Spring 2012 is here

Madly planting tomato seeds now and looking forward to the coming months of gorging out on tomatoes.
I've been picking some of the past winter harvest.
Lots of lettuce.
Kilos of snow peas.
Winter green staple, Silver beet.
Beetroot (today).
Good green eating all around for the winter.

The kale was given away at a community swap along with the mustard greens.

The first of the tomato seedlings.

Have not posted for a few weeks.
Some picture might say a lot more than I can right now.

Tomato seedlings about 3 weeks ago.

Nearly all of the remaining tomato seedlings as of today. A lot will get given away.

The last of the carrots got picked about a week ago. The season was not too bad.

The asparagus has been steady but unfortunately there is not enough of it.

Got an artichoke harvest.

Roasted in the oven and served with a shoulder of lamb.

I have not had much success with capsicum germination this year, just a few so far and very late. So I had to use store purchased peppers and capsicums.

The main vege patch. Potatoes on the left and plenty of tomatoes on the right. I have planted 20 plants and will be planting a few more. Leeks can be seen as well.

Some non related yard shots. 

Home made dumplings for home-made wonton soup. 

Then someone had the bight idea of frying them. It was all over at that stage.

I ate about 3 times what is seen in the below picture.

And finally. Taking a walk on a windy plain.

First planting

Planted the first of my seedlings today in the vege patch. Eighteen corns. Stupidly enough I didn't take a picture of these babies in the patch. But I do have one of them in the punnet before planting out.
They are Golden Bantam variety and it is the first year I am trying this variety out. I've heard it is not so sweet but that is ok as I usually slather my corn with salt and butter so there is no room for sugar.

I think next weekend I will remove my artichokes to make room for more productive plants in the front yard. Whilst I love artichokes  there is not enough plants to get a good harvest all at once. Having one artichoke at a time is a tease I cannot live with. Sort of like what is happening with the asparagus. I did get a couple of scraps after the kids got stuck into it.

 I suppose I can dig up the dreadful lawn at the front and fill the area up with artichokes. hmmmm, maybe one day...
So I picked the largest artichoke before it flowered up.

Then I promptly peeled it back to get to it's heart.

And I scoffed it down raw. Uncooked. Yes I know that is ruthless but sometimes you have to be.  Wasn't too bad either. Not the way I would usually eat artichokes but there was not much of this one after it got peeled.

I also have a couple of the purple ones growing. They seem to be smaller that the standard green ones. Maybe it is because the plants are still smaller.

My tomato seedlings are coming along quite well. Depending on the weather this week I may start planting them out next weekend.

Cucumbers are coming along as well joined by the zucchinis. None of the zucs are in the pic below but there are a few about.

Run to the hills...........

Tomato Seedlings

As mentioned before tomatoes are my favourite thing to grow and I'm hoping for a good year.
These are my seedlings three days ago. They were all sown over the last 3-5 weeks.
I have about 30 different varieties growing and will hopefully plant one of each. What I don't plant I hope to give away.
I originally thought this was about half of them but on closer inspection it is about a third of my total, so as usual I have sown way too many.
Many thanks to the kind growers of OzGrow for providing many of the seeds.

Some of the smaller ones.

Most are about this size.

And some of the larger ones.

I'll post my final grow list at a later date. But there is a good mix of cherry and beefsteak varieties.