Things have got much busier now in the garden and we’ve nearly completed all our veg seed sowing and planting.

Pretty much all the seeds we sowed have germinated. We’ve been planting up all our growbags in our polytunnel with the courgettes, squash, cucumbers and tomatoes we’ve grown from seed.

Mum has also been taking out the side shoots on the tomato plants and tying them to their canes for support. She has also been tying the cucumbers up too.

We’ve had our first batch of 2020 rocket. I’m not keen on it as it’s very peppery but mum and dad like it and had it with some lasagne. Our apple, pear and plum trees have all been covered with blossom, but this has gone now and you can see small fruits appearing. I love the cooking apples from our garden in the autumn when they have been stewed to make crumble and custard. It’s great knowing where your food comes from.

Our hens have been laying eggs but sometimes they forget! I think they get too excited about all the weeds we chuck in for them from the veg beds. They love scratching around in the heaps and finding all the bugs to eat.

In our veg beds we’ve sown beetroots, carrots, peas, various beans, plus lots of leeks and lettuce.

I love leeks, carrots and peas, and I quite like beetroot. We’re tidying up our fruit beds next, they are definitely looking very untidy, so we have more weeds to tame.

We’ve lots of strawberries in flower and some fruits appearing, so I’m looking forward to eating these soon! We’re starting to move into the next stage in the veg garden, where we do lots of looking after things and more weeding – that’s dull but necessary.

Then, we’ll sow some more seeds, succession sowing it’s called, so we get batches of veg coming, not lots all at once. After that we can enjoy some great meals. In the meantime, happy gardening!

Olivia