Father's Day

I received a few Father's Day cards from my niece Liana while she was growing up, since her dad died when she was little. But today, I got my first Step-Father's Day card from Maddy.

So now I can officially call myself "Maddy's stepfather", instead of "Maddy's sort-of stepfather."

Seed Raising Mix

I bought some seed raising mix to help the new season's crops along. After some lacklustre performance with spring onions, I decided to test the mix against dirt taken from our garden. I planted an equal number of seeds in identical containers, and provided them with the same amount of water and sunshine.

Spring OnionsLeft: Dirt from our back yard.   Right: Amgrow Seed Raising Mix.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of difference for the spring onions, but the ones in dirt came up a lot quicker and are slightly more mature.

Swedes: Dirt from our back yard.

Swedes: Amgrow Seed Raising Mix.

The swede pictures really speak for themselves, though.

Looks like I won't be needing any more seed raising mix!

The Empire Expands

First post in a while! I've been so busy doing things that I haven't had the time to write about them!

It's the start of Spring, so the garden I prepared in the Autumn is about to swing into high gear! I was going to turn over the beds of Winter veggies, but +Annette encouraged me to open up some new beds and put more of the back yard to productive use.

The green bit in the middle is the original patch!

The Winter crop of leeks and spring onions has been providing a small yield, and rather than pull them all up at once I'll harvest leeks as we need them. The garlic seems to be doing well, and I'm just keeping an eye on it to see when it starts to wilt on top.

I realised that I should have spring onions on a regular rotation, so I've started planting a little box each week. After four weeks or so, I'll transplant the oldest box into the garden.

A month or so back, I opened up a new couple of beds for potatoes. Just about all of them have shown themselves above ground, and most seem to be going strong! I also extended some of the old beds and put in swedes and cabbage. The cabbages are doing so-so. The swedes, after a worrying delay germinating, are going strong now - as long as I can keep the snails and slugs from eating them!

Having decided not to turn over the old beds yet, I had to scramble last week to open up some more room for new crops. I started digging up the back corner, but since the soil was rich with compost it was choked with weeds and roots. I dug a 1m x 1m bed, and have planted some celery, lettuce, and carrot seeds.

At the front of the photo, I made a larger bed from the lawn that was in front of the raspberry patch. This has more celery and three rows of leeks; I'll add more leeks along the bed in a few weeks.

I also have a few planter boxes of swedes, celery, leeks, and cabbages going. These are a sort-of backup in case the direct-planted stuff has a hard time of it. And if not, I'll be able to transplant them anyway and get a larger crop.

It's turning into a regular little home garden. I'm pleased that we're finally starting to get some usable leeks and spring onions, and am looking forward to many more things to come.