Carrots and Kids

How Safe Is Your Allotment?

Allotments may seem innocuous and wholesome but, if you think about it, they're quite dangerous places for the lone gardener and for children.

Nowadays I mostly visit alone which doesn't bother me from a safety point of view, although a blog discussion about solo allotment visits did make me think. I'm very clumsy so it does cross my mind occasionally about how I'd fare if I was to have an accident.

But what I'm now wondering about is how safe your allotment is for children? I'm not one of those who think that such places are not really for children. For some it's the only place they'll have to get their hands in soil.

I suppose allotments are not really safe places for kids. Some people might use chemicals on their patch, next door's dog doesn't look too friendly and those troughs to catch the water drips from the tap are quite deep.

Then there's stakes with tops left uncovered at children's eye level, poisonous rhubarb leaves and no doubt lots of other things I haven't thought of.

But that's ok. There are dangers everywhere (particularly walking to and home from school we're discovering, where we've witnessed two parents mount the kerb close to us).

When we're at the allotment my children have a fair degree of freedom. There's a wood behind into which they disappear. And when they're actually with us, we make sure they don't wander onto anyone else's plot. That's as much about manners as it is about keeping them safe.

I started thinking about this after reading the Guardian's gardening Facebook page where editor Jane Perrone had asked for ideas on how she could use a bath she'd inherited on a new allotment (I don't think I can link to it, sorry).

The ideas were interesting and varied but a couple of people said, for health and safety reasons, they wouldn't turn it into a pond. Someone even suggested that she got rid of it.

As a mother who has visited her allotment with crawling babies and inquisitive toddlers I was a bit surprised at this.

No one has a pond on our small site but there are the water troughs in which a child could easily drown. And it's never occured to me they should be removed. My children are my responsibility and I wouldn't expect allotments to be a safe place for them. So we keep a close eye on them and instill a few rules.

What do you think? Should you manage your plot with an eye on the saftey of curious children? Or is it the parents' duty to ensure they are kept safe? Perhaps allotments and children don't mix...

{Sowing Sweet Peas With My Sweet}

That cusp between two seasons, when you can feel it tipping over into something fresh, is one of my favourite times. I think I love all seasons but I love them best at their beginning.

So, invigorated by spring's arrival, I have actually been sowing seeds. This may not sound like news to anyone else but I am usually playing catch-up.

And, of course, as soon as my fingers dug into the compost there was my eager little seven-year-old helper who worked alongside me sowing sweet peas. It was bliss.

It's not too late to sow some; I can be found online at Tesco Magazine extolling the virtues of gardening with your children which could result in a fragrant sweet pea teepee this sumer. That's blissful too...

{Finding My Bliss}

Perhaps I shouldn't admit this on a gardening blog, but for the whole of 2011 I fell out of love with growing my own.

That's not to say that I hated it. More like I couldn't work up any real enthusiasm. I was busy in January working on things that didn't light my fire and instead of sending me running, open armed, into the garden it made me feel a bit downbeat about everything.

So I took the decision, some might say stupid, to give up work entirely. And except for the odd paid for blog post that is what I did.

I slowed down and turned my attention fully to the home. Boring for some. A rejection of feminism some (not I) might argue but for me and my family it was utterly the right thing to do.

And this passion for all things home, for doing more things myself, for eating a more healthy, wholefood diet has seeped into lots of areas including the back garden.

The wonderful weather this past weekend did have me if not running, then briskly walking into the garden, mug of coffee in hand to Sort It Out.

As I bossed around my "helper" (he who made much of the mess with some garden alterations and let it all sit there messily throughout winter), I exhaled deeply.

Yep, I was finally reuinited. Welcome back gardening bliss.

 

{Re-connecting My Children With Nature}

One of the areas of our life that I've let slide recently is connecting the (younger) children with nature. I'm not sure why it's happened. Maybe it's because it's winter or maybe, as is the case in families, other things have grabbed my attention and I've taken my eye off one of the many balls I'm juggling, just for a while.

I'm not sure if it comes across in the blog but I'm not a huge fan of some children's gardening activities. I mean, I love gardening with children and I try to think of plants they would like to grow but, really, the growing-flowers-in-wellies kind of activities leave me cold.

Sometimes that kind of gardening feels a bit contrived and patronising. It's a bit like cooking with children - making endless fairy cakes gets boring; I like to get mine cooking a range of things that are tasty, not aimed specifically at them.

Having said that, I need them to be outside for an hour a day and during the recent half-term this involved endless trips to the park.

But I want to reconnect them with nature a bit closer to home too. Going to the park is not always possible (or sometimes I just can't bear it) so with the promise of spring I'm turning my thoughts to the outdoors.

Here's my list of Things To Do To Get Back To Nature:

• Get the children planting the usual child-friendly veggies and flowers at home and at the allotment (but especially at home)
• Make a Nest Building Buffet for the birds (I have no idea what this is really called but involves putting out suitable material for our feathered parents and will have to be done SOON)
• Find space in the back garden for a digging pit. Mud pies and worm hospitals here we come
• Incorporate more sensory plants for the children to pick (like Lamb's Ears)
• Finding a patch or very large pot at home for them to grow herbs perhaps for the bath or maybe salad leaves in - either way I'd like them to grow something really useful for the family.

This isn't a comprehensive list and nor is it my definitive one. It's just one to kick-start a more outdoorsy time. If you have any good ideas, I'd love to hear them.

{Stuff}

Here's a list of things I have been doing or thinking. Sometimes only a list will do.

• Sowing sweet peas: we did some gardening at school which involved making our own pots out of paper (by wrapping newspaper round jam jars) and planting two seeds per pot. Some were straight out of the packet and others had been soaking in water as an "experiment" to see if pre-soaking makes any difference. I think not

• Wholefood eating: I have just started a three-month online course with Heather about wholefood eating. I am so excited. I did her 30-day vegan one in the summer and LOVED it

• Writing my new blog: I feel very excited about this too (although quite vulnerable about showing it. I mean, a blog about that). There are only three posts so far but many more to come. I had a stressful great time designing it and making it look how I wanted (with thanks to Liz who gave me a code for padding, whatever that is, and suggested a few tweaks). Oh and if you fancy a peek it's here

• Looking forward to half-term: yay! Although a week early this year, we are so ready for it. The little children are tired and I am a bit weary of making sad five and seven-year-olds go to school when they just want to stay home and play. There will be lots of Lego, parks and cake in our week and no homework

• Reading: I go through phases although always try and read one fiction book a month, even if it is for book group. Currently reading On The Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Oh and HUGE congrats to Dawn who's just had her first book published about gardening with children. 

So, as winter trundles on and the snow falls (well, it is here), what are you up to?

:: I'm not sure if the link to my blog is working. I suspect not. This is Typepad's fault and not a cynical ploy by me to get you very curious about the new blog. I'm hiting publish anyway just to confirm my suspicions. Actually, maybe this is a sign...

:: Edited - the link now works! It was me *blush*. My new blog is called birdoosh.

{eggs}

We used to have back garden hens. They were enormous fun, until a fox made off with the lot of them. A friend had loaned us a broody chicken which we named Gladys and gave us some fertile eggs and away we went, having fun and enjoying the resulting eggs for years.

Would I have chickens again? Yes, if I had the space. Oh, I know you can house them in an Eglu thing but it doesn't seem overly spacious to me. And right now we need the space for things like football.

Plus, if you let them roam, and why wouldn't you, they tend to wreck your lawn. And we had a rat in the garden. I know not everyone does but we did. Although they tend not to need much by way of encouragement to visit us. Bird food? Rats. Chickens? Rats.

So I make do with buying my eggs, which we seem to get through at a rate of knots. They are perfect though, versatile and coming complete with their own packaging which can be recycled in so many ways.

I try to keep the empty shells in a container or bag next to the Aga. When I have lots, I pop them into the bottom oven for a while.

Then I either crush them to add as a layer to pots of tomato seedlings when I'm potting on or as a slug deterrent around the base of seedlings.

Sometimes I also use them to grow seeds in, gently breaking them when it's time to transfer to the ground. Occasionally they go in the compost bin but they never seem to break down well plus, when they have so many other uses it seems a bit of a missed opportunity.

Now I also have a new use - I'm going to whiz them up in my food processor and add them to home-made bird food. I read this weekend (and can't remember where) that commercial bird food doesn't contain any calcium, essential for the baby birds. It's always nice to make your own fat balls so this is no extra work.

What do you use your egg shells for?

{Beauty in My Kitchen}

One thing you won't glean just from reading this blog is how very clumsy I am. Personally, I don't think I'm any clumsier than the next person but Hubby tells me differently, raising his eyes as I stumble, fall, trip, drop, burn and cut my way around the kitchen.

And as he's known me for 26 years I guess I'll have to take his word for it.

So it's no surprise to learn that I broke one of my favourite mugs. Blast! I was really disappointed. It was a pretty one which was annoying as it's never the children's Top Gear/High School Musical ugly mugs that cop it. Actually, I don't use them much so that's probably why...

After gluing it back together I decided to plant a hyacinth bulb in it. Well, what else can you do? It now sits on my kitchen windowsill, not quite ready to flower but nearly.

There are others in flower. I know some people are a bit sniffy about hyacinths but I'm so out of the loop I don't really know what's fashionable in the real world let alone the gardening one.

And so as to ensure that I don't end up drinking from a motely collection of horrid mugs (yes, I am that fussy) I treated myself to a replacement, a £5 Cath Kidston one. I figured it would look lovely this time next year with some paper white growing out of it...

 

{So What If It's Cold}

Following on from my last post, it is, naturally, now winter proper. I am sat here with a very cold nose, wearing four layers and contemplating a fifth.

Of course, it is not really the weather for blogging either. Really, I should be ironing....

And when I used to run a gardening club I decreed it wasn't the weather for gardening. Oh, I know there are things to do but it was always nice to have a break.

Now I am a helper whose main responsibility is to just turn up, we are ploughing on. This week we replenished a dead hedge. It's quite cool, but something you'd need a lot of space for I reckon. Perfect for a school though.

I am keen to do some gardening with, at least, my children. I'm resigned to it being largely indoors. Possibilities include creating a terrarium, planting winter peas, sowing broad beans in modules and onions too.

Or how about starting a nature or gardening journal? And let's not forget about feeding the birds...

Crikey, I've inspired myself! That's got to be another good thing about blogging.

:: The photo was taken with iPhone. You can see the older, darker parts of the hedge ::

 

{Feels Like Spring}

I admit I have been enjoying this weather. Out and about the other day, it really felt like spring. And I know, I do, that isn't good.

No doubt we will have some bad weather, I keep seeing snow shovels and sledges for sale everywhere. That in itself is unusual, I'm sure I never used to.

I read about someone hearing a blackbird singing the other morning. And how it might turn out to be a challenging gardening year because there has been no cold snap to kill off pests.

Although I haven't missed the snow this year, I have missed the crunchy, frosty mornings. But despite all of that, all the misgivings about the mild weather, I did gasp with delight at the allotment when I saw my calendulas still blooming.

Admittedly, I was less enamoured to see lots of nasturtium seedlings sprouting. Thinking of sowing a few at your allotment? I wouldn't, not unless you know it'll be a hard winter to kill them off.

{gardening with glue}

The weather has been grim. I'm pretty sure it's been horrid throughout the whole of the UK. And strange. After the hardest rain I've seen in a long time there was blue sky.

But I'm not complaining. After all I wasn't out in it. But I am hoping this is not a sign of things to come, weather-wise, in 2012. Please.

Still, it did mean that I could get on with doing a rather favourite form of gardening. That of gardening with glue. While I like reading gardening books, it's pictures that help form my ideas and get me inspired.

So in lieu of seed catalogues which are winging their way to me, I cut up some old magazines which was a form of decluttering and Fantasy Gardening.

I'm not setting myself up for a fall, I'm fully aware that I have neither the skill or the money to transform my garden but I do need to do something with both the front and back and this scrapbook will help.