Although most of my time is spent growing my cut flowers, this week I have enjoyed spending time with my girls in the garden growing our fruit and vegetables. We have always encouraged them to love the outdoors, spend time outside and have their own space to grow things.
This week it was time to plant the potatoes. My 8 year old daughter helped me to dig the trenches and place all the potatoes in. We had a lot of fun and got nice and muddy! Last year they had a great time finding hidden treasure when we needed potatoes for tea and I am hoping there will be lots for them to find this year too. Â We are planting the potatoes in areas of my cut flower patch that I think will benefit from potato harvesting and the earthing up around them, which will break up the soil.
Also this week we harvested the first rhubarb and the girls made a crumble to have for Sunday dinner. They love this pudding and have never pulled a face at having to eat rhubarb. I am sure this has a lot to do with seeing it growing in the garden, helping to harvest it and being able to help with the cooking in the kitchen.
This year the girls also decided to buy some flower seeds for their pots outside and a hanging basket for growing tomatoes. They were excited to see their phlox, lobelia and geraniums had germinated this week. I will let you know how they get on growing their little gardens later in the summer!
Also this week in the cut flower patch I have had a lot of fun making jam jar posies for Friday and Saturdays stall. I am starting to meet some lovely people who I hope are enjoying the flowers as much as I am enjoying growing and arranging them!
The last of the tulips and narcissus were available this week and I am now looking towards next year and which new varieties I will try. The bluebells are looking beautiful and I think there will be one more week of these. I am just starting to see the heads on the alliums come up and the hesperis looks like it will bloom next week too.
The conservatory is bursting with plants ready to go in the garden. I am just hesitating slightly with planting these out as I lost some two weeks ago with the hard frost. I am going to harden them off over the next two weeks and then I will see what the weather is doing!
My last thoughts for this week are I would really encourage anyone with children or grandchildren to get them involved in growing something in the garden with you this summer. Whether its a competition as to who can grow the tallest sunflower or growing some strawberries in a pot. My girls are aged 3, 6 and 8 and sometimes with a family of differing ages it is difficult to find activities everyone is happy to do!  Gardening I have found though is something we can all do together and have a great time. Its messy, fun, healthy and a really good way of spending quality time together. Go on have a go …….