Day 978 - pumpkins
Thursday, 02 May 2013
Gemma and I have been happily married for very many years. We get on famously and have many of the same interests and hobbies - that is apart from gardening. Gemma will avoid venturing outside at all costs, has absolutely no interest in what I do with the garden and, if the truth be known, would much rather curl up on the sofa with a book and ignore everything that's happening outside. I thought my new greenhouse might ignite a bit of excitment within her, but even that got just a cursory glance - at the end of the day, Gemma's just an 'indoor' girl.
Ida, our lovely little daughter, is the spitting image of Gemma so I thought she might have a similar reaction to outdoor activity as her mother. How wrong could I have been – Ida, just like her father, seems to adore being outside. There's nothing she enjoys more than running about the lawn and poking around to find creepy crawlies – it's come as a wonderful surprise to me.
You can imagine my excitement when Ida told me she'd like to grow a pumpkin. Okay, she'd seen Daddy Pig grow one on Peppa Pig, but she asked, totally unprompted, to do some gardening. Hurrah! Before she could change her mind we nipped down to the garden centre to buy some seed. We then came home and dashed down to the greenhouse to start sowing. Here she is proudly showing you what's she's going to grow:
What happened next totally amazed me. I expected to have to really guide Ida through the sowing process, and I thought it was highly likely that she'd moan about getting her hands dirty. I completely underestimated her. Filling pots, sowing seed and watering was all totally instinctive to her - it was just like she'd been doing it for years. And she didn't care a jot about getting dirty - in fact, she seemed to thoroughly love it. Here she is in action to prove I'm not fibbing:
So, Ida's gardening future looks promising. She's keenly watching her pots to see if the pumpkins have germinated and she's showing an interest in everything I do outside. She's really helpful with watering, completely understanding about watering the soil, not the leaves, and shows every sign of following in my footsteps. I'm seeing it as a bit of a triumph.
Until next time...