We had a busy outdoor weekend, which is good because people keep telling me this nice weather is our summer!.
Our new garden
I’ve shared pictures of some of the interesting features in our new house and asked for your input into what we should do with the dining room, but the only information I’ve shared about the garden is one picture in my February Project Life layouts. This is partly due to the wet weather, but also because I’m not a gardener. The garden is approximately twenty times bigger than our old one, so when we discussed buying the house I made it clear it would be ED’s responsibility. I love the space, but don’t know what to do, how to do it and to be honest generally don’t even think about it.
Anyway here is our back garden … yes the previous owners chose to have a bonfire in the middle of the lawn. That was a high priority to sort because it appears they burnt anything so there were bits of glass and metal in the soil; but now it is the best bit of grass in the garden.
Arrival of the ‘shed’
The key task for the weekend was to build the Dunster House climbing frame; or the new shed as we told B. We had read it might take four days to assemble and didn’t want to be questioned all weekend about when would it be ready. Although this didn’t actually stop the questions because a new shed was very exciting and both kids wanted to be involved.
Gardening
Fortunately a distraction arrived for B in the form of a gardening kit and she insisted we use it straight away. This was the perfect reason to tackle one of the over grown raised beds on the patio. In the long term we will probably remove these, particularly as two of them are bridging the damp proof course, but in the short term they are perfect for children’s gardening.
Digging in the soil was lots of fun. B got the concept of weeding, but M is currently working through a transporting phase so he wanted to move the soil into the watering can, the gardening bag, a toy tea cupm or the weeds from wheelbarrow to the middle of the lawn. Unfortunately I was soon left to finish the weeding on my own, but B returned for the seed planting and watering; they were definitely her favourite activities.
Creatures
By disturbing their home in the weeds we saw lots of creatures in the flower bed. We found worms, wood lice, beetles, centipedes, woodlice, a caterpillar and a slug. In the rest of the garden M was fascinated by a frog and the red kites (he’ll actually do the sign for bird when he sees them).
Results
After two days we have a climbing frame. Thankfully ED and my father in law are both very practical and were able to interpret the pile of instructions into a securely built structure. At 18 months, I was concerned M may be too young to climb up the ladder, but there was really no need.
Plus we have an almost emptied flower bed. The lemon balm took me almost the whole of Sunday as it was very securely rooted, but we now have empty space and are ready to go and buy more seeds.
This post is an entry for BritMums’ #KidsGrowWild Challenge, you can find out more here. I was sent the gardening kit free of charge, but was not paid for this post. All the opinions are entirely my own.
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