Patience and the pea netting

Last year, when I grew peas from a grow bag, I used some pea netting. Horrible stuff! I tried to unravel it and then drape it over the frame I had fashioned out of canes in a way that might suggest I knew what I was doing. It was horrible and the peas didn't seem to appreciate the effort it took because they actually seemed to try and avoid growing up it. Then, once the raised beds were in, I tried doing the wigwam-string-thing which seemed to work better but just seemed like hard work to put together (really am not afraid of hard work at all). So, I got this pea patio planter a few months ago from Thompson Morgan and the peas are happy enough, kept putting off getting the netting because I didn't trust myself to get it right. I did it! Felt very proud of myself, but really THEY MUST come up with an easier way of packaging the stupid stuff that makes if earier to unravel and put in place!

Very grudgingly, I've given up a small raised bed for the kids (bad, selfish mother/gardener that I am). Leah picked out "sombreros" (Mexican hats) and corn (managed to step back and let her pick for herself). I am trying to get her involved in every step of the process from filling the bed with soil, to sowing the seeds and potting up the seedlings. Here's her corn.

Chris will become much more interested in what is in the garden once he can start eating it. Until then, I started them off growing Russian giant sunflowers. Now we have dabbled with growing sunflowers for a few years now, never doing it really seriously and usually getting them just quite big. This year, I got them to start at the same time and it's turned into a bit of a competition. Chris is determined to beat Leah. They both started them off on their own bedroom windows. Chris's just shot up and he thought that was great gave him gloating rights over Leah's. Fact was his were very leggy, Leah's got nice big leaves on hers and nice chunky stems, even he has to admit that hers were the better looking. I am sure the battle will rage over the Summer.

Went to the garden centre just before it closed to grab some bags of soil, Dave had to drag me away from the plants (I really was only looking!) and gave me a very firm "NO!". He doesn't often get firm with me so it made me smile, but he did say that he likes seeing me excited about the garden (I'll remind him of that when I disappear for hours in the summer).