Gardening – First Harvest

It hasn’t been a great year so far for our produce but we decided to try digging up one of our early potato plants.  This year Luath has been very involved in the process.
Preparing the ground.

Planting, watering (her favourite part) and gathering some grass to help “earth” up the potato beds.

She was very excited to dig up the plant and wanted to do it herself.

A small harvest but a proud little gardener.

She went straight inside to help daddy scrub, cook and make potato salad for lunch.
   
The potatoes were delicious.
(Luath is 30 months)
Shared with Eco kids

VBC Summer camp - week 2 - In the Garden

We really enjoyed our 2nd week of camp hosted by Toddler Approved, Educators’ Spin on It and Rainy Day Mum. The theme suited us, the weather was a bit wild and wet but we managed to connect with the garden and it’s produce.   The pre week plan was excellent so we knew ahead which books and activities were suggested.  We mostly read the books online, along with a few of our garden favourites.  We didn't quite do the activities suggested as I fitted it into what else we were doing, although we will do some of them at a later date.  I tried to stick with the book's theme for the day’s activity.

Monday – The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krass
A simple experiment with an apple and a carrot.  Sink or float?

Tuesday – Planting a rainbow by Lois Ehlert
A rainbow fruit platter

Making garden salad – done two days in a row and a huge leap for Luath as she, with no prompting added mud (jumping in muddy puddles she loves but touching she has avoided).

Wednesday – A Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
Smelling different seeds and making a picture.

Comparing and saving flower seeds.

Thursday – Oliver’s Vegetables by Vivian French
(Finally) planting out Luath’s runner and dwarf broad beans that have been on the kitchen windowsill.  Luath's plants are better than the ones in the garden as the weather has been so lousy for growing.  Hoping she will get some beans.

Taking time to sit and watch the bees and birds.

Friday – Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
We had an adventure on Friday so on Saturday we made some soup with carrots, potatoes, onions (which all grow in our garden but not ready for harvest), garlic (from a neighbours garden) and lentils.  We added alphabet bread names.



Luath hiding behind a curtain enjoying some raw onions

 

Trying to peel without my help

  

(Luath is 29 months)

VBC summer camp - Bug Friendly Area in our Garden

We are joining the virtual book club summer camp hosted by The Educators' Spin On It, Rainy Day Mum and Toddler Approved. To get into this week’s theme of bugs we reread Luath’s favourite two bug books What The Ladybird Heard and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Earlier this year we started creating a bug friendly area in our garden and this week we did a little more work on it.Natural England have a downloadable leaflet “Minibeasts in your garden” which is very helpful.  Flowers, places to hide, hot spots and dead stuff are what insects need and the leaflet explains each of these headings in more detail. It is a small L shaped space but we are managing to fit a lot in. This is what we have done so far:

I moved two old insect friendly logs to the new spot.  We spotted a few inhabitants on one of the logs.  We add some fresher logs from a tree we trimmed.

The corner already has a few slates and we added rocks for more places to hide. We placed a flat one in the sun for butterflies.

Our insect box is now hanging up.

I moved some flowers, we have already sown butterfly and bee friendly flower seeds, and have also let the “weeds” and grass grow.

Maybe not so friendly for the bugs but we made a toad home after finding a toad in the garden.  We can’t find him now but are hoping he will return.

 
We have a small pot dish pool with a stone.  Luath loves refreshing the water.

This week we saw some bees enjoying the flowers and a frog.
   
(Luath is 29 months)
shared with eco kids and country kids from Coombe Mill

Gardening with a little helper

I love being outdoors and I enjoy growing things, especially edibles.  Our garden has been very much neglected and I really would like to have something to harvest this year.  I would love Luath to share my hobby and experience the thrill of sowing a seed and watching it sprout, grow and then eat the outcome.

Luath is a velcroed to her mummy girl  24/7 and our garden isn't yet safe for her to be too far from an adult, so anything I do I always have a helper, two when the dog tags along too.  Over the last few days the weather has been perfect for being outdoors.  I didn't accomplish much but had lots of fun watching Luath engage with nature.

She helped me move two small raised beds and transfer the earth.

She enjoyed crawling under a tree to the corner of the garden where she sat for a long time.  I sat with her and managed to hand pull some dead long grass.

She helped me gather some of the grass to put on the base of a raised bed. Tasting some as she went.

She filled her bucket with treasures.  Luath can now say pine cone which I think is just such a brilliant word to have learnt.

She helped me try and clean an area to make it into a Luath play section and started to decorate it.

decorating with pine cones and stones

She played with some flower pots.

She did lots more that wasn't photographed including playing on her swing, helping me sweep, reading stories on the step, playing with the dog......never ending entertainment with the only "toys" being her swing and bucket set.



I managed to fill some pots so we will be all ready to sow some seeds next.



See what else tots have been up to at Tuesday tots  and what outdoor play has been happening