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Autumn on the allotment with kids


Hurrah! It's September, I love the all changes of season but summer to autumn is probably my favourite. On the allotment there's plenty of food for us to harvest, but no yucky digging. Meaning I can easily take the kids down on my own.
It's such a quiet place to be. Which is much needed when you live above a pub. I love our home but there's no forgetting where you live. The kids don't seem to mind (I guess they are more used to it as they have heard it from the womb) but the noise gets to be a bit stressful sometimes. It's like your neighbours are having a party all the time! So being down the allotment is my happy place, I'd really love to put a shed down there. Or even better a shepherds hut. Until then we are just loving all the delicious crops on offer like these raspberries
 
Mainly its all picking crops and a little weeding. I've got crops in pots (fennel, leeks, chicory) ready to go in the ground when I pull up my summer marrows. In between rows of slower growing plants like Kale, purple sprouting, carrots and cauliflower,  I planted (in august) fast crops of baby turnips, baby beetroots and kohl rabi. I've been pulling these up a handful at a time, in a kind of staggered thinning out of crops style to make the harvest last longer without having to preserve it yet.
We've been using a lot of the veggies for the pub. So I'm down there twice a week picking crops and once a week weeding and pottering.
Little miss M loves being outside. I'm flabbergasted when I compare how she is as a baby compared to froggy. He hated to sit still, always wanted to be carried or on the move. But my baby M, she's an observer, quite happy in the pushchair or the bouncer down the allotment. Making all the hoeing and harvesting a lot easier on my back. She just coo's at the flowers, a true free range kid.
 
At two froggy is finally a willing allotmenteer. He's not running off (so much) and can put some of his beautiful energy into digging or eating berries. Which given his strong urge to run off from the crowd at play groups and mothers coffee mornings, bizarrely makes the prospect of being down the allotment a lot more calming!
 
This month, I'm focussing frogs homeschool (or home preschool) around the theme of seeds and harvest. So the allotment has been a valuable resource. We've just sown the last of the pea's and beans for this year. Along with salad crops in the pub vegetable beds. I'm not sure if they will crop before the frost. But other homesteader mum blogs lead me to feel hopeful.
 
Looking for more homestead mum blogs- Sharing is caring so here are my favourites this Month
 
 
 


 

 

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