Spring

Did you breathe a little more deeply today, knowing that it was March and spring was in the air?

I love this time of year, when the flowers burst open. This daffodil is hiding a little moth.

How lovely to be able to spend time in the garden.

With apologies for the poor quality of these photographs, but these were taken on a long zoom from my kitchen window.

Can you see a little blue and yellow head peeping out from the nesting box?

Spring

The Results of our Bosch Garden Makeover

What do you mean it doesn't look all that?

This is what it was like before:

So I'd say it's a definite improvement! We've been preparing the ground for our vegetable patch, but can't plant anything until the spring. 

The boys have decided we're going to grow potatoes, carrots, runner beans, sweetcorn and cabbages.

The squirrel has decided we're growing oak trees. Git.

Even though my hands, arms, legs and back are aching from the final push this weekend, I'm really glad we took part in the Bosch Garden Makeover. It gave us the motivation we needed to think about how we wanted our garden to look and what we wanted from it. I wrote this post about the start of our journey.

Cash, three, is particularly excited that we now have our own blueberry bush. He asks every day whether they're ready yet. It's going to be a long eight months before he can try any!

Our garden isn't huge (thank goodness)! The front garden has one border, here it is before:

Here it is after a good tidy up and the addition of some winter pansy seedlings:

I love getting the garden ready for winter. I enjoy pruning, even though I have no idea what I'm doing. There's something quite satisfying about cutting everything back.

We were grateful to Bosch for providing us with some cordless hedgecutters. We have more hedge than we know what to do with, but at least we can keep it tidy. Here it is before:

The hedgecutters are a dream to use. Here it is after:

The most visible transformation has been the rockery. Here it is before:

Thanks to Best4Plants.co.uk it is now much better stocked and there's a new clematis on the trellis:

The best thing is the splash of colour that I can now see from my kitchen window.

The service from Best4Plants.co.uk was superb. The staff are knowledgeable and helpful and the delivery arrived on time. The plants were well packaged. We're still waiting for our new fruit trees and rose bushes as these are not available until November, so you'll have to wait to see those.

We also had a free lawn treatment from lawn specialists Greenthumb.co.uk. This is the lawn several weeks after the weed-killing and grass-feeding treatments:

It looks patchy, but this is perfectly normal. Edited to add: When GreenThumb saw these photographs they sent someone round to check our lawn to make sure it was as expected (and it was), this was wonderful service. 

You can see from this close up that there are no weeds and I fully expect the grass to come back better than ever:

The boys in particular have loved being outside more. We let them dig in the bare vegetable patch and pour water in the hole. I was jealous that I couldn't join them!

I got the pleasure of the laundry!

Huge thanks to Bosch for organising this makeover competition and providing us with the hedgecutters. Thanks to Coblands for letting me go on a £100 spending spree on Best4Plants.co.uk. Thanks also to Greenthumb.co.uk for the free lawn treatment and advice.

There are a few other bloggers taking part in the Bosch Garden Makeover and there will be a poll to chose the winning makeover - details to follow. The winner will receive tickets to RHS Chelsea and a day with Helen Yemm, gardening expert at the Telegraph.

Now, where's my hand cream?!

The poll:

http://twtpoll.com/yalur9



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The Results of our Bosch Garden Makeover

My Life is Like an Episode of Ground Force

Well, it would be if Charlie Dimmock, Tommy Walsh and the kindly Alan Titchmarsh contrived to turn up and work their green-fingered magic while I disappeared on a mini-break.

Actually, it's more like The Good Life Chez Calico these days. We're taking part in the Bosch Garden Makeover Competition.

This is our garden before we started work on our horticultural transformation:

We moved here in July and found mainly weeds, bamboo and ivy. Loads of ivy.

We're slowly getting rid of it, green bin load by green bin load:

We also have a hedge that may feature in the 2011 Guinness Books of World Records for being the biggest hedge in the world. Thanks to Bosch we now have the power to tame it as they were kind enough to send us some cordless hedgecutters. I have been reliably informed by my husband that they work brilliantly and he is over the moon with how easy they are to use. No excuse now, dear. I'm also pleased that they're cordless, for safety reasons.

Our garden isn't all bad though. Our lawn only has three types of weed in it. It could be a lot worse, according to the lovely people from Greenthumb.co.uk.They did an assessment of our lawn and provided us with their autumn weed-killer and grass fertiliser treatment. I'll let you know how well that has worked in my final post where I reveal the results of our makeover. These people know their stuff. If you want a beautiful lawn, give them a call.

We're not avid gardeners, but we love being outside and there's always something for the boys to look at or play with. Our plan is to turn the big weed patch into a vegetable patch so that we can grow our own fruit and veggies. We have cleared all of the weeds and bamboo and we're now getting the soil ready for planting.

We've also been busy caring for our winter pansy seedlings:

As the final part of the Bosch Makeover we are being given some plants by Best4plants.co.uk. It has taken us ages to decide what to choose as they have a massive range. Also, the majority of the plants that were on the estate agent's details seem to have moved along with the vendor. The only thing we don't need is winter pansies.

I'll let you know how we get on!

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My Life is Like an Episode of Ground Force

Three Word Gallery: Grow Your Own

This week it's a Three Word Gallery at Sticky Fingers. The three words I have chosen are Grow Your Own.

We're not big gardeners, but we like to keep the garden neat and tidy. As the children get older it is easier for us to all spend time outside.

My children love being out in the garden. They simply want to help. Here they are doing some weeding. 

Thanks to the influence of Mr Bloom's Nursery they like to feed Compo (our compost bin) everyday. I let them.

We were invited to the launch of that and another new CBeebies programme (the mighty Rastamouse) earlier this year. Sadly, we couldn't make it (gutted doesn't get near how we felt), but they were kind enough to send us the goody bag from the event. In the bag were some lettuce seeds.

We sowed them in a pot, watered them and ran over to look at their progress every day.

We grew our own lettuce. What a fantastic thing to do and so simple.

Maybe we'll branch out and grow a few more veggies. I'll keep you posted.


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Three Word Gallery: Grow Your Own

Where Do Chips Come From?

1 in 10 children aged 7 - 11 think chickens lay potatoes! *

1 in 5 have no idea that potatoes are grown in the ground *

1 in 5 didn't realise that chips are made from the humble spud *

Wow. I suppose I'm lucky. When I was growing up we ate fresh food and my Grandad had an enormous vegetable patch. I remember driving home most Sundays holding a massive cabbage or cauliflower.

I've continued to cook from scratch all my life and luckily Andy is the same. Of course we occasionally eat processed food and have the odd takeaway, but for us there's nothing like a plate that has fresh vegetables on it.

I want my children to understand food provenance. I always show them what I'm cooking and name every piece of food on their plates, especially the vegetables. The meat side of food production may be tricky, after all who wants to eat Buttercup Cow or Lavender Lamb?!

Presley and Cash have been in our greenhouse and they know we had tomatoes, peppers and chillies there in the Summer. Andy's father also grows fruit and vegetables. As a treat Presley is allowed to eat tomatoes straight from the plant. I can always tell he has been in Grandad's greenhouse as he has a trail of pink juice down his chin and on his T-shirt. He also likes to bring his Grandma potatoes from the sack in the garage.

The lovely Kim Hong from Fleishman Hillard sent the boys some little gardening sets and a packet of potato seeds. Thank you Kim, we'll plant them next year - when it's a bit warmer! She also sent some information on "The Potato Story" that I would like to share with you.

This is the final week that the McCain educational bus is touring schools. This unbranded, purpose-built double-decker bus has to date reached 17,400 primary school children in a national roadshow. The aim is to educate children about where their food comes from and how to make healthy food choices. On the bus the children learn how potatoes are grown and harvested as well as the different methods to prepare them to eat. The journey from field to fork is demonstrated as an interactive learning experience.

If your child missed the bus, you can check out the fantastic accompanying website here.

You can see some photos on their flickr stream here.

So, what are my boys having for tea? Fish fingers, peas, sweetcorn and oven chips. Ahem. The oven chips are home made using real potatoes, thank you very much!

* McCain "Food for Thought" surveyed 1500 children aged between 7 and 11 in February 2009.

Where Do Chips Come From?