We liked planting our wildflowers so much, it spurred me on to do some more gardening with the kids and sort out the front of our house, which was looking a bit of a mess with weeds and dead plants sprouting out of every pot.
We took a trip to a local garden centre to buy some bee-friendly flowers – both seeds and plants – and then came home to plant them out in pots. However, before that, we did go on a bee rescuing mission. One of the plants we bought still had a bee on it, which then decided to fly up and away into the corner of a windowpane and into some cobwebs in the garden centre. So before we left, we went and found a fishing net to rescue the poor bee and set him (or her) free back outside. Good deed for the day.! 🙂
Our collection of bee-friendly plants and seeds
We bought:-
Cosmos
Pyrethrum
Lavender
Rosemary
Marigold
Sweet Rocket
Verbena
Nepeta
Mint
Papaver
Vegetables we are trying to grow include:-
Courgettes
Cress
Beetroot
Carrot
Strawberries
The my two boys used trowels to dig out compost and three quarter fill some pots, sprinkle some seeds in/put in the plants, and cover with more soil before watering. Our pots are out in the front of our house as it’s nice and sunny there. I’ve given my eldest the task of daily watering. So far we’ve not needed to do any extra watering though, hello rainfall.
Putting the finishing touches to our plants
Both boys loved getting a bit mucky and digging about in the compost, but they also seemed really interested and concerned about what we were doing, questioning what this flower was and that vegetable, how often we needed to water them and so on.
Even if you don’t have a garden you can grow plants and vegetables in pots – like we are doing. We just rent our home so it didn’t make sense to grow flowers in somebody else’s garden right now.
I’d love to get into gardening properly when I have my own garden, and when the boys are a little older. I don’t really have the time for much right now, so these little efforts here and there are a nice insight into the reward you get from it.
Crossing my fingers they don’t all die, and we get some of the seeds growing. I’ll take a peek later and let you know.
