Butterfly garden and Wrens

It's been a lovely sunny day today, so once the Aj's finished at nursery we all headed out to the field to see how the tunnel house is getting on and think about planting potatoes and onions in the field.  Once we arrived Grandad told us to visit the shed, where he had noticed a Wren had made a nest in some rope hanging on the wall.  It was very interesting to see a nest relatively up close, and interesting to see how they make the most of anything, I never would have thought a rope would make a good place for a nest!

Grandad was busy using the rotivator  to prepare the soil for the potatoes, and Arthur had a go at helping him to push it, but unfortunately the machine soon packed up for an unknown reason, and we were unable to plant.  It was a bit of a disappointment, but Alyssa had been having fun digging around in a little patch of soil, and Arthur soon busied himself with the ever so important task of watering the tunnel house.  It was nice to see that the strawberries are coming along and turning red already, and also the radishes are starting to poke up through.

Once home again we put some compost into some small tubs and sowed the seeds for our butterfly garden, it was lovely to see the Aj's working nicely together, taking turns adding compost, then seeds and finally watering.  All that is left for me to do now is print and laminate some little pictures of butterflies, to stick on lollipops to help the Aj's spot and identify some of the different types, as well as look up different foods that they like so when the time comes we can lay bits on a little tray for them.  We also had a little look at our Bug hotel, but as of yet we have no visitors, I guess it takes a while!

Wren's nest

Rotivating

Radishes looking good!

Dreaming of Strawberries and cream!

Digging away!

Looking thoughtful!

Watering the Strawberries

Potting the compost

Seed sprinkling!

Watering in the seeds

"Your turn Alyssa!"

Just have to wait for them to grow now!

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Veg plots and Potatoes!

After our recent illness, we enjoyed a much needed wonderful four day break with family!  Today was our first day back home, and there was lots of work to do!

Daddy has recently been starting off a load of seeds ready for our vegetable plot area, and it has finally come to the time off planting them out, the Aj's spent the morning 'helping' mummy tidy up and rogue weeds around the garden whilst daddy prepped the plot.  Then once the ground was prepared, and compost laid down it was time to start planting.  First this we did was give Arthur the honor of planting the lonely seed potato we found out the field recently, it may or may not provide potatoes, but it's a bit of fun for Arthur to learn how potatoes grow.

Then we moved onto planting the Sunflowers, one for each of us and granny and grandad in the end, so we are now having a little competition to see who's grows the tallest.  I have memories as a child of growing sunflowers and having the excitement of trying to get them to grow taller than me, so I am looking forward to seeing how Arthur reacts when they really take off! He loved helping make the holes in the ground for daddy, so he could plant them, then gently patted the earth down around them 'Putting them to bed!"

Next it was time to help daddy build a pea stick wig wam for the peas to grow against, Alyssa and Arthur had great fun passing the sticks in a line for daddy, and Arthur had the extra important jobs of holding the string for daddy too!

The only thing we have to do now is make sure Arthur doesn't walk all over the plants, which he has already done once, as he is so use to being able too as there has been nothing in there for so long, and cross our fingers, that something grows and we have a lovely crop!

Who knew this is where potatoes come from!!

Prepped for planting

ready to plant

In it goes "tuck into bed!"

Making holes

Daddy's little helper!

"to me, to you!"

Building a wig wam!

Planting peas!

Bit small still!

Alyssa exploring wood chip

PEAS!!!

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Bug Hotel

We are starting to work on the garden again now that Spring has arrived, Daddy is working on making it a bit safer for the Aj's and prepping the 'veg plot', and I am working on making it a bit more interactive and fun for the Aj's.  Today's plan was to get them to help me make a 'bug hotel', so we can investigate different bugs that come in the garden and make it their home.  I have seen many different designs on the internet including bundling bamboo sticks, but the log one seemed the simplest idea using things we already had in the home.  So we headed off to the garage and picked our biggest, nicest looking log, then grandad showed them how to drill a hole using a hand operated tool so they could have a go, then Daddy got out the power tools and drilled some more, the Aj's did both 'help' daddy as well a little bit, but unfortunately his battery wasn't fully charged so we didn't end up with very many, but it's enough for a start!

No all that's left is to start on the other sections of the garden and wait for the bugs to settle in!! If you want to create a wildlife friendly garden look at The RSPB website for some ideas!

Drilling a hole

Not quite got the hang of it bless!

Tada!

Watching Daddy

"Can I have a go?"

Ready and waiting for the new guests to arrive!

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