Happy Eastes Sunday /Gardening against the odds

Happy Easter Sunday! Whaddya think of my biscuit then? masterpiece eh! well the girls, their friend and I had fun doing those yesterday afternoon, kept us entertained. This morning however I have been doing other things.

The morning started with my lovley REM sleep being disturbed by a very excited daughter wielding an Easter Egg, all good, the Easter bunny has done his job well. REM 0, Kids 1. So dh distracted the kids by letting them eat an egg each and I got half way through my friends 'Kick Ass' Graphic, before an almighty crash signaled the end of 'A's plantpot and stand (very sad as inherited from his deceased mother) and one very upset dd1, as she realised the significance of what her dancing had done........

Fastforward a few hours, graphic finished (yay) and breakfast out of the way, I decide to pot on a few of our attempts at the growing of veg and flowers for the year.

Above are our lettuce seedlings, nestling in garden fleece, in a hope they may survive.

This is when I discover that a) its blooming freezing outside, despite a mixture of sunshine and showers and b) that dd2 has been attempting to kill several of the plants all by herself....it's enough to drive you to chocolate (and more coffee) I tell you!

Below is a picture of a surviving sunflower, dd2 has discovered that you can happily kill them by slotting your finger nails through the stems.......she's also re-discovered the naughty step and an unhappy mummy, I'm hoping she's learned her lesson?

So in the end I managed to pot on the remaining few Sunflowers, (shame dd2 killed the best 3, sob, sob) 6 Tomatoes and 6 Sweetcorn as well. The results are displayed on our dining room table below, with a variety of other flower seedlings still waiting to grow. I've dragged the table in front of the window in the hope that this will assist the growth, should the sun every escape the cloud for 5 mins?

Strawberries Nil

This year I've been attempting to grow various things in pots. We've not got much border in which to do growing left, as I seem to have covered it all in bushes and herbs! So in an effort to show the girls how to grow their own food (like they paid much attention really) earlier we sowed a few trays of seeds, plus a few outdoor pots and now here are the results starting to come through! The pot above contains spring onions, I nibbled two for a taster with some sausages yesterday lunch and they were lovely, although they could do with another week or two to grow a bit more yet, so I shall refrain from harvesting any more just yet (Richard its a good job I forgot to send you home with some!)

The pot garden in all its glory.

The Grow bags contain far too many tomatoes, so I'm expecting a bumper chutney season in Autumn, although I may loose one plant yet, that is growing sideways mainly I assume due to the wind, but its stem is getting rather waterlogged, so may rot......

You can also see (left to right) Spring Onions, (back pot) Strawberries, 2 x Carrotts and finally Peas! Hopefully we shall have good crops from all, but we shall see........one thing I have learnt is that the table could do with moving, as whenever I put up the umbrella, it puts half the pots in shade....sigh.

Here's a photo of my fantastic strawberries. Well they were fantastic, we've had some very good eating off them, right up until the point that a small rodent, I think its a vole, has decided to start nibbling them.......we saw it bold as brass yesterday, running through the patch, taking a nibble out of each of my lovely ripening fruits......it ran away for all of 10 seconds when it realised I had spotted it, then it crept back.....I need to borrow my friends cat.....or get one of my own, dratted vermin. So yesterday it was Strawberries nil, invading nibbler 6........I was going to get netting, but they tunnel right? (the strawberries are in the remains of the border) sigh, moggy it is. I really wouldn't mind, but these strawberries did nothing last year, bar chucking off other runner plants, so to get all this lovely fruit this year, was something amazing! yet now I'm foiled again, who'd have thought gardening was so painful?