So you may think we are gluttons for punishment, but it seems entirely natural that children want to garden. Or at least pull up earthworms to relocate to the compost heap or go ‘YUK’ and ‘EARGH’ at earwigs scurrying around after their peace is shattered as the pebble they were resting under is suddenly displaced by inquisitive fingers.

Anyway. we have tried to do easy kids gardening before (sunflowers, radishes, that sort of thing) all with little success, and lots of lost interest after the shoots have not appeared in the first few hours. Partly this is because of lack of water, or too much water, in equal measures (with anything involving kids and water usually ending in some sort of disaster).

So this year we have implemented a simple raised bed arrangement, with the help of a sandpit kit, and a lot of well rotted compost. So far this has been supplemented with raddish, lettuce and possibly dwarf bean seeds, and liberal amounts of water. Well lots of water straight after they were all planted, but not much since. This was a few days ago and so far, I don’t think the seeds have been dug up for random progress checks, but I suspect we won’t know until they start to sprout. Will keep you updated on progress, but now that the kids are in bed, must go and apply water liberally, to give them at least a fighting chance.

The herb garden has long been an important part of the English kitchen garden although today with the ready availability of dried herbs and fresh packet herbs from many supermarkets actually growing a herb garden is on the wane.

An easy and attractive solution, particularly for smaller gardens is to grow your herbs in pots. This way they have both a useful culinary purpose but also can have a large visual effect within your garden.

In the past we have grown a small bed, primarily just filled with herds and other culinary plants, but these have now become rather old and woody, or have died off altogether. So this year we are going back to planting our herbs in small terracotta pots and making a display on the patio just outside the back door to the kitchen.

Because we will use most of these herbs in the kitchen, we have restocked with established plants to avoid the need to wait for them to grow from seed. They still need to grow into their pots but this should happen over the course of the next few months

About the end of last year, we were given a present of a small metal bucket, complete with a number of tulip bulbs, and a small bag of compost. I can’t now remember how many bulbs but it would have been eight or ten, certainly no more as the bucket was only of modest size.

These bulbs were dutifully planted out by our then five year old, and lo and behold we now have a bucket of bright red tulips. They took a little while to actually flower and at one point I feared the slugs had got to them (perhaps that is where the missing bulbs ended up), but now there is satisfactory showing. Whilst the bucket is not the most beautiful thing in the world, if you see something similar in the shops come autumn time, this is not a bad present, particularly for children.

At the moment, we have a couple of what must be self seeded bluebell plants gracing one of our borders. In fact, the particular border is one that we have never really tried to do anything with, as it has seemingly been used as a general stone depository in the past, a place where all previous inhabitants have dumped any and every stone and small rock they came across whilst gardening. As such is even more infertile than the rest of our generally stony back garden. In some ways this makes their appearance even more welcome and provides an, albeit small, impetus to think about what we might do with this edge of the garden.

Lawns. Destined to drive many to distraction, a lawn can become a life long obsession, often disappointing its owners as when it should be at its peak it is browned off, literally by lack of rain, or turns from a lush and verdant grass to soggy moss.

One of the keys to a good lawn, like with so many other things to do with gardening, is the soil underneath the turf. Ideally this should be well draining and not too compacted, free from too many stones or tree roots, and neither too shady, nor too exposed.

In reality, most gardeners have to put up with what they get unless you’re prepared to dig up large swathes of your garden and replace top foot or so of soil with a new topsoil mix and then new turf and top.

This year our lawn has greened up nicely, but unfortunately most of that green is down to a thick bed of moss that will need to be treated and removed to allow new grass to grow. And although April onwards is the ideal time of year to start putting down lawn feed and moss killer, it does need to be applied when rain is imminent, and of course, the weather is set fair for the next few days. So it looks like it is on with other jobs until the weather turns.

The start of British Summer Time and the approach of longer, lighter evenings brings both Joy to the heart, and a new beginning to Get Outside. Although this website started life as a gardening and outside resource, our hopes and plans for it were always much more.

At the moment you will see the small shoots of our endeavors, but, and indulge us in the use of a growing analogy, from these small shoots will grow, we hope, a beautiful website resource for gardeners in the UK and further a field.

As keen gardeners and outdoors people, we look forward to sharing some of our pet outdoor loves and hates and some current garden projects.

Perhaps we might inspire others with a love of gardening, whether you have a large rambling garden or a small window box, if you are 5 or 55, being outside has a multitude of pleasures to offer, so we urge you to Get Outside!