Spring is Coming!

Have you noticed how the shops start filling with Christmas stuff in about October these days? Drives me mad. I guess "they" are just trying to maximise profits by taking advantage of people's eagerness to get into the new season to take their minds off their day to day struggles. I dunno...

But when it comes to spring, it does pay to get in early. If we wait til things are nice and warm and springy, we have just about missed the spring boat. It's time now, in the midst of these chilly mornings, to get our garden beds ready for spring, and to make sure we have our spring seedlings going. 

We plants seeds of most crops every 2 weeks throughout the year so that we can plant seedlings every 2 weeks, guaranteeing sequential harvest. But in early July I planted the first of our spring crops in seedling trays. Why? So we don't miss the spring boat!

It's really easy to plant spring seeds into punnets or seedling trays, and to nurse them through til our last frost by keeping them inside at night and putting them outside in the sun during the day. Tomatos, capsicum, eggplants, etc, etc can all be germinated now, and there are great advantages to having advanced seedlings ready to plant out once frost is passed and the soil is warm enough - picking tomato's in early October is my aim!

My tomatos are currently about 80mm tall, and next week I am going to transplant them into larger pots to grow on. Come September, when we are sure our last frost has passed, we will put them outside - over 2 months after they were first seeded. One caution - spring plants put outside too early will sit and do little, and those planted a bit later will actually catch up and even pass them.

If you're not yet up to growing your own seedling, they will soon start appearing in shops like easter eggs in February. Try to find locally grown seedlings. We are planning to have extra to sell if you would like some! 

But why not have a go yourself? In the next few weeks I plan to give you a few tips to help you be successful.

Here's to a happy and productive spring!