Busy busy gardening and courgettes as the ulitmate bribery tool.

Yes - there you have it, the ultimate weapon in the parental arsenal. Not so much carrot but stick.

"Do as I tell you or I will make you eat courgettes for dinner - AGAIN!"

Rule number 10 in the handbook of bad parenting - negative enforcement.

That is how I got Thea to help me do some weeding in the garden today. In fact we acheived quite a bit, removed some of the 2 metre high red weed so that the cucumbers could get some light, picked two bags of broccoli heads ready for the freezer, a whole crate of the dreaded courgettes and our first patty pan squash.

From 10 seeds last year I only had 1 germinate and that plant produced only 1 squash. Instead of eating it I have been carefully nurturing the squash all winter and in spring I cut out the seeds and planted them out. I had three plants develop and these have been out in the garden for a while, all three have lots of flowers and now the first fruit. I am too excited to acutally eat it, I am just saving it to look at for little bit.

With the courgettes hanging like the sword of Damacles over her head I got some good weeding out of Thea, we made our way up the pumpkins through the beetroots, around the caulis, back down the onions and out again through the broccoli. I now have 2 rows ready to plant out our winter animal fodder crop of turnips.

And what was for dinner I hear you cry?................................

........................... well courgettes of course!