It's impossible to open or turn on any medium these days without someone extolling the virtues of "growing your own" There are workshops, courses, book, articles and reality TV programmes all dedicated to the topic. A colourful display in a bookshop attracted me to this book " Grow it Eat it" Published by Dorling Kindersley. We won't be self sufficient by harvest time but I am going to try some small scale vegetable gardening. There was compost in the shed, and some miscellaneous pots and window boxes already in the house. The seeds were bought on a recent trip to town so our first planting took place on Wednesday.
Having learnt a little from previous gardening attempts with the children, they wore wellies and waterproofs, went to to the loo before we started and I gathered everything we needed first!
We mixed some soil and compost and filled two window boxes and planted a row of spinach in each, as suggested in the book. I love baby spinach leaves in salads, sandwiches and omelettes. They will spend some time on the kitchen window sill until the frosts disappear. As will a tray of tomatoes we planted. These are tumbling cherry tomato plants which are suitable for tubs and baskets, to grow outside so they will be transplanted in time.
I intend to plant some rocket and red lettuce too. I am looking forward to using wooden vegetable boxes lined with a black bin liner as a container for the lettuce as suggested by the book. Yogurt containers, egg cartons, and even newspaper are all suggested as growing vessels in the book, it doesn't advocate spending a fortune on equipment, rulers, lollipop sticks and other household items are pressed into action as tools.
Even if there are no kids in your house, I think this book is worth a look it's very accessible and I'll let you know if it works, our tomato seeds should germinate in the next 14 days. The Princess checks daily for progress and tells me she can see them growing, but she said this 24 hours after they were planted!
I respect your honesty and your opinion. I'm a man. I never read comic books. I don't know if i could have pointed to Iron Man in a lineup of comic book characters. And i don't particularly like movies based on comic books. BUT I love Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges, so i decided to give the movie a chance.
bst reg-s.
Posted by: PELeon | 04/05/2010 at 01:12 PM