What I’ve learned so far about allotment gardening with kids

1. Make the kid part of the allotment first. I spent ages putting in paths and planting lines of seeds that then got squashed by tiny huge wellies. I should have made a separate area first. We brought along some pretty flowers, a small log and some bamboo sticks for a mini “house” which will be filled in as the climbing plants grow.
2. Have a tiny aim each time. If I go without a really small aim then I end up feeling flustered and come home feeling like we didn’t manage to get anything done. Having a tiny aim each time like weed around the radishes, or bring home pea shoots for dinner gives us a focus and we end up getting way more done.
3. Bring a snack. Sitting together in the shed sharing a chocolate bar and watching the hailstones saved what could have been a disaster trip 🙂

How to drive an architect mad…

We did plot out some paths several weeks ago but now they are all overgrown with weeds and the littlest gardener on the team is finding it hard to know where to walk without squishing all the precious seedlings. So my husband kindly offered to come and dig out paths for us today. I managed to get away without producing a design to scale on the computer but he went slightly crazy trying to make straight paths around our wonky plantings.

We are getting off to a bit of a slow start as it turns out that gardening with a three year old slows things down quite a bit but I don’t think the last frost is over yet so there is still time to get our seeds planted. And slowing down was kind of the point of taking on the allotment. Nothing beats spending time outside in the sun followed by that evening summery smell on the cycle home 🙂

Visit from „kalte Sophie“

In Germany people have spent the last couple of weeks talking about the “Eisheilige” which I had roughly translated as being the last frost. However it turns out there is more to it than just meaning the last frost. It is actually a brief spell of colder weather in the period from May 11 to May 15 including the last nightly frosts of the spring. There are several saints who supposedly visit bringing cold weather followed on May 15th by Cold Sophia (kalte Sophie) who bought us hail stones at the allotment today. Hopefully that is now it for the cold and summer can begin!

Most of the green on the plot is made up of green but slowly and surely we are starting to make progress. I have tomatoes, chilis, peppers, lettuce and squash in the cold frame at home waiting for slightly warmer weather. Today we planted out the chives. The large ones are a container that we bought and split and the smaller ones we grew from seed in egg cartons. We also tidied up around the radishes and peas and bought home our first mini harvest of pea shoots.

Meet our garden neighbours :)

Three friends who are growing veggies on an 80 m2 plot across from – follow their progress here (in German) https://gartenfeldfreunde.wordpress.com

From gardening in apple crates in the shade to a sunny piece of a field

Just forty square metres but a little overwhelming compared to what we are used to. At the moment I can’t imagine it full of veggies and herbs but I am told that everything grows brilliantly there. Potatoes, peas, onions, garlic, edible flowers, and lots and lots of coriander are the first things to go in. Watch this space.