Early Spring Activities

At the moment I have lots of dill. Last season the dill plants went to seed and that seed spread in that little area and this year (season) and now I have dill plants everywhere. Plenty of them. So in the coming week or two at most, I need to harvest most of this dill and store it away. The way I plan to do this is pick them, then straight away place them into the microwave for 3 minutes on high and that will dry the dill out. Then it can be stored in containers. This should keep the colour and flavour of the dill for later use in cooking.

In the last 1-2 weeks:

I planted Thyme, and Corriander. Because each needs to stay moist, I sowed the seeds with pea straw over the top to help keep that moisture in the soil.

Also planted a new generation of silver beet, purple carrots, red onions, and four plants of climbing beans. At the time of writing this entry into my blog, the silver beet and purple carrots are starting to show through. In regards to the the herbs sowed, can't see much because of the pea straw.

See picture below (shows sage too growing well from same plant as last season and the asparagus):

In other news, put cow manure around each asparagus crown. The shoots are growing well and fast! Strong looking shoots too! Also dug in more manure into the ground where the potatoes are. Pulled out weeds from the patch. Day temperatures are starting to become warmer in the early 20's. Just perfect for this time of the year. Afew weeks back we had quite abit of local rain, so that was great. Paddock grass the other week grew fast at 4 inches (100mm) in one week. With warm weather and decent rain, the vegetable garden is growing well too. Just afew days back sowed black russian tomatoe seeds in my little green house. Still too early for putting tomotoes out in the open. Sowed Desiree and Pontiac seed potatoes. Put them in rather deep becuase I thought it would be very helpfull for a longer protection because we can get a late frost in October. Dug up the last spring onions which were not harvested. More later! Steve the Vegygardener.