What a great time of the year, and certainly my favourite. Some of the fruit trees are sporting masses of blossom from white to pinks, and leaves are growing quickly.
But best of all, I get to plant lots of veggies by seed.
Today was a marathon. I sewed the following vegetables in punnets;
Pumpkins: Australian Butter, Queensland Blue, Butternut, Pennsylvania Crookneck, African Horned Melon, and a few mixed heirloom (not sure what they were, so a bit of a surprise).
Cucumbers: Lebanese, Spacemaster, Bush Champion, Sweet & Striped, Zucchini Black Beauty.
Tomatoes: Roma, Tigerella, Mortgage Lifter, Elfie, Yellow Current, Thai Pink Egg, Black Russian.
Capsicum: Yellow long, California Wonder, Sweet Chocolate,
Eggplant (Aubergine): Listada de Gandia
Rainbow Chard, Chilli (birdseye), Basil, Giant Sunflowers, Lazy Housewife Beans, and Celery.
I now have four large trays of planted seedlings. Hopefully all will sprout. All I have to do is wait for the soil in the garden beds to heat up, as well as the current crops reaching harvest!
This morning, Kim and I potted up the two cocktail pear trees that we dug out of the ground.
We used a good quality potting mix and added in a bit of homemade compost to give them a boost. The buds are just begining to swell, so we got them in the pots in time. We are hoping for lots of growth this year now that these trees are free from the heavy clay soil.
I also hung a strawberry pot of sorts. Kim calls it her Madonna booby!
She saw these cone hanging baskets on some telly show and fell in love with it, so being the dutiful hubby, I fixed the bracket to the wall. It took me a good 30 minutes for something that should have taken 10. I snapped off two crappy masonry drill bits whilst drilling holes for dynabolts to fasten the bracket in place. Both broken bits were stuck in the holes, so I had to start all over again 10mm away from the original hole.
Anyway, Kim wanted flowers, however she compromised as I said I wanted strawberries, which also have flowers but are more productive. She thought it was a great idea.
Also on the dutiful husband side of planting, I potted up three Princess Lavender for her in this nice terracotta pot. They smell wonderful as you brush past them. Kim is getting more confident with looking after plants, and has a growing collection of lavender and succulents in pots just outside her office door.
To cap all this off, I staked up the Broad Bean bed. Due to strong northerly winds, many of the bean stalks had fallen over, so with some large stakes and lots of twine, I remedied the issue.
At least I can walk past the bed now, and get easy access to the greenhouse, which is a must at this time of year.
I am looking forward to getting back into the garden again tomorrow. It is so addictive, and a lot healthier than any other narcotic I can think of!
How about you? Have you spent much time prepping for Spring?
Gavin, do you find that seedling grown plants fruit sooner than direct sown in Melbourne? I did some comparison plantings a couple of years ago and discovered that here, in Northern Tas, plants direct sown in October pretty much outcompeted, or performed on par with the ones grown from seedlings planted indoors as seed in late August. It may be due to my seedling growing techniques of course, and I don’t have a green house, but I don’t tend to bother growing seedlings any more after that experiment.
Hi Jo, I used to plant direct, however due to earwig and slug problems, I only grow by seedling now. It gives the plants a better chance of survival.
Gav
A little hint when using dynabolts for brick walls. Use a dynabolt that is similar in size to the mortar gap in the brickwork. Then drill the hole in the mortar, not the brick, it is heaps easier. Dynabolts work by expanding as you tighten the nut. In this case they will expand against the bricks on either side of the mortar and create a solid anchor. Note the dynabolt has to be large enough to take up the width of the mortar and grip the brick or else it won’t work.
The other problem with putting dynabolts in brick is that many bricks are hollow and the dynabolt can go in to the void and has nothing to grip onto. In this case, plastic spaghetti and screws are a better option. Or even masonary screws, but these are relatively expensive.
Cheers
Cheers Mick
Hi Gavin,
I also got the seed sowing bug this weekend. I sowed, eggplant, leek, florence fennel, dwarf beans, borlotti beans, beetroot, heaps of sweetcorn and red onions. I put them all in the mini greenhouse as I am in the process of re-doing my vegie beds, instead of one 3.5 mtrs by 2.5 mtrs I am having 6 – 2mtrs x 2mtrs beds built. I have the space thank goodness and just need to be a bit more on to it.
Regards
Jo in NZ
We got up to the new house again today and planted in the bare rooted trees. 4 sultana grape, 1 mulberry, 2 apple and a cherry were added to yesterday’s peach tree. It’s hard to do anything else at this stage as we haven’t reached settlement yet and we need to clear out the existing trees (poplar which are classified as weeds) to properly plant out the orchard so we could only do a little this year sadly. I will add apricot, olives, avocados, blueberries, black currants and more apple, cherry and peach trees next year. It was good to get dirty today though. I’ll check on my milk carton greenhouses tomorrow and possibly plant more seeds then. :o)
We are of course on the opposite season from you – heading into fall – so harvesting, canning, drying, sowing green manure crops is all the rage roundabout. Your broad beans look wonderful – do you get any trouble with black fly? Lazy housewife beans? What are they? Love Kim’s hanging basket – worth the grief with the drilling.
Thanks for the reminder, Gavin. I’ve been a bit neglectful of the edible balcony for a few months, being winter and all. The most attention I have paid it so far is ogling the broccoli.