The weather is really strange. The sun is shining and the birds are singing and although slightly chilly it is quite lovely. What is strange about this is – it’s the school holidays and normally that is just the sign the weather needs to be cold, wet, windy and yucky and any other nasty weather condition that can be thrown at us.
Having said that – it’s school holidays and the impact of this on my ability to take full advantage of this gorgeous weather is not dissimilar to that of a handbrake. The kids are pretty much free range and feral in the holidays and I certainly don’t pander to the moaning tunes of “I’m bored.” But we had a couple of extras to look after and having extras eliminates the moan “I’m bored” but it means I need to bit just that little bit more attentive so I appear to be a good mum and not a frustrated gardener. So I stayed in the kitchen and baked cookies and made orange juice cordial and good mother things, mostly because I couldn’t nip to the shops and leave everyone on their own or take them all with me as there wasn’t the room in the car.
So no gardening was done except for some unintentional weeding as I decided to have Jerusalem artichokes for dinner with our roast chicken. Due to high winds half a year ago, which knocked down most of my artichoke stalks, the harvest was quite meagre and to get enough I had to dig over the whole bed. It wasn’t too much effort as the bed isn’t all that big so I had it weeded and cleared in no time. As this bed is the permanent home for the Jerusalem artichokes I made sure I left enough behind in the soil to regrow again in the summer – although this time I will come up with some device to protect them from the high winds.
Come again soon – I wonder if I can get the kids to work in the garden….
Sarah the Gardener : o )
Good luck with that. The supervision needed with kids in the garden is pretty steep at the outset–otherwise they’ll weed out the good stuff.
Hi there. I have found that the kids are only really interested if it is easy or there is something to eat. If I force them to garden then there is a lot of moaning. Having said that, being around a gardening obsessed mum, this sort of knowledge gets mysteriously absorbed so hopefully when they are all grown up they will find gardening to feed their families.
Cheers Sarah : o )
Three cheers for unintended consequences: dinner, a cleared bed, and friends to entertain your offspring.
HI Alys. It was a great day. Everyone had a lot of fun and dinner was amazing.
Cheers Sarah : o )
Even if you thought you pulled every single one of them out of the ground there would still be more to come back 😉 I love them so can’t wait till ours take over the property, better than blackberries ANY day 😉
Hi Fran. This was the first year we actually got to eat Jerusalem artichokes and i really enjoyed them, so I am glad they will come back. I am also glad I gave them their own bed.
Cheers Sarah : o )
They will go nuts but I don’t care, they are delicious! Some people get wind problems from them (that’s from eating them, not falling over in the wind although they are prone to that as well 😉 ) but who cares, if everyone is eating them you can always blame each other 😉