Tuesday 7 June 2011

Starting them young..

I found it very amusing the other day when Amy's younger brother, Jordan told us that he wanted to grow his own cucumbers because he didn't want to get E-Coli. He said that he would never eat a Spanish cucumber again in his life.

So off we went to the garden centre and we brought him a grow bag. He decided that he wanted to grow a different thing in each of the holes. So we bought him a female cucumber plant, a tomato plant and a strawberry plant. You wouldn't normally grow strawberries in a grow bag but he insisted, and we can take them out at the end of the season an re-pot them then! It's hard to find a strawberry plant that doesn't have fruits on at the moment so we bought one with flowers emerging so he could observe the whole process.

Under our supervision, he undertook the whole activity. Cutting the grow bag, planting and watering. Amy was obviously very proud...











Here is the final product and one very pleased 11 year old!



You might be able to see the 1p coins around the base of all three plants. Well, I know that slugs love cucumber plants in particular, but they don't like copper. I thought it might work, and 4 days later the plants are still untouched. Fingers crossed if continues to work..
It is really enjoyable for me to pass on my knowledge of growing just like my grandparents did for me when I was younger. I remember my Grandad Ian would grow delicious tomatoes in his greenhouse, and he had the most gigantic compost heap. My Grandad Fred was an inspiration on the allotment and helped me greatly in getting in to all of this. Hopefully Jordan will take some inspiaration from his brief encounter with 'growing his own'

Have a superb day.

Martin

P.S I've been quite busy during the last couple of days so will be reading all the blogs that I follow tomorrow, and no doubt I will be leaving comments too!

P.P.S Thanks again for visiting, and finally a welcome to the blog to my Grandma and Grandad who are now reading!

(Hi!)

6 comments:

  1. Awww you watch, before long he'll be entering those cucumbers into the youth GYO comps!

    My Nan didn't tell me she was reading my blog and I wondered how she knew so much about what was going on up t'north, then I realised she'd found my blog and was keeping up to date with the little things we don't think of telling her normally!! Tis very sweet x

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  2. Thats really cool, it's great to be able to pass it on isn't it. Between M and I we've got a load of people in our two offices growing things over the last year or so. :)

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  3. This is lovely :) My dad and I have just got my mum interested in gardening...in all my 22 years I've never seen her so much as pick up a trowel, now she's taken on a sweet potato plant! She even watched 3 minutes of gardeners world before flicking back to ER *I'll make a gardener of her yet*

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  4. Bless! Wish my siblings would take a little bit of interest - they just think I'm crazy!

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  5. That's great! You've obviously inspired him :)
    I tried the coin trick with a bag of 'old style' copper coins I found. It seemed to work but now we're forever digging up coins as most of them fell into the beds :)

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  6. I wish my son liked gardening, his interest is more in the eating and cooking! Love the tip about the copper coins, one to remember. I haven't seen any slugs on my plants in the last couple of years but I still look out for them! Caro x

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