Let my words, like vegetables, be tender and sweet

...for tomorrow I may have to eat them.

Along with my ambitious flower growing pursuits this year I am attempting for the first time to grow my own fruit and vegetables. Yes, growing 18 different varieties of flowers is not enough of a challenge for me, oh no.

I currently have Mr M overhauling a section of the garden for the chickens (more on this to follow tomorrow) and the vegetables to life in harmony together, side-by-side. (That bit is going to come back to bite me on the behind isn't it? Chickens? Living in harmony with my spinach?) Mr M is creating me some raised beds to plant my vegetables in, making me little pathways, giving me a tap and even a light on a post with a little shelf to hold my radio and cup of tea. He seriously has more faith in me than I do. I'm not sure he realises that I will be a fair-weather gardener.

So here are my planting plans for the vegetables - carrots, chillis, garlic, peas, pumpkins, Juliette potatoes, radish, spinach and spring onions.

I'm now pondering over whether a pumpkin is a fruit or vegetable? Anyhow, it matters not as they will most certainly not be eaten. I cannot think of anything worse. Well yes, I probably can but pumpkin would come quite high on my "list of things never to eat again in my entire life as long as I shall live". I should be fair to the humble pumpkin really, I think my reluctance to go near them was down to an unfortunate pumpkin/vodka/cider/whisky incident which isn't entirely the fault of the pumpkin...but these days they're only good for carving and that is the sole destiny of the pumpkins I will be planting. My boy has a pumpkin fascination so the pumpkin patch is all for him really.

The rest of the vegetables will come in mighty useful though and should get used up even though I don't like radish and Mr M doesn't like spinach.

Add to the vegetable plot, the fruit. It is my intention to plant more and more fruit bushes and trees each year. This year we will be harvesting raspberries, blackberries, Bramley apples, plums, strawberries, gooseberries, cherries, rhubarb and crab apples.

A lot of these are in existence already, in fact all I am adding this year is rhubarb and the strawberries in hanging baskets and I purchased a gooseberry bush and some raspberry canes last weekend. Quite what I will do with all this fruit remains to be seen. I suspect I will have a very busy jam-making season in 2010.

So again, I am not being half-hearted with my gardening exploits this year am I? I'm swotting up with my Alan Titchmarsh "Kitchen Gardener" book every day (great book by the way) and thoroughly excited about getting out there and starting the planting over the Easter break. Are you growing anything this year?

love & kisses
Mrs M x