Cottontails Kitchen Garden

The last few days have been warmer and I have decided the time has come to don one of these...

... and start work on a new project - the Cottontails Kitchen Garden.

The two ranges I am particularly keen to develop at Cottontails are the children's gardening and cooking departments, and I thought a really nice way to do this would be to set up a little kitchen garden and use some of the toys and equipment I sell at Cottontails to grow, harvest and then cook with the fruit, vegetables and herbs. I will take pictures and make little videos along the way.

(It sounds simple doesn't it, but I can see a fair bit of mud, hard work and an aching back ahead - and I will tell you now I am a complete novice at all this.)

The area I have allocated for this is behind the house, and is currently grass and 'rubbley' earth. Here are a few photos.




The photos make the ground look deceptively prepared but as this close up of Delilah the cat shows, it is far from rich and ready.


The first job is to create some vegetable bed areas so - limited knowledge here - I think I have to mark out some beds, take up some turf and turn over the earth. Then add some earth enriching substance like manure? Does this sound right?

Sadly at Cottontails we do not sell heavy duty digging machinery or manure, so I will have to buy this in.

So, stage one: to draw a plan then hire something called a 'Rugged Tiller' this weekend. I will share the results with you soon - assuming of course that they are not too humiliating. It can't be that difficult, right?

Finally, one of my inspirations for all this is my dad, who has created an amazing vegetable garden. This picture, taken last summer, is just one of his herb gardens. You can just about make out who is hiding in the center nibbling the parsley - I think he thought he was in heaven!



Finally, I know some keen gardeners & self sufficiency folk read this blog, so any advice would be most welcome :-)