Mud & Bloom

Now that the weather is starting to improve the Mud & Bloom boxes are really coming into their own. The June box is definitely one of our favourites, given its focus on butterflies and sunflowers. Two t hings we are keen to see in our garden.

What’s in the box this month?

Nature News – what’s going on in nature this month
Make your own butterfly feeder
Grow your own courgettes
Printing with flowers
Grow your own velvet queen sunflowers
Butterfly spotter sheet
June’s nature quiz

The highlights

I was so impressed by these gouache paints, I appreciate they are quite basic but to get a set of 7 paints in a box that costs around £11 a month is a real bargain. We don’t have a lot of flowers in our garden at the moment so we plan to hold this activity back until we’ve been able to pick some wild flowers this weekend.

My son is going through a phase of being fascinated by butterflies at the moment so this was a fantastic addition. We’re currently eyeing up a couple of jars that we’re midway through using at home to be able to make this. My son is desperate to see some butterflies up close so we cannot wait to do this. Its a brilliant idea for a subscription box and one of the things that really made us go ‘Ooooh’ this month.

Let the sun shine!

These have now been planted and we are excitedly waiting to see if we can grow at least one big sunflower. It was lovely to see a different variety of sunflower as none of us had ever seen these before. We can’t wait to see how well they do.

Ah, the husbands least favourite vegetable! Clearly we have still planted these because we can’t wait to see the flowers. I’m secretly hoping I can get away with picking and stuffing/tempura batter-ing one of the courgette flowers but I think this may be slightly above me, especially as I am not the best at judging when to harvest. However one thing I’ve really learnt from Mud & Bloom is that I maybe do have ever so slight green fingers.

In other news…

I thought I’d share progress on our previous Mud & Bloom planting experiments, proving that I am maybe not as useless when it comes to nature as I had thought…

Our tomatoes are flourishing. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully grown our own tomatoes so I am really excited to see how well they are doing.

We’re getting there with our carrots too. Our sweetcorn is doing well although birds/slugs/ants got to them the day after I took this photo.

Our score: 10.0/ 10

I really think the Mud & Bloom boxes are one of the best around for families. I wanted to try to get my son more into nature and less into screens and these boxes have DEFINITELY helped. The June box is great value and has given us some great activities. It's also wonderful to see how seeds from our previous boxes are flourishing and growing. The great thing about these boxes is their longevity, you get months of 'use' out of these and I'd definitely recommend them.

How would you rate Mud & Bloom ?