paper and additional seating for some, as-yet unspecified, guests.

Even the name has improved slightly.  It has been rebranded as 'Secret Activities Club' which makes me wonder if the 'gardening' element was just part of their first plot to get that 'shouty woman' onside.

NGS openings and the dangers of to-do lists

 

I did something a little rash last week. I tried to cross something off my 'to-do list'.

You see, having wondered for a year or two whether to apply to open for the National Gardens Scheme, on Thursday I finally did something about it. As with all such important decisions, I didn't really give it much thought, just dropped an email.

"There," I thought.  "I've done my bit. They'll probably take an age to reply" and I put a line through "NGS?" on my to-do list with the smug flourish.

The call came about two hours later. The local organiser was in the area the next day and wondered if he could pop by.

So I had 24 hours. Well, that's a lie.  If you take into account the need to sleep, write, do school runs, feed and bathe children and generally run around after them, I actually had about three hours. And of course, the garden which had looked great in my mind a short while before, was perhaps a little less maintained than I thought.

My mother very helpfully confirmed this. "You might want to take out those dandelions that are seeding all over the place" was her sage advice. I also removed the thistles (one of which had actually reached thigh height).

But against the odds we were ready, and even more surprisingly, the verdict was positive. I had been stealing myself for rejection - not least because this is very much a family garden, catering for children, and I wasn't sure how interesting that would be to the average NGS visitor.

So we're going to open, probably next May and maybe in half term to encourage more children and families to come. This lengthy wait is good as it gives me a year to perfect my baking skills (quality of cake it appears, is at least as imporant as the planting) and several months to listen to wiser and more experienced gardeners whose general feedback has been "Are you mad?".

In the meantime I am also rewriting my to-do list without 'Run marathon?' on it.  It's safer that way.

Flower cutting, treasure hunts and naked serenading

And so, at last the summer term begins. Well, OK, so it started last week, but two days of making bunting and dressing up followed by a four day weekend shouldn't really count (although, admittedly this will probably form the basis of my curriculum should I ever start my own educational establishment).

So now I can catch my breath and look back on Easter holiday garden highlights and by highlights I of course mean "things with which I was able to occupy the children for longer than ten minutes which didn't involve some sort of screen".

In reverse order, these were...

At number three - flower cutting

Now it's been photographed for the book, I was able to let the kids loose on our cutting garden. As expected their resultant bouquets embraced 'vibrancy' before 'subtlety'.

At number two - treasure hunts

My children are fans of clue-driven hunts - and they see no reason to limit this to the Easter Egg trails.  I simply write down a series of clues to lead them all around the garden until they find 'treasure' (or to be more exact, a couple of chocolate coins left over from Christmas).

Admittedly, it can start to get a little tiring thinking up clues ("I'm a climber and rhyme with hysteria") but in a joyous turn of events the children even started writing their own clues for each other. Now if they could just learn to cook a well-balanced meal and use the washing machine my work here is done.

At number one - camping

It's alright, the earth hasn't spun off its axis. I still think, nay know, that camping is the devil's hobby, but I now at least see the point of tents. We bought a small, pop-up, two-man number in the sales at the end of last summer and it has been the children's outdoor base all holiday.

They've taken out toys and books, played games for hours on end and even, in one particularly Bohemian moment, serenaded me with a mouth organ recital whilst sitting cross legged and stark naked under canvas.

On a practical note, if you do buy a tent, do remember to move it to a new patch of lawn every 2-3 days to keep your grass in good nick. Also, try to go for 'subtle' rather than 'vibrant' in your tent colour palette unless you want it to dominate the garden.  Finally, please note, naked serenading, whilst 'adorable' on the very young, will be less appealing on anyone over 30.