april in my garden

i've been very busy in the garden lately..i was up and out in the garden at about 7 am for 4-5 hours on three consecutive days this week..how lovely it's been working on those quiet cool mornings..a few light showers here and there lately softened the soil and made the work a bit easier and then yesterday it rained and rained on the freshly dug soil..i'm happy..

the hard yakka

pruned

~  lavender, tied the flower stalks into small bundles and hung them up to dry..i'll use the dried lavender in soap making
~ perennial herbs such as lovage, tarragon and mint
~ cut dandelions back

removed
~ spent annuals and biennials such as marigolds, carnations, rocket, tomato, pumpkin, beans, coriander and parsley
~ some of the over abundant nasturtium, flanders poppy and nettle seedlings that threaten to take over my garden
~ woody rose geranium, sage seedlings and a lavender (relocated)

dug
~ compost and manure into vegetable garden beds for replanting
~ around rose bushes to eliminate the fibrous roots of a nature strip tree (it's the healthiest one in the street)
~ around garden beds to neaten the edges (i have gravel paths with no formal edging)

planted
~ three types of garlic (early while, early red and italian red from digger's)
~ rose geranium suckers that had grown from the geranium plant i removed
~ sage seedings and lavender into herb garden

composted
~ prunings, weeds, spent vegetable material cut up and added to the new vegetable garden bed (see below)
~ kitchen waste, egg cartons, paper towel, cardboard and newspaper added to the compost bin along with layering of some of the former material to aid decomposition
~ compost tea made with horse poo

prepared a new vegetable garden bed
~ i trimmed the kikuyu, covered the area in op shop purchased woollen blankets ($3-$4/each) and cardboard, put bricks around the edges to help stop the invading kikuyu and then layered the area thickly with kitchen waste, cut up garden material, horse poo and a generous amount of lime..it should be ready for digging in spring

the reward

picked/picking
~ green beans (scarlet runner and blue lake), egg plant, tomatoes, carrots, spring onions, butternut pumpkin, lettuce, chilli and rainbow chard
~ coriander, parsley, celery, tarragon, oregano, rosemary, thyme, mint, lemon verbena, sage, chives, lemon balm, comfrey, pineapple sage, lavender, nettles, fennel fronds, marigold petals, violets, roses, hollyhock flowers, nasturtium leaves and flowers, and carnations
~ rhubarb, pomegranate, cumquat and alpine strawberries

seeds collected
~ rocket, capsicum, coriander, chilli

1. don burke italian tomatoes..the best i've grown in years despite having grown the plants from really old seed
2. lavender
3. a little handful of alpine strawberries every day or so
4. the eggplant have been very prolific
5. a tiny very prolific and very sour tomato that self seeds every year..i blanched these and put them through a mouli and used the puree as a base for a sauce
6. look a bit like a zucchini and then becomes like a butternut pumpkin..last year i only had one whereas this year i have six
7. this is actually last year's crop of pomegranates..i pruned the tree quite heavily last year and it has only produced 8 pomegranates this year..
8. beans, beans and more beans..except they only started producing about 3 weeks ago..i didn't have one bean all summer (the heat has been one explanation for this anomaly)

more hard yakka

need to
~ pick chillies for drying
~ plant peas, broccoli, cabbage, onions, lettuce, carrots, beetroot, rainbow chard, broad beans, coriander, sweet peas, potatoes and spinach
~ finish tidying garden edges
~ stay on top of weeding
~ remove bean plants and eggplants when production ceases
~ watch crabapples for ripening
~ transplant black currant bush

see you next month for 'may in my garden'