I’ve always tried to incorporate our own produce into my cooking but there are times where what we get from our tiny garden sadly just isn’t enough for any one project. Take, for example, strawberry ice pops. I like to make homemade ice lollies for GarlicBoy so that I can let him eat his fill […]
Ladybird in situ The day the aphids came back was a dark one. There they were, hordes of them swarming and pulsating all over my innocent strawberries and mint. I was beside myself in rage and frustration at their sheer numbers (previously I’ve always pulled aphids off by hand before their populations reach critical levels) […]
Planting out seedlings, as long as they’re relatively robust, is something that even young children can get involved in. At two years old GarlicBoy already loves raking the soil smooth and watering it with his little watering can before using a dibbler to make holes and gently lower the seedlings inside and coving them with […]
Edible flowers are such beautiful and versatile food decorations. Begone, enormous nauseating piles of buttercream icing in weird colours. Never darken my doorstep again, boring shredded leaves. Shoo, silver balls, it is edible flowers from here on in. They’re also a really fun garnish to prepare. I make a traditional Simnel cake every year on […]
Hurrah! A new toy! Or is it…? There must be a way in. Plotting. Waiting. Bit more plotting. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a cat. A fluffy cat, one of a pair, confident in your status as adored object in a house largely ruled by the whims and caprices of small creatures. Now […]
When planning our tiny garden, we wanted to ensure that we’d have space where GarlicBoy could play safely when we’re home. We also wanted some storage space for garden cushions and tools etc. A playhouse seemed to tick all the boxes and he loves it. My father and I put it together a couple of days […]
One of the biggest problems with having such a tiny city garden is that you can’t fit in lots of plants. This isn’t a problem in itself as most plants, especially berry bushes, will crop quite heavily over the growing season. However, if you find yourself (as I do) in the first year of your […]
Via RHS The pineberry (I chose the “White Dream”) is a funny sort of fruit. It’s the sort of thing that one might expect to find at the tea party given by the Mad Hatter. They’re expensive too, at £3.99 for 125g, so they seemed to be a good fruit to try to grow from […]
When I was younger my primary school apparently used to ask parents to save their junk boxes (cereals etc) and loo rolls for “junk modelling” sessions. When I was older my mother told me she always liked dropping off whole boxes at the school as it cleared a cupboard, only to have to sigh in […]