Despite being the most urban-dwelling of our families, we are still a very outdoorsy family and the garden has always felt like an extension of our home.  The kids love their slide, swings and the little mud kitchen we set up under the pergola on the patio, but our little garden offers so many other opportunities for play, learning and discovery too.

As a child, I remember the delight of picking fresh strawberries from my mum’s garden every June, and I started my own strawberry patch to share that simple joy with my own daughters. I find peas will grow almost anywhere so I plant them everywhere, and the girls love picking them fresh from the pod as a snack. We grow cherry tomatoes in the green house, which our girls also love picking as soon as they turn red. We’ll never be self-sufficient but growing some of our own fruit and vegetables is a great way of teaching our children about food production.

I’ve tried to make our garden as child and wildlife friendly as possible, and we’re always delighted to see bees bumbling and butterflies fluttering around the garden, as well as worms wriggling, caterpillars crawling and so many other insects just going about their daily business. At time when there is increasing alarm about the decline of insects, I like to feel we are doing our bit to help the insect population, offering them food, water and shelter, and my kids already understand that we need pollinators if we want to keep eating so many of their favourite foods like strawberries, raspberries and apples. My kids often help filling up the little trays of water we leave out for insects and birds in hot weather, as well as the bird feeders, combining their scooping and pouring skills with another lesson in taking care of nature. We’ve had lots of butterflies in the garden this year from small whites nibbling my kale and red admirals feasting on our plums.

Over the years, we’ve had a few hedgehogs visiting the garden much to everyone’s delight. Last year we helped fatten up a little hoglet that found his way in over the summer before he moved on elsewhere for the winter. We haven’t seen any hedgehogs this year, but I hope they’ll find their way in again.

I know that one small garden can’t save the world, but when so many young people are struggling with climate anxiety, our garden reminds us that it’s not as hopeless as the headlines make out, that nature is abundant and generous, and that humans can live in harmony with nature. Our garden is a little sanctuary in the city where we can escape from the hustle and bustle to play, learn and grow in every sense, a place where we can enjoy the sweetness of strawberries, chase butterflies, count bees and marvel at how tiny seeds grow into tall sunflowers. 

Have a lovely week. X