Spring = Weeds!

The spring rain a few weeks ago has encouraged the first decent crop of weeds I have seen in my garden for many years. I have been busily removing them, feeding them to the chooks and filling the compost bin. Other plants that are growing well are the Flanders poppies that are waist height and I will have plenty for my kids to take to school tomorrow. Everything has been looking so good, although the hot weather over the last few days and for the next few days (over 30ºC) will make sure everything gets browned off and the lawns will be stopped in their tracks. I think thats spring over for us and we're now into summer a good fortnight before the official start date. Many people are saying this does not bode well for the next season which is bound to be hot. It gets hotter in Melbourne in summer than in Sydney which many visitors don't realise. But its generally a dry heat.

While closing all the curtains this morning I was suddenly struck by a dilemma. How do I keep my indoor plants going through summer when we generally live in perpetual gloom inside the house? I'll have to give this some thought.

I am picking lettuce leaves, broccoli and immature garlic from the vegetable garden and the rainbow chard (coloured silver beet) has bolted to seed and is taller than me. The crimson flowered broad beans are finally setting some pods and I am looking forward to feasting on them soon. A friend was telling me of their 'broad bean feast' where they served broad bean custard among other concoctions! Stephanie Alexander apparently has a lot to answer for! I love broad beans but I have never gone as far as twice peeling them - seems far too fiddly. When they're really young and the beans are less than the size of your little finger nail, I eat them pod and all. With a bit of butter, salt and pepper. Yum!

Just Pottering

I've had two solid days in front of the computer so I rewarded myself with some timeout in the garden today. Changing from the trakky daks into the grubby jeans reserved for gardening starts to put me in the right frame of mind. The mandatory cap and secateurs stuffed into the back pocket completes the ensemble. I set out to plant a few bits and pieces left over in my little nursery area. This led to a wholesale clean-up of the nursery - weeding of pots, chucking out of plants that have succumbed and rearranging of the rest. Then it was time for lunch - more yummy chicken and sweet corn soup!

After lunch I decided that a bit of weeding was called for (which the chooks were grateful for) and this turned into a wholesale cleanout of the bed on the south side of the house which is overun with sweet alyssum Lobularia maritima. It was looking very tatty although still gamely in flower. I pulled it all out and am sure in the knowledge I will have another carpet of alyssum there shortly judging by the number of seedlings coming up.

A trip to the chooks with an armful of weeds meant checking the vegetable garden and I decided to do some more planting in there. In went some carrots, spring onions and beetroot seeds next to the emerging seedlings of the crimson flowered broad beans (I was very late getting them in). The first photo is of last years crop. Then I threw a handful of potato fertiliser on the emerging garlic shoots (second photo). I figure if it claims to help potatoes it will help garlic too. Then it was back to the kitchen to collect a pair of scissors with which to harvest the enormous amount of rocket I have growing (third photo). Letting a couple of plants go to seed every season means I never have to buy seed or seedlings of this delicious salad green. I adore it!