Spring Gardening.

Well here I was thinking I might get out into the garden this weekend to begin clearing and preparing for our Spring planting. In my book there is nothing nicer than seeing February arrive and know the lighter  nights are now definitely on their way, and now is the time to pull on my lovely wellies and go and stomp around the garden in the fresh air seeing what needs my attention. Well I say my attention, what I actually mean is I will go and look and come back an tell my long suffering husband!

My domain is the greenhouses. I love to go into them and start clearing out the old tomato plants and preparing the soil for the new ones. Then I pour over the seed catalogues that arrive and drop into the letterbox. The photographs always inspire me to want to do bigger and better, and I do start off with really, really good intentions. Some years I do really well and we have an abundant harvest and others... Well let's just say I am not naturally green fingered and sometimes it does not go quite to plan.
 My dear parents are keen gardeners and have always managed to grow beautiful vegetables. Now even in their eighties they are still able to grow a lovely crop of edible delights.
But I am still in the positive "this is going to be the year" mode, full of enthusiasm and excited at the thought of all those seeds sprouting and pushing their way up towards the sunshine so that in the lovely warmth of the summer I can wander down the garden trug  in hand and go and collect the ingredients for that nights supper.

The one thing I do love is my garden tools. They have to be wooden handled and stainless steel. Don't ask me why, but I cannot resist them when I see them in the shops. Maybe they have an old fashioned appeal about them, of times past when life was lived at a much slower pace. But whatever it is my husband thinks it's a bit of a fetish. That's why when we saw the Sophie Conran collection of
gardening equipment I thought We need those in the shop. My favorite is the compost scoop. A lovely wood handle with a stainless steel scoop on the end just perfect for pushing into a new bag of compost and filling my trays, seems to make the job so much easier! But of course I couldn't stop there I needed the full set, trowel and fork,...... I make no apologies!