Potato plant photo!

Indeed, the excitement never stops! :) The two largest ones have now come above the mounding up I've done.
So as well as the original planting a spade depth down I shall leave them to be surface dwellers. The lovely loose soil that has been heaped upon and around them will hopefully spark many a tuber for harvesting.

Potato Power!

After placing a circle of ferilizer around each potato plant yesterday and then completely covering them over with compost and soil to a depth of at least 4 inches, the leaves were pushing out of the surface at lunchtime today, amazing. I'll have to contruct some sort of frame/cage to keep them under control. The biggest two (the ones that got the sun the earliest) are now growing out of a mound and not a deep hole anymore.
:)

Brick work

Got stuck in and sorted the new brick area leading to the vegetable garden, just the sort of nice wee job that only takes one weekend and minimum money but makes a major change to the way the garden looks and functions.

Yesterday


Today
 





The reality and the mock up, pretty close I recon




Gave the potatoes a good side dressing of Thrive all purpose granular fertilizer then after mixing that into the soil I covered them over again with more compost and soil, these surely will be the most astounding pototoes in the world!
The garlic and leeks and beetroot are looking wonderfully healthy, I can't keep up with all the rocket, I eat it picked straight from the patch and onto cheese sammies and whatever, yum. Getting excited about planting tomatoes soon, how sad is that?
:)

There are definite signs of growth amongst the nubs on the chilli and capsicum stalks, things are surely warning up!

Mrs gnome did the front lawns whilst I was wrestling bricks...
:)

The forest pansy bush is starting to blossom, it's such a beautiful thing, from blossom to final leaf fall it keeps changing and surprising, always stunning.

 The Korean akebia vine at the back door is in it's prime at the moment, tons of new fresh buds and some older ones giving the rich burnt red colour

Lovely after the shower of rain

Rugby World Cup gardening

Go the All Blacks!

But yes life goes on I'm afraid, and Saturday was a stunning day, the whole garden feels like it's on tip toes just ready to go. There are buds and green bits on everything, from the  over wintering chilli plants to the new lime tree. I went mad and lifted all the bricks in the old vegetable garden, everytime it rained the path was the deepest part of the flooded bit, not really what it's there for. My back has suffered but it does look much more better now! Plus it used up a bit more of my gravel pile.

 

all the potato plants have poked their leaves up from their deep holes and more soil and compost have been tipped in to cover them all up again. I can only imagine the wonderful harvest there will be in this lovely loose environment. (I hope!)

Trying to decide if we need more bricks to make things look more complete..
Rough mock ups say yes really, with a different path in the vege garden itself.

view 1

view 2

The effect of the fertilisers I have been putting around the plants has been very dramatic, the leaves of the corriander and the silverbeet are so thick and shiney,  the parsley and beetroot are exploding from the ground.
Picked another large bag of broccoli sproutlets in the rain today, they just don't seem to stop, in fact there seem to be new sproutings erupting from the base of the 6 original plants, interesting to see what they turn into. the excitement of vegetable growing!
:)

A very pleasant spring Father's day

Glorious weather and signs of growth everywhere, I detect tiny bits coming from the stem bumps on the chilli pepper stumps, the forest pansy bush is hinting pink on it's nubs,  the plum blooms are looking crisp and hopeful

It's good to see the almost immediate response to the fertiliser, everything has definetaly shown a jump in growth. The sun is climbing higher into the sky at a faster rate now, (it does go faster at certain times  during spring and autumn), and now the second row of potato holes are in sunlight.
Today one small dark potato sprout popped it's first leaves out so all is well. Always nice when it works out (so far).
Planted out the silver beet seedlings in several spots around he garden.
Had a nice picking of broccoli sprouts and a few of the early peas. I have been using a very sharp small knife to gently remove the largest sprouts, being careful to leave 2 small lower side sprouts to grow.

 

The spring onions that look more like leeks have now begun to form flower lumps, they look like they are going to exlode into something spectacular

The forget me nots were begging to be noticed...