Whilst I am a big fan of gardens I am not a great gardener. Isabella however loves all things creepy crawly and flowery. So when I noticed a half price kids planting kit in Tesco, I thought why not and bought it.
The kit had everything needed to plant some sweat peas. It was really very straightforward even for someone like me who knows as much about gardening as I do about astrophysics - i.e. nothing.
Opening it up, inside the large red plant pot were two round earth like discs. We had to move to the sink and pour warm water on it. After a while of leaving under the hot top the soil erupted and hey presto as if by magic the soil filled up the pot.
Then we had to plant the seeds. Unfortunately I hadn't realised that we had to soak them in warm water for a few hours. Ooops. Oh well, we put them in a little bowl, popped down to the beach (great weather for it) and upon our return we were able to push them into the soil.
Now we just have to wait. We had a little look this morning and nothing had happened overnight. No idea how long it will take for anything exciting to happen - if at all. It says on the box that they can be planted March to June. Is late June ok? Hope so. It would be a real shame for our first venture into gardening to go terribly wrong.
Spurred on by the fun of planting, today we took our first step towards destructive gardening. Well, clearing the front driveway of weeds and the leaves left over from winter. I know we are a little late, but I am only now confident enough to do outside activities where there is a danger of coming into contact with creatures of the eight legged kind.
Since my hypnosis therapy and I have to say the difference is amazing and I have managed to do things (like sweeping up leaves and pulling out weeds) that I couldn't do before. There were a few scary moments, like when Isabella had a large spider crawling up her arm. It was actually quite funny in a way. Isabella wasn't bothered, she thought it was great, but I was worried she might start to panic if it went near her face. So I picked up the nearest thing to me, a long garden hoe, which as Daddy pointed out was perhaps a little extreme. He came to the rescue and swiped it off her arm. But what is interesting is that I didn't really panic, I didn't have to go inside and have a cuppa to calm myself down and we just got carried on with the job.
Isabella had such a good time that unfortunately she didn't quite make it to the toilet in time, which is something she hasn't done in a very very long time.
So, we have planted from seeds some sweat peas and done a pretty reasonable job on tidying up the front driveway and Isabella has had a ball. Guess the next step is to tackle the back garden - er, maybe not quite ready for that challenge, but perhaps we could help out a bit.