Spring

One of the things I've found about growing your own veges is that even when there's not much ready to be picked , it's usually enough. It's a gift to be able to walk outside to the garden and pick fresh just what I want to use tonight. We"ll be having the peas and potatoes with dinner, and the eggs for breakfast.I used the last of my basil to make some pesto today as well as cooked a couple of cakes for the freezer and made some Vegemite and cheese scrolls. It was so good to get back into the kitchen and garden. An assignment I've had to do has consumed me  - thank goodness its all wrapped up and finished. There's not enough hours in the day sometimes.

        

  I've just started getting organised with planting seeds. Thank heavens the little greenhouse has magical powers, lol,  as everything grows at a crazy rate in there, so it won't be long before the summer veges are up and running.

Spring has arrived here in the valley; lovely temperatures in the high teens/low 20's last week and mid to high 20's in the week coming up. Woo hoo! The blueberry tree has to be netted this week as the berries will begin to turn soon and I'd rather WE enjoy the fruit than that awful bird that stripped the tree bare in the first two days when we moved here. I think I only got half a dozen blueberries last year!

The fruit trees were fed today and the gardens fertilized and watered well. The garlic has gone mad; I didn't lose a plant so I'll probably have more than enough for us and some to give away.I really want to ramp up the amount of herbs I have in; I love cooking with them but have stopped buying them from supermarkets. I think I've mentioned before the farm-gate shop about 15 minutes from here. You can buy fresh seasonal veges, fruit, milk, butter, cream and yummy preserves and you can go into their herb garden and just pick what you want.
That's the thing though, if you want fresh and best buy seasonal. I still get annoyed when I see cherries in the middle of the year and refuse to buy them. We can think we're lucky and spoiled for choice because we can buy anything at any time of the year but the price we pay is its usually sub-standard produce with very little taste; not to mention the flow on effect it has on our own farmers when the fruit/ veges are imported.

I'm trying to get us to a place where anything we have to buy is fresh and local. For instance, I love strawberries but there is a guy who grows them en masse here and he lets you pick your own. To me that's ideal - its lovely fruit, I don't have to do the work with them and so can put something else in that garden and I'm supporting a local industry. It's a win win!!!!!