Its been a year since moving into the new flat, and that meant that I was able to get gardening much earlier. After harvesting the last of the peas and pumpkins and removing the dead or dying remains of the plants I neglected the gardens for the winter. September I weeded the hardy winter weeds and began to prepare my seedlings to await the warming soil.

The seedlings I chose to propagate didn’t all just come from the New World promotion last year, I went out and bought some new seeds too. I’ve now got several broccoli plants growing, with some in my shady garden, a very crooked row of carrots (thanks to the birds deciding that the mounds weren’t right) and a bunch of different beans. From last year’s seeds I’ve got double the number of lettuces growing, got some basil and peas sprouting, plus one tomato which self-seeded from an uneaten fruit. My spring onions from last year survived the winter and are still going strong and the strawberry plants I had in my hanging pots sent out some runners so I’ve got lots of them to go around.

But wait, my bragging isn’t done yet, as I have got some plants which came from regular seeds straight from the vegetable/fruit itself. I’ve gotten a couple of capsicums growing, several self-seeded pumpkins sprouting from the compost pile (and one which I deliberately put in one of the sunniest spots in the garden just in case) and four massive potato plants! These potatoes were just random potatoes which I saw had started sprouting in the vegetable section of the local supermarket. I bought them, put them in a brown paper bag for a couple of weeks to encourage more growth, cut them in half then just chucked them in the ground, not really expecting much from them as I expected them to have been treated with growth-inhibiting stuff. . . how wrong I was. They are the biggest things in my garden!

I’m really thankful that I’ve been able to have this extra time to get the garden set up. Its meant that I’ve been able to experiment a bit more with what to grow, try new placements of plants to give them more or less sun based on what I learnt that they liked last year, and I have had fun both doing the gardening and checking on the growth of the plants during the weekend. I still don’t like the weeding, and aphids are back on my strawberries, but all in all, I find it neat to be able to put a little something in the ground and then, a couple of weeks later, look at the leaves and things that its grown. Gardening is something that I’d said I would do eventually and I’m glad that I’ve been able to do it in greater quantities, and with more variety this year. Plus, its one of the hobbies where you can eat the results of your efforts, unless the birds get to them first.