Garden Share Collective: It's winter again.

On the first (official) day of winter, it's time once again to take a peek into my little vegie garden. Linking up as always with Lizzie of Strayed from the Table and the Garden Share Collective. Have you joined the collective?

Stevia, a little sweetie flowering.

And so it's winter. Not that it feels like it, and apparently the garden isn't sure it's winter yet either. But the conditions are lovely all the same, and lots of greenery is growing in the garden. Mostly weeds, mind you, but some vegies are doing their bit as well. 

Currently on the go in the vegie garden is celery (I am loving this, I planted it back in summer and now I just take stalks as I need them for soups and stocks and lentil bolognese), rainbow chard, broad beans, peas and broccoli. And about twenty million snails, mostly little ones. Any ideas on how to remove snails sans snail bait? I haven't tried beer yet, as we just never buy it, but I wonder if wine would have the same effect. Any ideas fellow gardeners?

The herb garden is also ticking along quite happily, albeit slowly now as it's a fairly shaded area. Currently growing is rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, mint, rocket, chives and a stevia plant I found at the market. And a bunch of weeds in between.

I absolutely love silverbeet and rainbow chard. Can't get enough of this stuff. Nor can the chickens.

Planting

In June, I'll be planting garlic, some more rainbow chard, spring onions and some brown onion seedlings from the nursery. A few weeks ago I planted out cauliflower and mini cabbage seedlings and they all got eaten by those darn snails. Very, very disheartening to see, especially as I made quite the effort to get them in the ground, and all for nothing. Gosh, I sound so bitter!

Harvesting

At the moment it's just celery and rainbow chard plus herbs as needed. We had a few more zucchini's during May but I finally had to remove the biggest zucchini plant I've ever grown and make space for new plantings (the ones that got eaten..).

The broad beans are flowering. So pretty.

To Do List

Well, I'm keeping my garden To Do list to a minimum at the moment, so apart from planting out a few bits and pieces, possibly into pots, I'll be keeping an eye on frosty nights to cover up flowering peas and broad beans if needed and not too much else. Regular checks of the broccoli to make sure the white moths aren't attacking it again, making sure the peas and broad beans are supported. The garden could do with a nice big bed of pea straw but I'm not sure I will have the opportunity to get to it.

Winter garden greenery.

Anyway I'm very happy with this little winter vegie garden, it is surprisingly productive and is without doubt the most productive winter garden I've yet produced. I'm loving watching the flowering of the peas and broad beans and just seeing the greenery flourish against the cool season backdrop.

So how is your garden looking as we start June? 

For more gardens, head over to the Garden Share Collective page and take a look, there are bloggers from all over the world taking part so there's sure to be someone near you.