Spring is Sprung

With spring here, the Big Garden has been transformed from a wilderness of weeds into a productive vegetable patch once more!

A little early, even for Tauranga (we usually get tomatoes into the ground about mid-September, so we were probably at least two weeks early).  Our tomato and capsicum seedlings are covered with juice bottles to protect them.  Otherwise we would have had to re-pot seedlings several times and that's just not high on the priority list this year.

I didn't even plant seeds.  (gasps of shock!)

We instead had a rather lovely outing to Growers Direct in Te Puna on their second birthday bash, and collected a whole lot of seedlings.  Great priced seedlings in good condition.  Perfect!

And if that hadn't convinced us to come back again, some chocolate in exchange for the little fluffy balls found by the Munchinator, and morning tea for all at the free Birthday sausage sizzle.  After an incredibly windy, wet, and in all ways wild night previously, the day had dawned calm and clear.  Ah, the perfect weather for spring seedling collecting!

We are therefore now the proud owners of eight different tomato plants, and five capsicums.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love seeing new seedlings tucked into moist earth?  I can almost see them reaching their roots down, down, down and their leaves up towards the sun.

It took most of the morning for my dad and I to decide how to organise the trellis, get all the supports up, and get the tomatoes into the ground.  He (clever man) then rigged some shadecloth over top to help the new plants settle in.  Munchkin enjoyed walking underneath, leaving his toys for awhile to play with us.

He loves gardening days, because gardening days mean Munchkin gets to play in the dirt for hours and hours, happily brrrummming his big dump truck, bulldozer, and loader.  They used to belong to his uncles, but they might do three generations yet!  As long as there are big machines, dirt, and some kai handy, Munchy-baby is one happy camper.  Sometimes a little grubby, but then so are the rest of us by the end of a gardening day.

My chooks were let out to enjoy their little yard, but decided they would much rather enjoy their roof, thank you very much!  Must remember to trim their wings again since they've moulted.  Plus of course a higher than knee-high fence might help.  Grin.  At least they are usually well behaved enough to stick to the roof or the lawn and haven't enthusiastically decimated any vegetables as yet.  Supervising, that's what they were doing!

The remaining seedlings went in over the next week here and there.

Beans, zucchinis, kale, perpetual spinach, beetroot, lettuce, spinach, and herbs.  We still have some potatoes, corn, and cucumbers coming as the weather warms up further.

And now we wait, and we water, and trim, and tie up, and de-slug, and hope.  We hope for an AMAZING harvest.  Soon, I'm hoping soon.  But then I always hope it will be soon!  There's just nothing quite like eating food from your own garden.

What are you growing this spring?

Amy