Trying a new technique for the seedlings this year – the chance to plant them slightly earlier outside while giving them some protection from the elements.
And on a separate note…. the fig tree is doing really well this year
Egg Tree 2012
Happy Easter everyone.
I’m taking it as a sign of getting older that this year I’m getting as much satisfaction from planning and planting flowers as vegetables. My normal attitude is that flowers are lovely but you can’t (usually) eat them.
Planting veg seems to give a better return for your time and effort. Until this year. I suddenly feel quite motivated to focus on the floral too.
As I don’t have much experience planting or looking after flowers I’m probably going to start with a similar approach to my vegetable gardening – just start sticking in stuff I like the look of, see how it goes. I just started with a couple of small areas today. Hoping these plants are going to fill out a bit for a more impressive display as the months roll on.
Pansies in the tyre garden
A little underwhelming today
Luckily for our future table while I was focusing my efforts on the aesthetic, the under-gardener was working on increasing our vegetable crops, planting more potatoes, spinach, turnips, onions and peas (actually I did help with the peas.)
Papa's little helper in the potato patch
So right now – apart from my pretty pansies there is not much to see in our garden to reflect all our hard work. But I took a photo today so I can compare the scene in a few months time.
Four canes of peas, and 1 row of Swiss Chard.
Managed to distract the small person with two bowls of water and a small watering can and had enough time to plant:
2 rows of a lettuce mix and a row of green beans.
Planting the beans this early is a little experiment for me as I have always done it in May before but it would be nice to get these started early.
I’m finding keeping this blog going a little like I found keeping a diary when I was a teenager. I start full of good intentions and end up making one entry before forgetting to write again for a year. I have boxes of diaries with great diary entries for Jan 1 and 2 and then nothing else.
Planting the spring crops is a little like New Year for this blog. But maybe this will be the year I get past post number 1. Of course it’s even harder than it used to be with a toddler to run around after as well. If only I could train her to help do the weeding – maybe next year.
So, we are a little late with some of our planting this year but we do have garlic, onions, peas, spinach and potatoes in so far. And the herb garden mostly survived from last year after the very mild winter so we already have oregano, rosemary, thyme and the delightful first shoots of mint appearing.
Weeding awaits…
And I’ll work on my blogging motivation – but in case you don’t see me for a year, best wishes everyone!
So it took a little longer than I thought to get back into the swing of working, gardening and blogging while looking after a newborn. I certainly appreciate how much easier gardening is when not heavily pregnant. However there’s now a little person who needs as much attention as the weeds and seedings do and blogging on top of all of that can seem a little too much work. So I’m aiming for short and sweet blog posts but as regular as possible.
Because we have so much on our plates I’m very pleased that we have our spring planting mostly in and a plan for the summer months. For now, a few pictures of the garden beds today:
