Garden Share Collective: Late Winter Happenings

Once again I'm joining in with Lizzie from Strayed from the Table and a bunch of other gardening bloggers to take part in the Garden Share Collective and share the latest happenings in my little corner of the world. Enjoy!

Keeping the chooks out. And adding some good karma?

Let me start this post by saying - jute webbing and prayer flags are a huge success at keeping our vegetable garden chicken-free. I'm stoked - my problem is solved and I'm happily pottering in the vegie garden without the worry my work will be undone by rogue chickens. The roll of jute webbing cost me about $11, a cheap and easy solution if you ask me [we already had a chook wire fence but they just hopped straight over it]. And it works because chickens don't like things that flap! After having it up for a month, I think they've already forgotten about going in the vegie garden at all. No wing clipping required. So that's one big job ticked off 'the list'.

Now that I'm back into it all, I've spent some time digging over a couple of the beds from last summer. I discovered that my soils have improved significantly from what they were a year ago [see this post] and I'm very happy about that! I've planted out seeds of broad beans, spinach, spring onions and lettuce. Goodness knows if they'll do anything but if nothing else, I'm confident the broad beans will come through. We've had a pretty mild winter, and no frosts since I planted them. We've also had a lot of rain lately, and some brilliant sunny days in between. So conditions are good. There's also some potato sprouting where I grew it last year. I'm leaving it to do it's thing!

Always plentiful, good old silverbeet.

Looking happy; sage and flat leaf parsley.

Growing well now is the silverbeet [from last summer!], flat leaf parsley, sage and the broccoli is still giving us lots of little heads. We're harvesting regularly from these, which is helping my motivation no end. And eating lots of silverbeet and lentil soup. The fruit trees are preparing to blossom, they'll be another month or two off at least. We've got a red delicious, a golden delicious, a fig and a white peach tree, all of which we planted last year. We were hoping to get another couple of fruit trees in this year, but so far, we haven't. The lucerne trees along our fence line are about to flower, which I'm looking forward to as they look really beautiful in full bloom.

The red delicious... getting ready to blossom.

The rain gauge that never gets emptied, on the corner post.

The plan for this month - dig, clean up and compost! I want to get the rest of our garden under control, by which I mean borders on beds, removal of the weeds that have taken over, digging over the rest of the beds from last summer and putting out some of our lovely looking compost. Maybe even some horse poo if we take a trip to visit my mother [keeper of the lovely horses that produce the poo]. I also want to get seed potatoes in the ground. My neighbour Wilma told me last year that potatoes need to be in by mid-August if you want new potatoes for Christmas. Which I do. I'm inclined to take Wilma's word for it as she's been growing vegies next door for 40-odd years.

The pretty beds; peas are planted along the trellis.

The not-so-pretty beds; shaming myself into action.

So that's pretty much where my vegie garden is at these days. I must acknowledge the assistance I've had from my mum who's been coming over once a week to mind William for an hour while I work like mad in the garden. Having a monthly blog to write also helps as I need to have something to write about! Thanks for reading, and be sure to head over to the Garden Share Collective and see what other bloggers are up to in their gardens. I can't wait for next month when I'll have a beautifully cleaned up vegie garden to show you!