My new favourite gardening tools

The garden centres are full of tools and bits and bobs to tempt us into spending money but I wonder, do you buy additional spades and forks once you have your basics gardening tools?

After seeing Monty Dons immaculate potting shed with all his tools hanging up, I looked at my pile of gardening paraphernalia, heaped up in the corner of the garage and thought I needed to have a sort out.

I don't tend to have lots of tools, probably one of everything I need and I have collected some old second hand tools which I picked up at an NGS garden I visited but I have to admit I was tempted by Burgon and Balls stand at my local garden centre, Stewarts Garden Centre near Wimborne.

This seed and planting measuring tool and dibber is absolutely fantastic for a person like me who has no concept of space and especially as I vowed to space my plants correctly this year, it will be a god send.

Not only does it have inches and centimetres marked out but it gives the recommended planting distances for popular plants too.

Check out their website http://www.burgonandball.com for all their garden tools and your local stockist.
I especially love their Grow Your Own range, which is were this ingenious tool comes from.

Below is a sneak peak of their children's gardening tools, which I will be reviewing along with some other fantastic children's gardening tools from www.craftplay.com on the blog by The PR Mummy which I am writing a weekly guest post on, to give help and encouragement to parents who want to garden with their children and are completely new to gardening.

I think my most favourite gardening accompaniment, is a kneeler I received for my birthday, from Cath Kidston.  (She didn't give me the kneeler my friend Linda did!)

                  
                                                                  Cath Kidston Kneeler

I am a big fan of Cath Kidston products, so I absolutely love this pretty kneeler.

Last weekend the weather was absolutely glorious. I had to take a trip to the DIY store and I saw lots of people buying bedding plants and the naughty store didn't have any signs up to warn the shoppers of frost, which could still rear its ugly head, even here in sunny Dorset.

There was a seed sowing frenzy going on in the greenhouse.
Courgettes, sweetcorn, cut and come again lettuce and squash were all sown and whilst I was at B & Q, I bought a length of drainpipe to sow some peas in. The idea is that you fill the drainpipe with compost and then sow your seeds. When they are ready to plant, you just make an indentation in the soil, with the drainpipe and then slide the seeds, compost and all into the bed. I have never done this before, so it's an experiment but if it's good enough for Sarah Raven, it's good enough for me.

The flower garden is growing at a rate of knots and my orange tulips look magnificent.

                                                                  
                                                                      Orange Tulip

With major reconstruction work going on at the top of the garden, I will soon have a couple of new beds to plant up. I have a few ideas of the kinds of plants I am going for, Miscanthus and Verbena Bonariensis so I now need to decide, do I grow them from seed or buy big plants for instant impact. Decisions, decisions but how exciting, those are the kinds of decisions I enjoy.