Spring Time in the Garden

Hello dear friends,

It has been a while I know, but I thought it was time for an update on the vegie garden.

Spring has been a long time coming with cold nights still around and lots of rain falling.  There has been a lot more rain than usual for this time of year. Because of the colder days and nights the plants have been rather sluggish in taking off. Normally this time of year it would be getting quite warm to hot.

This silver beet is from last season and is starting to go to seed. Hopefully the seeds will spread and come up by themselves. The chooks love to eat the silver beet leaves, this is why I grow them.

The strawberries have sent out runners and established themselves along the edge of the bath. I am really pleased at how well these are growing considering I have neglected them terribly through winter. They are loaded with strawberries.

I decided to plant more kale this year. This is great added to smoothies during summer.

The silver beet has been neglected too but look at how well it is growing.

I am wanting to grow apple cucumbers, but couldn't find any seedlings so have planted these ones for now. They are cucumber spacemaster and are dark skinned. I am going to look through my seed collection and see if there are any apple cucumber seeds I can plant out.I pulled out the old capsicum plants.  I was going to chop them back but thought starting with fresh plants was a better way to go.  The ones I planted last season produced good fruit right though winter.

 With all the rain we have had there are celery plants popping up everywhere. This is one of the easiest plants to grow.

The rhubarb I transferred to this wicking barrel is looking very healthy. The rain has done wonders.

I am waiting for my tomato seeds to come up.  I buried some of the old tomatoes from last year and hoping they will germinate soon. 

In the meantime I found these Stupice tomatoes at a farmers market recently. Apparently these grow well in cooler weather so I am going to give them a trail run to see how they fare.

The spring onions grew well in a wicking barrel.  They have gone to seed and once dry I will spread the seeds over the soil so some new plants can grow.

I was very pleased to see some native bees buzzing around the flowers. Last year there didn't seem to be many bees around.

This is how the vegie garden is looking.  It is early days yet, but I am looking forward to having a bountiful season.

I am going to get hubby to help me relocate these baths to the other part of the garden. Then the plants will be all contained in one area.  Not sure what I will do with this side yet but have been thinking maybe cover over and make into a green house. Hint,hint! 

 This is where the baths are going to be put. We have started removing the soil from this old bed and then will take the posts away and place the baths along the fence.

The weather is warming up this week.  This past week we have had terrible storms and power outages. Hopefully there wont be much more of that sort of weather. Our power was out for over twenty four hours, but other places were out for much longer. The strong winds brought down trees and flattened power poles. It also brought more rain for some areas and caused flooding.  Mother nature is grand isn't she?

How is your garden preparation going? What are you attempting to grow this season?

Take care everyone,