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.

 

Open gardens, spring equinox and spotters' sheets

   
I have opened my garden this week.

Before you get the wrong idea, I should clarify that this was not part of the NGS Yellow Book scheme (I fear I wouldn't make that cut) and there was a distinct lack of tea and cakes on offer.  Instead, I have had the local pre-schoolers over for a 'Signs of Spring' walk.

Apparently the visits are going quite well.  I can't be more definite about that as I didn't go out there myself.  I know these are only two, three and four-year-olds but frankly the under-5s are the harshest critics you will ever find and I wasn't sure I could take their comments.

Still I did show willing.  Not only did I hold my tongue on the fact that spring is still five days away (I am an equinox pedant and proud of it), but I even knocked up some Signs of Spring Spotters' Sheets.  I also managed to blanche only slightly when the pre-school leader showed me the squares of card adorned with double sided sticky tape.

"And those are for...?"

"Collecting signs of spring."

"From my garden?"

"Um...well...yes."

And then, added, as she saw the expression on my face.  "But they won't be very big signs of spring."

If you want to have a go yourself, I've attached the spotting sheet below.  But please don't come to my garden as I'm not sure there will be anything left to spot.

Download Signs of spring – spotting sheet

Christmas cress elves, channelling tulips and general silliness

I'm beginning to think I may be a tulip. After all I like to lie in the sun in the summer and I'm downright frisky in the spring, but when it comes to winter, I just want to climb into a bed and wait for the weather to pick up.

This general winter hibernation appears to be affecting my blogging too.  Let's face it, there's very little to get excited about in the garden right now and, unless my kids show a sudden interest in turning the compost heap, there's not a great deal of family gardening to be done either.

Still, I'm doing my very best to show some enthusiasm this week as we are coming up to the last gardening club of the year at pre-school.

It gets tricky about now as there's not a whole lot to do. We've already started off the last of the veg outdoors, created some bulb pots and last week we even planted an apple tree.  Actually, that's something of the Royal 'we' as I did the whole 'digging hole and planting in the rain' bit, while some very dry, small children waved at me cheerfully from the window. 

Anyway, this week, we are getting festive and making Christmas cress elves.

I know some people are a little dismissive of cress growing but I'm never quite sure why.  After all, it's the only crop I know where you can see the seeds germinating in a matter of hours and be eating it within a week. Plus, it's cheap, cheerful and grows all year round.

Of course the objections may be more about the habit of growing cress in silly pots with silly faces, but what can I say, I'm a sucker for a silly face.  Plus, with my children eating up to 30 small, non-recyclable pots of yoghurt a week, I'm quite keen to find ways of reusing silly pots too.

So, if silly cress activities are your sort of thing, this is how to make Christmas cress elves.

• Take a toilet roll inner and cut a piece of green paper long enough to go around the pot.
• Add a small strip of darker green paper for the belt and cut a triangular shape for the hat and another shape for the feet - make both of these slightly longer than needed so you can stick them to the inside of the tube.
• Use white stickers or paper for the face and ears and then detail the face, trousers, belt, buckle and shoes using a black pen.
• Stick the decorated green paper around the tube to make the elf body and then stick on the hat and shoes.
• Fill your yoghurt pot with some cotton wool, nearly to the top, wet this and then sprinkle on the cress seeds.
• Put the yoghurt pot in the top of the tube, place on a sunny windowsill and wait for the elf's cress hair to sprout.
• Finally, make a large pot of tea, unwrap a packet of Jammy Dodgers and open a good book, safe in the knowledge you have completed your 'good parenting' task for the day - Cbeebies can take it from here....

Ofsted, bulb-planting and Schrödinger's cat

I'm a bit flustered this week.  It's all down to bulb planting combined with the scariest five letters in education.  Oh, hang on, no, I mean six letters.  See - that's what I mean by being flustered.

Yes, this week there are rumours abounding that Ofsted are on their way to our beloved pre-school.  I'm not really sure where I stand on Ofsted.  It's very noble that an organisation is trying to ensure high standards in our school system, but they do seem to have a reputation and fear-inducing quality unequalled since the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, they might be scarier than the Spanish Inquisition as they haven't even had a Monty Python sketch to lighten their image.

So anyway, we're overdue an inspection, and now, on the pre-school grapevine we hear they're in the area. This means that my weekly gardening club may well coincide with their visit.

This shouldn't matter.  The gardening club is going well.  I have an action packed session lined up.  I plan to plant a dual species fruit tree in the garden with some of the children, as well as having them create layered bulb pots with tulips, daffodils and crocus.

But, I am slightly nervous about the Hawthorne effect... or is it the Heisenberg uncertainty principle... or something to do with Schrödinger's cat?  I'm not sure which as I gave up physics in the third year and, hard as I tried to concentrate, Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time episode on quantum theory just gave me an almighty headache. But anyway, it's the one where the act of observing a phenomenon changes it, or as I like to put it, the certainty that someone looking over my shoulder will mean I cock things up - big time.

I'm not really sure how it will go wrong, but when I shut my eyes, I have visions of a Frank Spencer-style escapade which tends to end with a handbag full of compost, skid-inducing bulbs all over the floor and an Ofsted inspector falling head first into the tree planting hole.

Come to think of it, the weather is looking a bit dodgy.  And actually, my throat has been feeling a little scratchy.  In fact, it could be swine flu.  Probably, just to be on the safe side, we maybe, you know, ought to, well... cancel gardening club for a week.  Or two.

Homemade cloches, plumbers and hula hoops

I've had many an occasion to be thankful my neighbour's a plumber.  He connected up the washing machine the day we moved in, saved the pre-school from flooding with the timely intervention of some scary looking rods and even rehung the shower door after it fell on me (I did make sure I was both conscious and dressed first). 

Now, this week he saved me from hunting for hula hoops.  To avoid confusion, let me explain - we're not talking the baked potato snack, but rather the O-shaped, waist jiggling apparatus.  And, no, I wasn't planning on restarting a 1950s fad, instead I needed some materials for my cloche.

You see, my pre-school gardening club has resurfaced after the summer recess and I'm desperately searching for weekly activities.  We've already planted up the hanging baskets and harvested sunflower seeds, but I was keen to get some new crops planted - namely runner beans, garlic and onions.

With temperatures dropping I thought a cloche was in order and, as usual I was keen to save our non-existent budget and use old materials if possible.  Apparently, old hula hoops, cut in half, are ideal supports. Fantastic, except this isn't an item I see rolling around everyday and I was running out of time.  Then I remembered Colin's pipes. 

My lovely plumber had knocked on the door a few months ago and said "I thought you might have a use for these."  In his hands were various offcuts from water pipes.  He had no idea how I might use them but obviously had enough faith in my both my weirdness and skip-diving mentality to believe it possible.

And yes, I used some for creepy crawly compartments in my insect hotel, and now I've used the rest, stuck onto short lengths of bamboo sticks for a cloche.

I strengthened these uprights by strapping across three longer bamboo sticks, tied on with twine, and then used old plastic balls to ensure the kids don't poke their eyes out on the ends of the canes.

The whole structure was covered with horticultural fleece - or the 'plant duvet' as my pre-schoolers now know it - and secured with clothes pegs. 

It all appears to work remarkably well - and all you need is some fleece, plastic balls and proximity to a plumber - what could be easier?

Pre-school garden - end of term report

After the dust has settled on the end-of-term mayhem, and before I become completely panicked at the idea of three children at home for six weeks, I thought I'd assess the highs and lows of our first season of the pre-school gardening club.

The Good

• Almost all the children have grasped the fundamental principles of what a plant needs to survive and grow - this is particularly impressive when you consider that some have yet to master the technicalities of using the loo.
• Not only have they grown about 15 different edible crops in their tiny plot, they have also managed to digest a few. This has even been achieved with very few of them pulling faces fit for a gurning competition.
• The children have all been delightfully enthusiastic and love to talk about gardens and gardening - often very loudly and usually about 15 at a time.

The Bad

• My complete lack of planning has highlighted why I am no loss to the teaching profession. I tended to decide what we were doing half an hour before we began which hardly helped the sessions to flow.
• Unfortunately, term came to an end before some crops were ready, including the tomatoes and carrots, so I may have to select some earlier cropping varieties next year - all suggestions welcome!

The Ugly

• My hanging baskets may well be the least impressive and co-ordinated of any in existence. This is partly a reflection of my lack of experience in this area and partly a result of my filling them with a load of bargain basement, end-of-line, no-one-else-wanted-them plants. Worst of all, living opposite I have to view the hanging basket horror on a daily basis.

Future Plans

• We need to do some autumn sowing - any recommendations for crops suitable for a small, shady spot gratefully received.
• The children would like to grow apples, so I'm hoping to buy a family apple tree on a dwarfing rootstock that we can grow in a pot.
• I'm also asking for some funds to buy a wormery so the pre-schoolers can start to compost their food waste every day and also build up a supply of organic matter for the garden.
• Plus, we're going to build a mini wildlife stack to encourage more beneficial insects into the garden.
• Finally, I'm going to make a supreme effort to actually plan a few lessons and perhaps even plant up some hanging baskets that don't make my feel queasy.

Hanging basket overload

This week I took delivery of 68 hanging baskets. This is not my attempt to single-handedly win Britain in Bloom.  In fact I don't hang baskets - pictures, mirrors, my head in shame - 'yes'; hanging baskets - 'no'. 

However, this driveful of flowers is delightful to me because it funds the pre-school garden for a whole year.  A very clued up Lincolnshire nursery, Lilfords, offers these to schools, pre-schools and playgroups all over the country to sell on for a tidy profit. So far they've helped these organisations raise over £25,000.

We've made £170 this year which has paid for our water butt, plants, compost and various materials to build the garden in the first place. 

So I may not be a hanging basket hanger but I am becoming a hanging basket fan (now try saying that after a gin and tonic or two).

I declare this pre-school garden... OPEN!

Well, at long last, we began the pre-school gardening club today.  I survived it (just) but I was channelling Joyce Grenfell most of the time ("George, don't do that").

The pre-school staff took pity on me, only sending out six children at a time and with at least one of them in tow.

I learnt a few things...

1) a five-minute attention-span would be a luxury

2) the difference between a two-year-old and a three-year-old is akin to the difference between The Weakest Link and Mastermind

3) never give a seed to a child and expect it still to be in their hand 30 seconds later

4) if anyone under four sees a watering can, whatever you are saying will only be heard as "pick up that watering can and pour as though your life depends on it"

5) plant labels come out of the ground even easier than they go in - and rarely return to the same place

Still, on the whole, it was a success.  We planted up the blueberry, apple mint and peas from Victoriana Nursery Gardens as well as some Nasturtiums and red onion sets I'd bought. 

I think I will plant up the Cosmic Carrots and cut and come again lettuce myself.  This size of seed combined with the current strong winds doesn't bode well for my mini gardeners.

Now I just hope things grow - especially given the shady nature of our plot.  The children have already started waving to their seeds from the pre-school window which must help - surely...

Making child friendly plant labels

 

I'm incredibly shallow when it comes to garden produce.  As excited as I am about the crop itself, my real concern is how my veg garden actually looks.

Last year I spent ages creating raised beds and surrounding them with clipped box hedging.  This year I'm becoming obsessed with plant labels.

I've seen some beautiful carved wooden labels and even slate and metal name tags, but almost all of these would require me to take out a second mortgage.  Then I went to Wilkinsons.

For those not au fait with this store, its the kind of place where you can buy 200 clothes pegs for 50p or 10 sticks of glue for under a pound.  Obviously we're not talking heirloom quality goods here, but if you ever get stuck in the hell of putting together 25 party bags for less than a tenner, this is the place for you.

But I digress...  What Wilkos does offer is 10" wooden spoons for the princely sum of 23p each. These are the perfect size for tactile, legible and aesthetically-pleasing plant labels.  All I needed for writing was a soldering iron and thankfully my neighbour is a man who very possibly owns every tool every invented and is delighted to share his collection.

I'm pretty pleased with how the finished labels look and they're very easy for Ava to read, but I'm aware that her younger brother isn't able to decipher words yet.  As I also needed to create some labels for the veg-bed at his pre-school, I've been thinking of another labelling system.

This afternoon inspiration struck.  The children were playing with their huge collection of plastic food, amassed over the past few years.  What could be better.  They're weather resistant, easy to recognise and lying around all over my house.  I simply put a slit in the bottom and pushed the appropriate vegetables on a kebab skewer.  Only problem is, I've searched the house high and low but I can't find the plastic lettuce leaf anywhere.  Having said that, if we want to grow grapes, bananas or chicken legs, I'm very well set up...

Builiding a Pre-School Garden on a Shoestring

I'm having a Blanche DuBois moment.  My son's pre-school garden - a tiny space less than four metres square - is nearly ready to be planted up and it has been made possible, almost entirely, by the kindness of strangers (and the Internet - although that featured less prominently in A Streetcar Named Desire...)

Despite the fact we are all supposed to be on the verge of financial collapse and a post-apocalyptic Mad Max style world is just around the corner, I have been amazed by the generosity of so many people.

The sleepers for the raised bed have come from the Perfumed Garden.  Simon, the landscaping side of the partnership, apparently spent a dissolute youth in this very village and having read about my travails on Landscape Juice, decided to make amends for former behaviour and donated enough wooden sleepers to make the main raised bed.  Karma is a wonderful thing.

Today I took delivery of a package of delightful promise from Victoriana Nursery Gardens containing a wonderful range of seeds (particularly excited about the Cosmic coloured carrots) as well as some apple mint and a blueberry plant. 

Stephen from Victoriana is turning into kind of springtime Santa as he's already helped Mrs Be with her school gardening club.  He offered to come to our aid as well when I congratulated her on these fab freebies (just one of the many reasons to love the blogoshpere).  Now I just need to make sure that the kids and I grow a harvest to be proud of so I can report back on the trial.

I've even received strawberry plants, seeds and a huge number of pots through Freecycle (surely one of the most useful grassroots organisations ever formed on the web) and a dump sack of spent mushroom compost from my local landscape supplier, Bannolds (although this may be part of their 'buy 20 sacks - get one free' promotion as my own garden does tend to swallow up the stuff at a frightening rate).

Sometimes it can seem a struggle creating a garden almost money, but it will be a better place for the fact so many have contributed to it.  Plus, it's great to be able to tell the children about all those who have helped to make it possible. 

Dominic Murphy wrote on the Guardian blog this week urging government initiatives and funding for school gardens but I think this misses the point.  The joy of creating something from nothing is far closer to the true nature of gardening and a better lesson to learn.