It’s been a busy few days in the garden since my last blog. My mum has been sowing seeds and has planted up growbags in our polytunnel and we now have lots of young tomato plants coming on, as well as cucumbers, butternut squash and courgettes as well as runner, French and broad beans. We’ve also sown rocket, mizuna and cut and some leaves in one of the growbags, and I don’t think it’ll be long before we can start eating them as micro-salad in our sandwiches!

I have helped dad plant two pear trees. We dug out the grass around them so they get a good start and placed bark down around them too and have been watering them every day – until it started raining. They have stakes and a bar to help keep them upright and stable and to stop them from rocking in the wind. It can be very windy where we live as we’re near the coast and young trees, like young people, need good support.

Every day I help mum by watering the tubs of spring flowering bulbs we have around the house. They are looking really good at the moment, but it’s been very warm. The Tete a Tete narcissus have stopped flowering now and mum has dead headed them, but the tulips (Queen of the Night and some apricot ones) still look great.

Mum sowed some cauliflower and sprout seeds in trays and we watered them and put them in the small propagator we’ve got so they kept warm all the time. They’ve now germinated and we’ve transplanted them (or picked them out, that’s the technical term!) into pots and trays and are growing them on in the polytunnel until they are big enough to go outside. Interestingly the cauliflower seedlings actually smell of the cauliflower you eat! Mum is hoping to have some grown sprouts for Christmas but only dad likes to eat them!

I’ve also been helping dad repair our raised beds. Ants have been using some of the existing boards, which have been in since I can remember and I am now 13, to make colonies and they have turned to dust in some places. We’ve replaced two beds fully and mum has now planted one of these with sweet peas, rhubarb and potatoes. That’s a colourful mix!

We’ve also planted another bed with leeks and shallots and we’ve lots of other leek and onion seeds to sow. We rotate the beds every year and have a plan. We have 12 beds, three are full of raspberries, gooseberries and black currents. The other nine we use for vegetables and sweet peas. We have some strawberries outdoors and some in the polytunnel in hanging baskets, away from the cheeky squirrel, who likes to eat them before us!

Next time I write my blog I hope that all out veg beds will be planted or sown, so I can tell what ever we’re growing. In the meantime, happy gardening!

Olivia