I Think You’re Bonkers

Says Mimi on a regular basis, every time salad is served and she carefully picks out the bits she likes.

It’s hot, so salad is featuring quite a bit, especially as we’re growing edible leafy things - yes, lettuce! So, she has some carrot sticks, raisins and slices of apple while Dino and I have everything else, apart from he doesn’t like tomato….. 

About a week ago Mimi helped me pull some baby lettuce for the salad. "What’s this?" she asked. "Salad leaves." I can’t remember if it’s lettuce, what sort it is or what, so it’s salad leaves. There’s a wrinkly leafed one in green, similar in red and a round leaved one in bright green. She tried them all and said she liked the round green one.

She still doesn’t like lettuce, the wrinkly one, but the roundish green salad leaves are alright.   Daft child. Must sow another row of "salad leaves".

Conversations:

Mimi - Can we grow cucumber?

Me - We can try, why?

Mimi - Because I like to make tzatziki.

Me - But you won’t eat it?

Mimi - No, it’s yucky, cucumber is yucky but I like making it.  

Go figure…..

I think I need to make choc chip muffins. 

We popped into the butchers to see if we could pick up some chicken wings for Merlin, who is on holiday here.

Sorry, we’re all out of wings, have you got the dog on holiday again? Dino grins and nods. "Would you like a bone for him?"

Oh yes, happy hound.

We wandered the flea market and Dino bought himself a book - Dr Who adventures with the Judoon. But he BOUGHT HIMSELF A BOOK!!! I was so proud. Mimi, not to be outdone also bought a book - Noddy. I grabbed a leap-pad book for Mimi and a couple of the Lemony Snicket books for Dino along with a few household bits - new pillows for everyone as I’m fed up of lumpy, flat or generally unpleasant pillows.

On arrival back home the dog mugged us for the bone and is now being a carnivore out in the garden, although he seems quite happy to share with Dino, but no-one else. The kids have surprised me though. Mimi has spent the last hour doing her new leap pad book - it’s a basic ABC one, to help with her reading and she loves it. Dino is carefully cutting out cube nets to make Borg cubes and he’s doing really well!

I love days like this.  

Handwriting practice for both kids - letter formation for Mimi and copy work for Dino, including drawing a map to instructions. She’s better at it, more patient and willing but he’s plugging away at it and can only improve.

Then some basic maths - hundreds, tens and units adding for him and simple single figure adding for her. He thrives on maths and I love watching him work on stuff he enjoys and does well.

After that I think some swingball might be in order, or just doing whatever in the garden, and I have a book to finish writing, and accounts to do…..

It was at the end of the carrots, tucked away at the back of the shelter/cloche, which incidenmtally I’ve had to take apart today in an effort to lift it up a bit as the broccoli are threatening to escape ….. I think the pepper in there might be thinking about flowering?

Anyway, the carrot label says "Carrot, Purple Dragon, 25/5" So they were sown at the end of May and pulled at just about big enough to eat this week - 2 months(ish), not bad going. They could have done with longer to get bigger but we’re just impatient. Also dug up a few more spuds and shoved in a sprouting one from the larder in the hope that it might grow - that’s three I’ve done like that and you never know, we might just get a second crop in late autumn. Some of this lot of spuds are actually quite large and we’re not eating that many each week so this crop should keep us keep us going for ages, probably most of the summer.

Peas are coming on nicely and so are the first baby pumpkins - I just hope there’s enough summer for them to grow and ripen properly.

Education - Both kids did reading and writing this morning and I want to do some work on BIG numbers with Dino later, but lunch first I think….

The clouds are coming over grey and threatening now but it’s been dry so far today. So we’ve spent the morning in the garden where we pottered about, planted out more carrots, replaced a spud that we dug up yesterday, cut back the overgrown chard, found a beetroot and discussed why the comfrey in the bucket has completely disintegrated and the water is now blown and really really stinky!

Dino and his very own beetroot, which he wants for tea tonight.

Broccoli, carrots, pepper, dill and celery (possibly some lettuce in there too) all doing brilliantly in my little cloche/shelter thing from Lidl. I’ll be on the look out for another one for next year as it’s really protected the plants from pests and weather.

Sunflowers - galloping up the fence and in need of tying in for support I think, maybe tomorrow. There are the first signs of flowers coming on these.

My buddleia, no flowers this year but the growth is fantastic so I’m hoping for flowers and insects next year.

Pumpkin comp…..

Mine:

Those flowers are male but there could be the first baby pumpkin under the leaves, it’s very very tiny.

The kids:

Again, a male flower but no sign of baby pumpkins yet.

We’re loving the garden this year and learning loads about seasons, growing plants, what’s edible and what we like as well as ecosystems and beneficial wildlife.

If it stays dry I’m going to sow some more carrots in loo roll inners - just stand them on end in something, fill with compost and put a couple of carrot seeds at the top, cover with a bit of compost. Then keep dampish and ignore until they come up. Then express much excitement at baby seedlings and keep damp, while waiting impatiently for proper leaves. Then when they’re almost too big for the tubes and the cardboard is actually almost too soggy to handle without it falling to bits, go and frantically dig over a random bit of garden, stick them in so soil covers the top of what’s left of the tube and sprinkle with organic slug pellets (or slug deterrent of choice - it’s incredibly disheartening to find the tops of tubes and no carrots!) Treat with a combination of ignore and impatience until not really big enough to pull up and then pull and eat. Yummm!

A few red/purple carrots (Dragon), small but the rest can carry on growing a bit, a few very very tiny orange carrots (chantenay) a pile of spuds (kestrel I think - some for tonight and some for tomorrow) then at the end there’s a heap of dill, some to just eat and some to dry if I can.

Any tips on drying dill? Oh and there were a handful of peas but we seem to have eaten them. The purple carrots are the first carrots I’ve ever grown successfully here and that’s thanks to the loo roll tip I got from the Downsizer forums. The loo roll inners are all but gone and the carrots are just WONDERFUL!

Mimi’s last Rainbows for the summer, and Dino’s last Beavers too. This was why we came home today, more than anything it was because they didn’t want to miss the last meetings.

It was a good job too because Mimi made her Rainbow promise (unexpectedly) and got her certificate and promise badge.

The badge is on the left of her shirt - it went a bit floppy as it’s a heavy badge on a loose shirt, but it’s there. Granny knitted the rainbow for her.

Note for Witchy Woo (who I know checks here for kid pics) Yes, those are the sunflowers behind her, I’ll get more garden pics for you if we get any dry days soon! 

The kids had a holiday in Wales with my parents and then I went and joined them for Dino’s birthday. Here are a few pics in case anyone still reads here any more…

Dino and Granddad went rockpooling…

And in the bucket there was a…..

Still alive and trying to get out - he released it carefully.

On a different day and a different beach - doing what kids should do with sand - and after spotting an EO sticker in a car near us in the car park we spent a lovely couple of hours with a bunch of home edders!

The day it rained and G&G had really had enough and needed a day off we headed into Cardiff for the Dr Who exhibition.

And that’s more than enough pics for now, I have tea to drink and washing to put on… There are loads more pics that I might sort out another day. 

Last Saturday but we were away, so a belated birthday post for Dino, who is now 8.

Fuschia and Acer on the table - waiting for me to decide where they’re going, and a dry day to do it too.

Tub of random flowers and left over things.

Sundew - flowering!