Join us on our gardening journey

It’s no secret that I love growing vegetables. It’s also no secret that over the past couple of years I have become increasingly busy and spending time in the garden has been difficult.

I love gardening for two reasons. Firstly, there’s the simple enjoyment of growing your own food. Secondly, I think it’s very important my kids know where their food comes from and how it grows.

I find the sight of supermarket fruit and vegetables depressing.  I always think it looks incredibly uniform so I love to get the kids involved when harvesting my plants. That way they can see carrots often have several tap roots, that potatoes grow in huge bunches underground and that tomato plants have a very distinctive, herb-like smell.

With the help of the kids, I last year planted potatoes, strawberries and tomatoes. Over the months, however, I got lazy.

A tiny amount of it ended up in the kitchen. The majority went to seed and I felt incredibly guilty. Our poor, beleaguered vegetable patch, which in previous years I kept completely weed-free, has, over recent months, been colonised by weeds and grass.

Something had to be done. Inspired by the amazing weather we’ve had over the past few days, I went out into the garden at the weekend, pulled off the mesh covering (essential in our area to protect your plants from foxes) and started weeding.

Within a couple of minutes, I had two helpers: my daughters Helen and Izzy. We got chatting about what we’d like to grow.

Rather oddly, Izzy declared she’d like to grow corguettes, a food she refuses to eat. I vetoed that decision, but I think we are all in agreement we’re growing to plant potatoes, carrots and tomatoes.

Yes, I know we’re a little late to start planting, but at least the threat of frost has passed. If the weather stays as it is, I think the plants will quickly catch up and produce a good harvest.

I invite you to join us on our gardening journey. I’m going to write regular blog posts as things progress. Over the summer and autumn you’ll see how we get on and what successes we have and challenges we face.

At this point in time, the weds have been removed and the soil turned over, I’m going to add some soil improver and in a week or so we’ll get the seeds planted.

This will also give us a chance to tidy up and repair the greenhouse. It has one broken window pane that needs replacing. When that’s done, we can get strawberries and tomatoes growing again.

I’ll post an update in a week or so. Until then, please do leave a comment below with stories of your gardening adventures. I’d love to know what you are getting up to.