Being Mrs C

Review: Bigjigs Garden Tools

Within two hours of our first Bigjigs Play Patrol parcel arriving it started raining. Not much of a surprise with this year's weather, but seeing as they sent Little Miss C some garden tools to review it has made reviewing them properly a bit challenging!

I need to start by saying a few words about the Play Patrol scheme though. Not only did Master C enjoy his first testing assignment, but Little Miss C was amazed about the idea of toys being sent to the house by the "train jigsaw people" as she likes to call Bigjigs. And very excited to have a new bag to take to nursery and a "jigsaw T-shirt" to wear.

Once she found the Garden Tools that she had been sent to review inside the backpack she was even more excited. Before I had a moment to see what she'd been sent she'd already run to the back door to get her wellies and was ignoring the threatening dark clouds and out of the door to play in the garden!

The three hand tools in the set are all absolutely adorable. A trowel, small rake and a fork, all with wooden handles and metal heads. The metal parts are in bright primary colours (and nicely rounded for safety too) whilst the handles are different cheerful characters. Along with a smiling face they have ribbed bodies and cute little ears and noses. Even LMC said that they were "too cute for the garden".

Cuteness didn't stop her taking them outside though and very soon she was digging in the flower pots where we've been planting seeds and in her sand table. Their size is perfect for little hands and she had a great time using them until the rain became too much for us both.

We've had hail here today. In May. And the lunchtime weather forecast also suggested that some parts of the country have a real risk of snow tonight. In May. Should the weather improve these Garden Tools will be perfect for doing a spot of gardening with your children and I think they'd make a great gift for any child with a summer birthday. I just hope they don't end up digging in the snow with them!

Disclaimer: We were sent the Garden Tools to review as part of the Bigjigs Play Patrol scheme. You can follow Bigjigs on Twitter and Facebook.

Growing cress

Another thing that Little Miss C and I got up to whilst we were stuck at home was a spot of gardening. LMC always wants to help in the garden, but children want to see results very quickly so it can be hard to keep their enthusiasm when things don't grow as fast as they would like. Growing cress from seed is quite good though as you can see a day by day difference, but at the same time it also makes children realise that things don't grow instantly and they need to have a bit of patience.

It was with great pride and determination that she filled some old yoghurt pots (thank you again Yeo Valley!) with compost and then sprinkled cress seeds over the surface.

The seeds were duly drowned watered well and then the waiting commenced. 

Luckily we didn't have long to wait and just over a week later this was the sight that greeted us one morning.

Mr C also used his artistic talents to help LMC grown some old fashioned cress heads. Old egg shells filled with cotton wool and cress seeds sprinkled on them. The cotton wool then just needs to be kept damp, and the seeds not washed off with over-enthusiastic watering!

Just a week (and a heatwave) later and Little Miss C was able to compare hairstyles with her cress cat!

Very simple to do yet a great first lesson in growing things from seed. Now we just need to get organised and have egg and cress sandwiches one day to complete the lesson in growing your own food from seed.

Yeo Valley - so much more than just yoghurt!

Sometimes a physical change of scenery can help you clear your head and see things clearly and that's exactly what happened to me yesterday. I was lucky enough to be invited, along with a handful of other bloggers, to visit Yeo Valley - home of yummy yoghurt and some equally yummy farmers (well, so says their TV adverts!) - to find out more about the company behind all the yumminess and their way of doing things. When I recently wrote here about wanting to use my blog to find out more about the people and things that make me smile this trip was exactly the sort of thing I had in mind!

At its heart Yeo Valley is still centred around a family farm. Records of the Mead family farming in the area stretch back to the 1400s, but it was in 1961 that Roger and Mary Mead first moved to Holt Farm along with their 30 cows. By 1972 diversification had started with the first yoghurt being made from the skimmed milk left over from clotted cream. Sales were made around the valley in their Morris Minor van and that is where yeoghurt history really starts. Roger and Mary's son Tim (and his wife Sarah) now manage the farm and their yoghurts are sold in supermarkets across the country. Their product range has also extended to include butter, milk, ice cream, frozen yoghurt and compotes. That's not the end of the Yeo Valley story though.

What I discovered when I visited was that Yeo Valley as a company also run their Yeoniversity where they share with the public (especially school children) everything they have learnt from their time farming the land. We were given an insight into one of these sessions and I was immediately won over by the company's passion about what they do in the Valley and the value of sessions like this to children, especially those from inner-cities who might not otherwise have the opportunity to visit such stunning countryside.

It's not only children who get to share in the Yeo Valley experience though. There are Farm and Environment Tours and also Food and Gardening ones too. When Sarah Mead moved to Somerset she came with no gardening knowledge and experience, but since then she has built up (with the help of her team of gardeners) six and a half acres of the stunning Yeo Valley Organic Gardens. Everything there is homemade, right from the compost and liquid plant food through to the delicious scones that we were served after our garden tour. These gardens are very much on a par with what you see at many National Trust properties, and the stunning surroundings of the Mendips and Blagdon Lake set them off perfectly.

It is completely impossible for me to do justice to everything that I saw in my day at Yeo Valley in one blog post and as time allows over the next couple of weeks I plan to cover in more detail:

• The Yeoniversity and in particular the value of teaching children about farming and the countryside.
• The Yeo Valley Organic Garden and the challenges and benefits that organic gardening holds.
• Cooking with yoghurt. Whilst at Yeo Valley we were treated to a wonderful cookery demonstration with the Yeo Valley chef, Jamie, and I really had my eyes opened to the possibilities of using yoghurt in a range of recipes. I've got plans to recreate some of these at home and hope to share them with you here. Yeo Cheesecake - including making cheese from yoghurt.

I will update this post with links just as soon as the subsequent posts are written, but now I'm so inspired by what I saw yesterday that I'm off to the garden to make the most of the sunshine and to sort out my little veg plot! 

Disclaimer: I was invited to Yeo Valley for their open day with several other parent bloggers. Our travel costs for the day were met and a yummy lunch, cake and tea provided. 

Garden leeks

With all the warm and wet weather that we've had recently the garden has been shooting up, but it's also been difficult to spend time out there gardening due to it being so wet. Our veg plot is ready for things to be planted, but to be honest I'm a bit behind schedule in doing so.

However, there are a few crops still in the ground that have been growing at speed recently. A long, long time ago I had my first attempts at growing leeks from seed and after a very slow start I'm delighted to say that the above photo shows the first of the crop brought in to our kitchen for inclusion in Saturday night's dinner. 

The last week has seen the leeks put on quite a big growth spurt and I actually think they would have been fine to harvest a few weeks back, but it was only this weekend that I actually had the mental capacity to pull together a recipe including leeks with actually bringing them in from the garden.

I'm delighted to say that they were delicious and tasted exactly as leeks should do! I realise that may sound like the obvious, but not all my growing from seed experiments have been entirely successful in the past. The only problem with the crop is just how long they spend in the ground - for someone with a small plot like ourselves that does mean that part of the plot is tied up for quite a long period, meaning that nothing else can be grown there. For as long as we just have the plot space we do I think we'll hold fire on leeks in the future, but if more growing space comes available I'll certainly be planting another crop.

Damson gin - the finished product

It's nearly six months now since I started telling you about our efforts with our first batch of damson gin, but now that I'm seeing this year's blossom on the damson trees in our garden it's got me thinking about how we can use this year's harvest and I'm already hoping it's a good one.

Back to the gin though...

We made two batches in the end and thought that we'd bottle up the first one in time for Christmas - both for us to sample some and also to make some homemade Christmas presents. This bathc must have had about four months in the kilner jar, so not as mature as it could have been, but deliciously potent all the same!

Due to a lack of clean muslin cloths we actually strained it through a clean tea-towel before bottling, but we figured that shouldn't make much difference. For bottles I found these lovely presentation bottles online and in our new local Lakeland shop.

To finish the homemade look we also made some hand-drawn labels to adorn the bottles. I'm pleased to report that all the bottles we gave as Christmas gifts were well received and there were no reports of any ill effects either!

There's a second batch still tucked away in a cupboard and bearing in mind that I can't drink for a good few months yet I think it will be staying there for a fair while longer.  If we get another good damson crop this year then I'll definietely be making another batch as it is so easy to do. The question is what else we should try with the damson this time round?

Garden treasure

The weather has been somewhat mad these last few weeks. Baking hot sun and meals eaten outdoors has suddenly been replaced by snow, hail and torrential rain. Quiet what all the plants think I've no idea.

The garden's started to wake up after winter and it's lovely to see new shoots appearing, blossom on the trees and splashes of colour too. Yesterday I spotted this lovely treasure which has managed to survive not only the weather, but also a very enthusiastic toddler you regularly rampages round the garden!

There's something special about snake's head fritillaries in the way that they look so fragile and delicate. We planted these as bulbs when we first moved here and we'ren't sure they had survived so I was delighted when I discovered they had. Now we just need them to get through the awful weather that seems to be forecast for the Easter weekend...

First shoots

Every year there's something particularly exciting about seeing the first shoots of the year emerge in the propagator. This last week seems to have given us a taste of spring time weather (if you ignore the freezing temperatures that we're still having at night) and it seems fitting therefore that I can see these on my kitchen window sill right now.

From left to right I'm growing mixed leaf lettuce, alicante tomatoes (free from Lakeland last year IIRC) and peppers. Looks like I'm going to need to transplant some seedlings soon!

Making the most of the good weather

After the snow earlier in the month this warmer spell recently has been a wonderful change. We managed to spend a large portion of the weekend in the garden and the fresh air made all of us feel so much better.

It also gave us the opportunity to get quite a few jobs done that we've been putting off since the autumn. Weeds were cleared, the apple tree pruned and dead leaves swept up. We also finally assembled and put up one of our Christmas presents - this lovely birdhouse made from cardboard! Over on UK Nature Blog Mr C has told you all about it and he'll also be reporting back on just how successful it is.

Of course there was a certain someone who was very keen to help us as we worked in the garden. Although she does seem to think that brushes are to be used to spreading stuff around rather than sweeping it into piles which made sweeping up leaves a bit of a never-ending job!

Seed swap

Looking at the heavy frost we've had these last few nights here in Hertfordshire it's hard to believe that spring is on its way, but it is. One very clear sign - the annual Homemade Life seed swap has started!

Never too young to garden

Whenever Little Miss C goes out into the back garden, one of the first things she does is try to get into the shed to get one of her many watering can. Once she's got it she then marches straight over to the water butt where she can be heard chanting "fill it, fill it" until the watering can has been filled with water. After that she goes straight over to the veg plot and makes sure that all the plants get a drink.

Sometimes the water even comes out of the spout of the watering can!