New season starting

[Seaweed]

I am gearing up to start planting my vege seeds for the spring. What is everyone else doing?

[magical1]

Well I am looking at my overgrown, un weeded patch and thinking about how nice it will be to have some sunshine.

This year I have decided to not have as many veg and do far more herbs for my tinctures. I am only going to grow what I am good at and what I will eat.. lots of spuds, garlic, zucchini, rocket. My mistake is to over plant things that I never eat and to grow things that don't have a show in my shady, damp back yard.

SO to answer your question I'm not doing anything at present... just thinking about it. I've got a big job getting it all ready. I've let everything over run. There are even three giant red cabbages in there still from summer

[Seaweed]

.There are even three giant red cabbages in there still from summer MT's cabbage salad recipe is really nice :D I'm kinda also partial to fried cabbage or saurkraut. We're more limited in what we can grow down here. All our brassicas bolt if there is not enuf rain too.

[Wonder-Full]

I'e got seeds in propogators atm and they are due for transplanting into little pots where I'll keep them for another 6wks or so till the soil warms up and frosts gone. I am also only fousing on things that we will eat rather than a bit of this and a bit of that this year - I also like to grow a signifiant amount to try and be self suffiient during the growing season (and hopefully store some).

We're also preparing for fruit trees, grapes, strawberries (got them in a few weeks bak), passionfruit.

(sorry for terrible typos - omputer keyboard has missing keys - hopefully MT won't ban me. :giggle:).

[Sandra17]

Getting ready. Slowly. Sowed some rocket and florence fennel and calendulas yesterday. We live in a bog, or so it seems, especially at the moment. I found willowherb on a list of plants which live in bogs last week and I have some epilobium willowherb seeds still (none germinated last year). I think I'll have a go at them and then find the resource which told me what they are good for and how to use them.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

we live in a bog too. All my lettuces which normally grow quite happily in the winter are just vein shells.... seaweed reckons the extra water destroys the cell integrity, and leaves them open to slug feasts.

The rhubarb got transplanted elsewhere, and appears to be happy; the garlic is coming up; 6 celery plants are in now; tomato seeds were put in potting mix on 2 August and three varieties of cabbage seed were also put in seedmix. One row of potatoes went in.

At the moment, every day I trench in grass clippings, chook manure and dolomite into where the tomatoes will go. They won't go in until end of september or even later maybe... in lieu of sky hooks, we put up high wires so that I have less plant slippage than last year.

But basically the garden is only just starting to move. The weeds are starting to grow, so it won't be long.

The parsley plants which have been sitting there doing nothing, will have to be moved to better places.

We have two monty's surprise apple trees in the back garden into the hen's scratch area, and the posts have just gone in to espalier these.

[Mr. Beyondtheory]

My soil is a mix of volcanic and clay, so is not too bad actually. It seems it could be less heavy, but then, the plants seem to grow fine. Of course I've raised it slightly and mixed in a lot of compost which aerates it. Basalt dust and gypsum have also no doubt helped.

I have just transplanted some landcress seedlings which got propagated from my 2 landcresses, naturally. It is great in soups, especially with the stinging nettle I also have now.

I'm thinking I might plants some rocket seedlings, as they are good at self sowing.

[Seaweed]

Still gearing up for all the main stuff. I planted a few early potatoes last week & some boring stuff like silverbeet & ruby chard seed. I need to look out my main seed stash sometime this weekend as I am thinking it is time. I have a mound of horse poo to dig out & chook coops to clean too which should generate lots of manure for the garden. I planted some asparagus seedlings last year in a nice deep trench full of chook poo, wild pig skins, horse poo, well rotted compost etc & I got the most amazingly huge volunteer purple potatoes. This year I plan to use the chook manure to feed the rhubarb & the asparagus & my roses. Then sprinkle the rest neat all over the potato beds. I am wondering about picking when we will get the last frost this year. It was well late last year & frosted quite a few things in other people's gardens. Mine thankfully survived.

Rocket btw is self fertile. I think that is the right word? It does not cross pollinate with any other brassicas so once you have it, you should be able to keep it. Rocket flowers are nice with cheese :) Rocket pesto is good too.

[Mr. Beyondtheory]

Aaaaaaah, pesto! Jus luv that stuff. Thanks for those tips. One of these days I will make a pesto out of coriander, rocket, and small amount of parsley and garlic tops. Wunderbar.