The cold and wet are dampening my gardening spirit

As the weather has been getting colder and wet for days at a time, I haven't been getting out into the garden as much as I would like. When the day warms up and pottering in the garden is possible, I am not always in a position to be out there, with work and other commitments.

I am starting to miss the warm weather when I can wander into the garden at 7am in pyjamas and bare feet with my children out there with me... times when I can garden or potter any time of the day and spend time out there just because... when I see the bountiful produce and we have an array of fresh produce that can be eaten straight from the garden.

My winter peas haven't grown much and are no where near pick and eat stage; the broccoli is still small and again, no where near floret stage. We have plenty of onions and spring onions, but I'm not so keen at just pulling them out and eating them as is! Sure, the are lettuce, herbs, beetroot leaves and chard growing that can all be eaten, but it's not the same.

I still have a quantity of pumpkins, but we are actually reaching pumpkin saturation point in our meals at the moment, so we may lay off them for a bit! When I pulled out the tommy toe tomatoes I hung the trusses of green tomatoes up to let them ripen and they are slowly ripening up. I have one rather protected garden bed, it is actually the rhubarb and asparagus bed, that I planted roma tomatoes in. This was as a deterrent for the pesky couch grass starting to make its way into the bed - apparently couch doesn't like tomatoes. It didn't stop the couch, but is protected enough to not be effected at all by the numerous frosts that we have had so far. I am still picking tomatoes from the garden, even when the tomatoes growing in the green house aren't in good shape! Thinking of the green house, I have lots of little seedlings of winter veg in paper pots in the green house and more I need to sow...

I was feeling a bit down about the garden, but just writing about some of the things we have going on in there is actually making me feel good. I just checked and the temp is 9 degrees C and rising, and it's not actually raining at the moment. Well a little bit of drizzle won't harm us... Come on my littlies, let's get on some warm clothes and get out there! There is plenty to do and you could do with a play on the jungle gym.

PJG