Tell me, do you excel at gardening? what is your garden like? Is it pristine with edged paths, no weeds, regulation cut lawn? Or maybe it’s like mine; strewn with children’s toys, an uncontrollable lawn, weeds, untrimmed hedges and in desperate need of attention?
I’ve barely spent any time keeping the garden together this year. Bits of it are so bad I’ve had to put my foot down and tell my wife that we have no choice but to get a gardener to come in for a day or so and knock it in to shape.
I’m sure the number of children you have correlates directly to the amount of time you spend working in the garden. Before we had kids, the lawn was well kept and I would bring fresh vegetables into the kitchen every day to cook for our evening meal.
We then had a child and moved house. This presented challenges but I still managed to keep the garden of our new home in order, although it was a struggle.
Last summer was our first with two children. The garden was okay, but I could tell standards were slipping, especially when it came to trimming the hedges. Having previously been done monthly, it was now done quarterly.
Things came to a head yesterday when our next door neighbour and I were chatting over the aforementioned unruly hedge. He wanted to check whether I was bothered that he’d trimmed some of the hedge that borders both our lawns (I hadn’t even noticed). I’m probably being paranoid, but I’m sure he was very politely trying to tell me he was fed up with my ever decreasing standards.
Choosing to write a blog doesn’t help matters. I could spend more time in the garden if I didn’t write but I enjoy writing. As much as I love my power tools, risking my life on a ladder while I get busy with a hedge trimmer is not my idea of fun.
What’s most depressing is that my vegetable crops have also failed this year. My tomatoes seem to have some kind of disease and the carrots and onions I planted haven’t germinated for some reason.
Anyway, I have to dash. I’ve got to go and find a gardener and see if he can sort this mess out for me.
I have linked this post up with the Mad Mid-Week Blog Hop. Do take a look, it features some great blogs.
Photo credit: Brewbrooks, Seattle USA. Reproduced under Creative Commons agreement.
8 thoughts on “Gardening; how do you do it when you have children?”
Our garden is a complete nightmare and, to be brutally honest, I wish I didn’t have to deal with it. It’s too small for the kids to run around in, but just too big to neglect, so I grudgingly deal with it when it becomes overgrown. Come to think of it, that’s the same approach I have to my own appearance…
You’re being very hard on yourself Tom. Your appearance didn’t seem overgrown when we met at BritMums.
We’ve had our allotment since just before the kids arrived. It definitely suffered when they were young. Now they are school age they like to go up there and help out or chill out on the swing or on the shed roof. Having food to pick up there helps, as does taking supplies and at the moment being able to have BBQs. Hang in there, the kids do eventually get the hang of it and you get time to do the garden.
Hurrah! Some good news! it gets easier! Thanks for commenting.
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Lol you could have been writing about our garden. With 3 young girls and a choc lab I sit there in my chair on a summers day and watch as it is slowly, step by step OBLITERATED!!!
Now i feel better that we have a small terrace and no garden is sight =P #mmwbh
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