48 hours later...

I did it.

After much moaning and whining and being let down by gardeners, I decided to take matters into my own hands and do the dirty work myself.

Monday night, our 'garden' was nothing more than bare dirt, heavily populated with chickweed, couch grass and other undesirables.

On Tuesday morning, I pulled on my wellies, coaxed the smallest member of the family to do the same and we embarked on a day of digging. Together, we turned over the dirt, weeded out rocks as big as our heads and fell out over inappropriate spade usage on a number of occasions.

By 9.30pm Tuesday night, we'd dug about one third of the garden. By Wednesday 4pm we'd achieved this:

By 10pm on Wednesday night, we'd managed to get to the end of the garden and only this small untamed patch remained:

Thursday morning at 8.30am, 130 square metres of fresh turf arrived. My forearms ached, my hips were complaining and I would have made a fist to shake at the gods of gardening if my hands hadn't been so sore.

But...the job had to be done. 

So, I single-handedly laid every square inch of that new turf (poor husband was stuck inside, typing away like mad trying to meet a deadline). I finally finished at 9.30pm last night. So, what have the last 48 hours taught me?

1. That I'm pig-headed.

2. When I set my mind to something, I can achieve it. I just need to stop the whining.

3. I'm stronger than I think (do you know how much 1 roll of turf weighs?!)

4. I'm not as strong as I think (do you know how much 1 roll of turf weighs?!)

5. I now understand why all those gardeners wouldn't touch this garden with a barge pole. Rocks? Boulders more like. Guess that's the joy of a new build property for you. The garden is simply where a lot of the surplus tiles, bricks and other stuff are dumped.

6. My garden does not need 130 square meteres of turf. It only needs 102. Ah well.

7. Arming an almost 3 year old with a hose and telling him to water the newly laid turf only works as a distraction technique for about 15 minutes before he turns the hose on his poor brother patiently waiting for his turn.

So now I'm left with blistered hands, a tattered manicure, an obscene amount of washing, filthy floors and an aching back. But we have grass and the beginnings of a garden that will bring hours of fun.

My boys think I'm a hero. I transformed the dirt bath of a back yard into a green oasis and I let them play with a hose (not a euphemism). I feel like Wonder Woman. In fact, I might just spend the next 48 hours wearing my pants on top of my tights. I feel I've earned that privilege.

Frugal top tip #2

OK, frugal fans, hold onto your hats - this is a good un...

Flowers. I adore them. Tulips, daffodils, gerbera, peonies, roses, sweetpeas, hydrangea. Love them all. It's one of my secret indulgences to have a vase of fresh flowers on the kitchen table and another on the mantlepiece in the living room. They bring me so much joy every time I catch a glimpse of them or smell their sweet fragrance.

But boy is it a costly indulgence. It's not too bad if I stick to my beloved Aldi. Their tulips are pretty good but their display tends to lack variety and their bouquets can be a bit hit or miss. Some flowers last a whole week, others start to look a bit sad before I even manage to get them into a vase.

So thank goodness Aldi also sell seeds. Hurrah! So this year, I'm turing self-sufficient on the cut flowers front.

I've got sweetpeas* sown in about 4 different massive pots as well as over at the allotment.

3 giant pots contain a wildflower seed mix.

1 pot has cornflowers.

I'm also nurturing some cosmos and some snapdragons over on the allotment. (edit: the cosmos have succumbed to frost, but the snapdragons were alive and well when I last checked. Will sow some more cosmos this weekend - that's the great thing about grow your own. Just keep sowing!)

...and the cost? Under £5. For hopefully a whole summer of vases overflowing with cut flowers.

Cornflowers

The tender beginnings of glorious, fragrant sweetpeas

*I was sent some sweetpeas and a lovely planter from Febreze as part of the P&G Clean Up London campaign, but I'll blog about it properly when the rain stops long enough for me to take some half decent photos :)

Veggie pots

And now, a showcase of our vegetable pots! Above left are some sweetpeas we germinated inside over the winter. I think we waited a bit long to plant them out though as they've gone a bit mad and are resisting growing up the canes. Above right are our tatty bags. 2 seed potatoes in each bag, with the blue bag containing some very special seed potatoes all the way from sunny Scotland.
On the left is some spinach we're growing from seed - yummy with some pasta and pesto sauce hopefully. On the right are our courgettes plants. We've grown them from seed as well and with a bit of luck they'll be as successful as last year. Plan to put 2 of them into topsy-turvy planters (hanging-basket-type containers) and we'll have to find another home for the third one.


Above are our tomato seedlings - taken a while to germinate but they seem to be on their way now.






And our pea seedlings on the left here. This is the first time we've grown pea plants and I'm quite excited about it. I have fond memories of popping peas out of their pods and straight into my mouth as a small child! Hopefully Miniegg will love eating them as much as he enjoyed the tomatoes and strawberries last year.













And finally, on the right, our barely visible carrot seedlings! Not at all convinced how successful these will be as I think I sowed them too early. Ah well, we'll see how it goes and learn from our mistakes!

So that's our veggie situation as of today. Plan to start moving the courgettes and thining out the salad and spinach this weekend I think. Happy sunny days!