{Guest Post - Scottish Book Trust Blog}

Today I have a guest post going live over on the Scottish Book Trust Blog on the topic of gardening.

The kids and I have been thoroughly enjoying our time outdoors, and in the evenings we have a selection of gardening themed books that we love to read at story time :-)


Growing sunflowers

Building teepees from bamboo sticks and old sheets

Choosing more plants at the garden centre

Getting ready to grow some vegetables

Our lettuce patch

Sensory play with sand

Painting with stencils under the shade of a tree

Growing some flowers from seed

{How Does Your Garden Grow - Lettuce Watch}

Joining in again with Annie at Mammasaurus for her How Does Your Garden Grow linky (was lovely to see you in person at BritMumsLive albeit very brief!!).

Here's Glasgow Mummy with "Lettuce Watch"!

Thursday evening pre-BritMums live...

...Sunday evening post-BritMums live!

What a remarkable difference in just a few days!!! The baby lettuces are changing every day, and R & I are now able to enjoy yummy fresh salads with our homegrown lettuces!!! So impressed with myself!

Ready for their close-up!

Transformed into an amazing salad!! Tasted brilliant too!!

If you go back my previous post here when I planted these babies, then you'll see an even bigger difference! That's just in 2 weeks!!!

The only thing I've done is put down some slug pellets and I've watered them every evening (apart from when I was in London for BritMums Live but Bex from Olive Dragonfly popped over to water them in my absence - thank you!).

I know you'll probably be fed up with my vegetable chat, but I'm seriously so chuffed. Most things I plant tend to die really quickly!!

Anyway, I can highly recommend Rocket Gardens and I'll definitely be buying from them in the future. (This isn't a sponsored post by the way, I just wanted to share this brand with you because I've had so much success with my purchase!).

{How Does Your Garden Grow}

Last minute as always, but here's my contribution to Annie at Mammasaurus How Does Your Garden Grow linky.

Each time I visit the garden centre I learn something new.

This week it was that for certain plants, it's best to combine the compost with some gravel. Who knew!! Certainly not me. Apparently by adding the gravel to the compost it will improve the drainage.

I had chosen a new lavender to plant given that my one from last year was kaput!

So off we went back to the house to get potting...

At the bottom of our chosen pot, we put some larger stones over the hole. Again this is to help the drainage:

We then filled this with a mixture of compost and grit:

Then in with the lavender, and we covered over the top of the compost with some more grit as I thought it was prettier!

Here's the littlest hard at work...!!

And in other gardening news...

The baby lettuce are coming along nicely

Here's the newest addition to the garden :-)

{How Does Your Garden Grow}

This week we took our son to his school induction.

It was a daddy day, so he was brought to the school by his dad and was delighted when he spotted me.

He asked me if I could be there every time it's a school day. I nearly cried. 

I'm finding it very difficult not being with them and we're yet to agree on the arrangements moving forward for childcare so the uncertainty is not helping.

He was ill last week and asked if I'd look after him all the time and I've been getting a lot more questions about why mummy and daddy don't live together.

Anyway, at times like this I am a true believer that a bit of fresh air can help to lift ones mood.

R & I went for a jog, and then to my delight my box of various lettuces arrived from Rocket Gardens.

Inspired by Annie at Mammasaurus, I had ordered the Quick Growing Salad Collection - apparently I can be harvesting tasty salads in just a few weeks after planting!

Watch this space to see how I get on!

Rocket Gardens... we sow, you grow

This week I was also at an open garden and I was inspired by all the vegetables and fruits that were being grown.

{How Does Your Garden Grow}

Argh, I had totally planned to join in weekly for the How Does Your Garden Grow blog hop over at Mammasauras, but I have already missed a week. How annoying.

Anyway, I'm back!

I thought I'd share with you my little patch of soil that I'm hoping to transform into a vegetable garden...

Ta da!!

And look what else has been happening in the garden...

The flowers are starting too bloom 

(couldn't tell you what type of bush this is though!!)

They're getting bigger, slowly!!

Here they are a month ago when they were planted.

But we've also had some disasters... no idea what happened to these colourful flowers! They were beautiful when I planted them, and then a week or so later and they're not so nice :-(

I'm keen to learn and I'm really enjoying my time spent in the garden making it pretty! I think my next stop might be the library to pick up some gardening books! Any recommendations?

{My Garden: Herbs in Containers}

I have a number of containers of plants in my garden. The main reason for this was that in my old house I bought some colourful plants to liven the space up a bit, and instead of planting them in the ground I put them in pots so that I could take them with me when I moved! (Although not many of them have survived as I'm still a learner gardener!!)

So with the warmer weather approaching, I thought it was a good time to purchase a few more herbs to replace the ones that had dried up and died!

In a bid to keep my newly potted rosemary and mint alive, I've been doing a spot of reading on how to look after herbs in containers.

Here's what I've discovered:

1. Mint and rosemary should be able to survive outside all year once they're established but apparently mint isn't the happiest in a pot. I've got a large trough of it, so hopefully this is better than a small pot. But the advice is to replant into fresh compost when it starts to look straggly. Note duly taken!

2. The other tip is to pick your herbs regularly from the tips of the plants. This will encourage new growth. (Next stop will be google to search recipes that use rosemary... I've been enjoying Fresh Mint Tea with all the mint!)

Fresh Mint Tea :-)

3. Final advice is to water regularly and add a liquid feed once a week during growing season.

Do come back here to see how we get on!

Also, did you see the beautiful herb garden that I bought from Dobbies as a house warming gift for a friend - it was lovely and well received :-)

I'm linking up with Mammasaurus' How Does Your Garden Grow this week for the first time. Not sure if there are any rules or suchlike, so someone please keep me right!

{#JanuaryJoy - plan to revamp your garden}

I should have read ahead at the #JanuaryJoy prompts, because I wrote about my garden plans for 'plan a room' on January 10th! Whoops!

My friend Louisa sent me a card for my birthday last week and it had the following Chinese proverb on it...

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I'm guessing that this may have something to do with being out in the fresh air and perhaps having time to think? The weather is freezing but like Kate over at Kate on Thin Ice, I believe it's so important to get outside. It's great for the body & mind.

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This weekend, we went on a superb day trip to Falkirk. The weather started off a bit miserable and wet, but we were well prepared with our waterproofs, wellies, hats & gloves etc. It was a busy day, with lots to see and do, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, as did the kids. Full post on this will be on the blog later this week.

Glasgow Mummy on Facebook

And this evening I'm heading out for a run with R. This is it - I'm getting back into good habits and I'm determined to get back into shape. I've already lost 3 lbs after cutting out bread & pasta. Just another 8 lbs to go to reach my target. 

{#JanuaryJoy - plan a room}

A lot of the rooms in my new house are now sorted and I've already discussed plans for the living room and my son's bedroom here and here.

So for today's #JanuaryJoy prompt I've decided to share some ideas for my garden.

My son has requested that we paint the front door purple, and I've already purchased the paint for this back in September last year when we moved in. I've just not gotten around to the actual painting part as yet - but in my defence the weather has been fairly miserable!

I've still got my garden furniture and the kids trampoline is now built... I've also still got a few of my planters from the old house. The herbs have died, but I can remedy this in the spring when the weather improves.

I'd love to get some proper lighting for the garden, and I have a tree that would look amazing with fairy lights wrapped around it. There are also no plants in the garden at the moment, but I'm thinking I could put together some kind of green and purple border. Of course all this costs money, but for just now I can dream!

So to tie in with the purple door, and my love of fairy lights... here are my inspiration pictures that I've pinned to my For the Home pinterest board:

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