I have been reading "The Creative Family" lately. I found it simultaneously inspiring and overwhelming. We're not ready for nature walks yet, or even family drawing time. But, there was one thing we could do and that is to start a vegetable garden.

I thought I would start small. There was a small grassy patch that was once a herb garden. I talked to Mum about it. Mum's a keen gardener. She knows about these things.

Mum offered me some newly divided strawberry plants. The next sunny day we got the strawberries in. They should have been in the ground months ago, but it's a start.

I talked to Dad about it and all of a sudden we were discussing kitset garden bed vs. build your own.

Then I come home to find a trailer full of branches in the back yard, my father filling them, and a grumpy husband. Dad had announced that I wanted the garden finished in the next two weeks. After determining that I said nothing of the sort it calmed down somewhat.


Before I knew it there was a trailer of sheep manure on the back lawn. Then after some careful measuring, it was joined by a load of timber. For a while our back lawn looked like a trailer convention.

I was left with little sets of instructions, like clear away the area before I'm back to put in the posts, I've cut the timber but you will need to level the pieces before screwing them on. The first of the beds are full and the old compost heap is gone. Now it's our turn to level the remainder before the garden shed gets moved on Monday.


We will get there, and hopefully well before that gardening Rubicon in late October, Labour Weekend. For now I dreaming of the things you can't buy, freshly picked sugar snap peas, scarlet runner beans, homegrown watermelon and sun warmed strawberries.