The early days of Spring have been an erratic affair in Melbourne this year with often very chilly 16 degree days and warm 26 degree days in the same week. It has also been incredibly windy so I've put off planting anything new and needy in favour of maintaining and re-staking existing plants. I'm also holding off on planting tomatoes until the more traditional Melbourne Cup Day but the nice weather on the weekend got the better of us so we all trundled off to the nursery to explore the seeds and seedlings.
After a few not so successful attempts with seeds in the past I like to stick to seedlings so I came home happy with my parsley, basil, mint, oregano and thyme (the rosemary I struck from a larger plant my father gave me - rosemary for remembrance). The kids carry less battle scars than me (although there were those weirdly contorted carrots we grew one year) so they opted for seeds but we all agreed that they should be for relatively quick growing things that they would actually eat.
Enter Little Gardeners seeds and their lovely Rainbow Veggie Salad mix (radishes, rainbow silver beet/ chard and carrots - we've held off on the carrots!) and some cucumber, lettuce and rocket. As you can never have enough basil we also bought some basil seeds which came impregnated in a paper disc which you just pop into the soil. I'm not at all sure where I am going to put all the resulting seedlings but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
What's growing in your garden?
I love spring wilth all it's new beginnings...It must feel good to have your father's rosemary...one to cherish. It's one of my favourite and most used herbs. Our garden is a bit wild and wooly at the moment but the mint and rosemary are still flourishing. We've hardly had any apples but brought tons home from a visit to West Sussex where people had left them all ready bagged up outside their houses for anyone to take. Lots of apple pies and orchard puddings are being eaten over here.
ReplyDeleteI hope the weather settles and you have a lovely weekend.
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All those apples sound lovely (and the orchard pudding too!). The seeds have all sprouted much to the kids delight but my mint is already threatening to crowd out the other seedlings so I might have to re-pot it. The weather here is still very cold and windy and I just wish I could blow it all north to New South Wales where they are in the middle of heatwave and are fighting terrible bushfires.
DeleteI've been planting lots of pretty flowering shrubs in containers for the front patio ... I've had my heart broken too many times by vegetables and fruit trees that refuse to grow ... so I've decided to pitch my efforts into growing bright, beautiful flowers instead. So far, so good.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with your new plants. :)
I know you love freshly cut flowers so hopefully you will save a bundle growing your own! I've had my fair share of heartbreak growing fruit and vegetables too but I once read that it's much more fun to grow things you can't get easily at the supermarket like quinces, feijoas, cumquats etc or things that taste better when you grow them yourself like tomatoes. That made a lot of sense to me. I like growing herbs too. They're so expensive to buy and I hate having to buy big quantities which then go to waste.
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