Cottontails Kitchen Garden - going well!

Sorry to be a bit quiet for a few days, but as you can see I have been fairly busy watering, weeding and generally tending to the burgeoning Cottontails garden...


I am quite frankly staggered by how much is growing (mainly from seeds) and am spending quite a lot of time just wandering around grinning.


Meanwhile Humphrey is on the sidelines twitching his nose and licking his lips...

Potato growing advice...?

I have been 'earthing up' my potatoes for the last fortnight and am wondering how much longer I should keep this up? They keep on growing - which is a good thing - and I'm going to end up with a mountain if I keep heaping earth on them... Advice please!

In the meantime the sunny potato patch is proving to be a popular spot with Nini mouse and her baby..


Also, I have finally got a Cottontails Baby Facebook page up and running. It's a bit more interactive for competitions and things.

A matter of trust..

He says he's only here to help and promises not to snaffle any veg...


Hmmm. I'm not sure.

For those who would like to take the risk, we have plenty more gardener rabbits eager to, erm, help...

Cottontails Kitchen Garden - growing mint

Did you know you can grow mint just by picking a sprig and putting it in a glass of water? I vaguely remembered reading something about it and thought I'd have a go, and so far the signs are good.

I pilfered a sprig of mint from my dad's garden last time I went over and within about 10 days look what had happened:


So this weekend I planted it up into a pot of compost, gave it a good feed and water...



...then popped the pot into the ground.



Apparently mint is so voracious that it's best to do it this way - if you plant it directly into the ground it will have taken over your garden within the week (or so you would think given the number of warnings I have had from more experienced gardeners. Just mention mint and there is much sucking in of breath and shaking of heads!)

So finger's crossed for a thriving mint plant in the near future!

Meanwhile it was time to try out another Cottontails garden tool, and this time I picked one of our watering cans.


The Little Pals green watering can (£8) is one of three children's watering cans available at Cottontails and a very nice little thing it is too! Small enough to be very quick to fill and light to lift when full, but holds enough water to be worthwhile.


I also discovered it is quite handy for doing the watering in our little plastic mini greenhouse thingy (you know, one of those sets of shelves covered with some plastic) - there is not much space between the shelves and it's a bit of a challenge to squeeze in a full size watering can so this is just the job.

Cottontails Kitchen Garden Part 2 - some planting

Another nice weekend weather-wise, and planting is now underway at Cottontails.


Friday evening Mike and I went down to visit mum and dad and do a bit of a raid on my father's greenhouse - he has an amazing garden and had offered me some seeds and plants. This is his lovely garden:


Saturday morning I made a plan of what was going to go where (in the Moulin Roty gardener's notebook of course!).


Then we popped to the local garden center for some compost and some more seeds, and the rest of the weekend was spent digging, sowing and watering.

So far we have little plants of: runner beans, broad beans, beetroots and marigolds, and seeds of loads of herbs, potatoes, radish, carrots, spring onions and salad. I have been checking daily for shoots but nothing yet... guess two days is a little optimistic?


The Cottontails gardening equipment trialed this weekend included our Little Pals gardening gloves (£3) and trowel (£3).


Isobel, aged nine, donned the gloves and gave them a definite thumbs up! She said they are warm and comfy and even commented with surprise how soft they felt inside when she put them on. As for the little trowel, I tried that one out myself and in the interests of honesty have to say I was a bit disappointed that it didn't 'hold' more earth - it is quite a flat little tool. But sturdy and comfy to hold none the less. Just better for digging than for earth carrying!

Finally it's Rabbit Awareness Week this week so I will be back tomorrow with a more rabbity post!

Cottontails Kitchen Garden Part 1 - Building the raised beds

Haven't we had a beautiful weekend? And the timing was perfect as it meant we could make a start on the Cottontails Kitchen Garden.
Thanks to everyone's comments and feedback last week, I decided to go for a mixture of raised beds and a couple of borders. The borders will be for lavender and herbs - maybe with some peas at the back? - and the raised beds will be for other veg and salad things.

Mike did some research and came across Moor Court Farm, a nearby farm selling railway sleepers, oak timbers and vegetable bed kits. We drove over on Thursday afternoon to meet Nick who runs the business, and by Friday morning he had delivered the timber for two 8' x 4' veg beds and two tonnes of top soil. They deliver nationwide (have a shop on ebay) and I can't recommend them enough so if you are on the look out for really good quality raised beds (sustainable oak, 100% organic, not requiring any treatment) have a look at their website.


Saturday morning Mike assembled the raised beds (while I slept in!) and once they were in position we dug out the turf and forked up the ground underneath.


I relaid the turf and started digging the nearby borders while Mike began filling the raised beds with the top soil.


Sunday was spent with more of the same plus digging compost out of our four year old 'heap' of grass cuttings and garden trimmings in the far corner of the garden. It's good stuff!

We worked until 8pm with only the odd break to drink tea and read Alan Titchmarsh, and by the end of the day most of the hard work has been done.



So far there haven't been many occasions to test out my children's gardening equipment (Mike snorted when I suggested we use one of the little pink wheel barrows for transporting the two tonnes of top soil) but I have managed to give the Moulin Roty rake a good work out on the borders and can report that it really is a strong, sturdy tool. Easily up to the job of any full size garden rake but just slightly smaller and lighter - it's a genuinely good quality, scaled down garden tool.


Also I am using a Gardener's Notebook for the planning and ideas:

And next weekend the planting begins!

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 :-)

More Moulin Roty gardening...

I've just been adding some more Moulin Roty things to our new gardening department. Humphrey - and some of the other rabbits - are particularly taken with this lovely grow your own carrots kit...


This one contains Sylvain rabbit and carrot seeds, but there are four other varieties available including Felicie hen and sunflower seeds, Nini mouse and poppy seeds and Perlette frog and pumpkin seeds.

Gardening (and where is Ernest?!)

Just a quick post to let you know that we now have a dedicated children's gardening department at Cottontails. It has been a new and different experience to write the product descriptions - I am so used to describing soft cuddly things that are safe from birth, it is an altogether different thing to be describing, for example, a 3' garden rake - not safe from birth!


One of my favourite things is this small wooden weather vane - perfect for the shed, summerhouse, play house etc - when I get some spare time and a sunny day I am going to put one up on the Cottontails office.


Humphrey meanwhile likes the look of this salad garden kit...


The plan is for me to set up my own little Cottontails garden over the coming weeks, and to use some of the equipment as I do so. And I will of course be writing about it on here...

(****NEWS FLASH****As I am in the middle of writing this post another huge gardening delivery has just arrived - so my gardening department is about to grow!)

Just a little update on Ernest who left for his next destination at Pomona's last week (in case people are wondering where he is, and thinking that maybe I have rooster-napped him and not actually sent him on his way at all - which did of course cross my mind....) Anyway, Pomona has left me a message to say that Ernest has indeed arrrived in Faversham, but that the family has been a bit under the weather so there hasn't been chance for adventures and postings yet... but keep an eye on Pomona's blog and I'm sure he'll pop up very soon now.