Strange times

It is very strange in the world at the moment. I am working from home for the majority of the time, just going in a couple of days a week to care for the children of other key workers. We are only allowed out once a day for exercise so I go out for one dog walk a day and make sure Teen-girl comes with us. This means I haven't been running for ages.
The Manchild has taken himself off to his girlfriend's parents whilst this is all going on as his asthma is bad, he has had several chest infections already this winter and with my job I pose a big risk to him. It's very strange without him home.
I have spent time doing up our little house. I have decorated the bathroom, decorated the kitchen and spent time sorting the garden in the effort to have a more productive vegetable garden this year. I am missing a few seeds I would like to have planted; tomatoes, peas, green beans. I might be bale to get some the next time I head into town for food, but I am hoping not to need to do that for a while.
I have planted kale, lettuce, carrots, pumpkins, various herbs, cabbages and cauliflowers so hopefully some of these will germinate although it may be a challenge as some of the seeds I have used have been lurking in the shed for a few years. It's all a bit of an experiment.
The garden is looking tidier, still more to do on it but it is getting there.

Weeding with my helper

Some old seeds planted with optimism.

My helper laying the weed membrane.

What are you doing during this strange time period? I hope you are keeping well.

Food.......

My little lady came back from Brownie camp today. Excited, but shattered!

I needed to pop to town to get some cash out and pay for a couple of coach trips we have planned. In a nearby town a lovely youth worker organises trips for families every summer. We are always invited along to join in, all for the princely sum of £5 each. We have one trip which is to an air show and the other to a nearby seaside town. Well actually they are both coastal seaside towns. The first one is an hour and 40 minute drive away the other is 1 hour and 20 minute drive away. Both towns have parking costs over £10 for the day for little car like mine. So these trips work out much better value when you think they don't cost me in petrol or wear and tear on my car etc. Also I like to go out with other grown ups too! LOL

I have also pottered in the garden and collected these;

Stephanie gobbled the peas quickly and had a very sad face when I said that there would not be many more this eyar. Next year I need to plant a variety of pea plants so we get a longer cropping season as they are a favourite here.

We had half these carrot thinnings with our dinner, the others in the fridge for tomorrows lunch.

We had half the green beans with our dinner, the others I have frozen for another time as I get this many almost everytime I go hunting in the bean bed at the moment. I am the only one who really likes them, Stephanie will eat a few and Dylan won't touch them at all.

I also spent a little time crafting with my girl in the garden;

 

Before we both decided it was time to sit with our feet up!

Herbs

I am growing herbs in my container garden. Currently growing I have;
mint
basil
parsley
dill
coriander

I use herbs in my cooking but I am looking into other ways to use herbs in the home. I have far more growing than we can eat,, especially the mint and parsley as they are almost a year old plants now so have really taken off.

Last night I saw that you can put herbs in your bath and that mint is a rejuvenating herb. As I have an abundance of mint I decided to cut some and place in my bath to see if it really did smell nice/ work.

I picked a small plastic tub of mint and popped it into my bath as it was running. I have to say I couldn't actually smell the mint once it was in the water. I wonder if you need a huge amount of the mint to make the bath smell?

What uses do you have for your herbs? Other than cooking with them what else can I use my herbs for?

Spring gardening

Yesterday I spent a lovely day out on the garden. It was chilly but with a coat on was ok. I got a fair amount done. I started by digging over Stephanie's patch of front garden which is going to be a flower bed. As Stephanie had a friend around to play they both got busy planting.

Lots of seeds got planted alongside the flowers.

Then i headed to the back garden. I got the new raised beds planted up.

I transplanted cabbages I had growing in pots over the winter.

In the second bed went the onions, again they had been growing in containers. I also planted lots more onion bulbs. The whole bed should be full if they all grow. My sister popped around whilst i was doing these and commented on how much bigger the raised beds are in person than in a picture. She thought they were very small in the pictures I sent her.

I checked on my seedlings in my tiny plastic green house:

Growing nicely. Then planted a few more and put into the bigger pop up greenhouse

I'm trying to plant seedlings every couple of weeks in the hope of being able to have continuous cropping throughout the summer. I really want to grow as much as possible for ourselves this year. 

Now I need to get on and complete the building of the other raised beds. Dry weather again this weekend please....

The joys of a sunny day

We had a lazy start to the day today.

I got up and went for a run first thing while the children were snoring still. Then I came back and started looking for cheap half term breaks. I whittled it down to a choice of 3 campsites in the area I would like to go. Then once the children were up we decided together. It's all booked now. I like to have something to look forward to :-)


Then we decided it was time to do something with the garden;

 

A bit of a chop and a sweep and it's all looking better and full of promise;

 

 

The raspberry bush has lots of flower buds appearing, fingers crossed we should have a plentiful supply this year.

 

I planted some salad leaves, some carrots, garlic, red cabbage and pumpkins in here.

 

The Strawberries are starting to flower

My recycled pots anging space is coming along nicely

 

Much better now that it is tidy.

 

My garden is very small just a few metres long and even less wide. I like to combine as much of growing our own spaces with family play space as possible. hence the lots of hanging containers and around the edge space. Hopefully we will get a plentiful supply for our needs this summer. Square foot gardening taken to the max here at the littlefamilyof3 house.

 

Do you have any tips for me on how I can maximise our tiny space? or indeed anyone who reads this with the same/similar issues