Every spring I start looking at my vegetable garden.  The needles get put down in favour for spades, hoses and time outdoors. Sometimes it hold my attention, other times things get a little despondent by the end of January - lack of water (or watering), white fly and plants bolting to seed.  This is not one of those years. 



So far we have had :

• Peas and potatoes ready for Christmas, if only we had been at home to enjoy them.  
•  Avoided the tomato glut by just planting cherry tomatoes for myself, admitting that I am the only one who eat them
• My first success with climbing beans  - it's true you really do get more than with dwarf beans
• A successful strawberry bed - the answer to millipedes is to plant flowers instead.  Probably doesn't taste any good, but they looked fantastic.

Sometimes creativity is a force to be reckoned with.  H helped her self to a buch of flowers from the garden and told me we were about to hammer some flowers like they did on Sticky TV.  I can only be thankful that the hammers are kept well out of reach or she wouldn't have waited for help.

To make you own flower stamps, you will need:
Coloured, flatish flowers (pansies worked well)
Baking paper
White fabric
Chopping board
Hammer

There are little signs of an impending spring.  Some of the signs are quite literal.  I asked E to make a label for the dark box holding our bulb glass.  I think she did pretty well - as you can see the box holds a bolb, glas and wota.  There is nothing like children's spelling to to remind you of how your accent really sounds.

Other signs of spring are little sprigs of daphne spotted around the house.  My bedside table is also holding my two new thrifted books - Rupert Brooks and Strange Meetings.  It's funny that I should find them both within a week of each other.  One, poems sprinkled with wonderful woodcut illustrations and the other, telling the stories of the war poets themselves.  The poets have me wondering if it is time to make some more of poet-tea cups.

 I have also been looking up the illustrator - Buckland-Wright.   It turns out he fought in the WW1 as well and is equally legendary as an illustrator in his own right.

Terrariums and I are slowly scoping each other out.  I rediscovered them over at the hipster, too cool for cool, series of Terrium Tuesdays.  I picked one up thinking it would be great for at the office.  E had other ideas and when she has ideas, she makes plans.  It was just what I needed to get me out of a post modern, "is this passe?" rut.

When she asked if she could draw me a plan, I thought we were just talking about where things would be planted in the small globe.  I was wrong.

What you can see above is a description of the organisms and animals living in the soil and garden*.  There are snails, worms and spiders.  Each is carefully attached with double sided tape to the outside to avoid damage when watering.  Some have crowns to show that they are the kings and queens.  They are also keeping the house pixie company.

You can keep your icy succulent filled, styled terrariums in the pages of your magazines and pinterest boards. While this terrarium was not quite what I had in mind, it is exactly what we need in our home.

*Go soil science enquiry units at school!!
**E, you can style my lounge anytime you want, as long as your room is tidy first.

To remember Anzac Day, today's adventure was planting poppies.  Anzac Day conveniently falls at just the right time to get poppies ready for the distant spring.  A punnet of red, spotted lady bird poppies and blousey shirley poppies are now stretching their toes in our front garden.  E helped digging, watering. 

We picked up some purple and black poppy seeds from the lovely Quince Tree shop.  We sprinkled these over last.

I'm used to wet Easters that let me weed the garden, plant bulbs and tuck everything in for the winter.  This year, the drought has meant we had to wait a little longer.  On the other hand, it gave us a nice way to remember Anzac day, both today and as the flowers lift their nodding heads.

I love the out of season inspiration of northern hemisphere blogs.  As sewers start to show off their winter wardrobes, I start to weave my dream projects.  So few of them happen but it is nice to dream.  However, garden blogs are where the 6 month difference is incredibly inspirational.  So often, just as their flowers are coming out in the northern hemisphere, it is time to prepare and plant here.

I have been admiring the winter roses over at Saipua. They seem to be the perfect plant for the beginning of spring.  I can imagine them in strange blooms from below the straggly bare hydrangeas come spring time.

I even found some china ones at a school gala on the weekend.  They were hidden at the back of a stall, still wrapped in newspaper.  I offered to help unwrap only to find this beautiful Crown Lynn set - cups, sugar bowl and 2 coordinating jugs.  The little winter rose pattern is called "Saphire" and it has me thinking it is time to plant some real ones.

My garden has been leading me astray this summer.  It started when the trees came down and suddenly all the raised beds had full sunlight.  We had kept them for years hoping that they would at least provide shelter from the frost.  It turns out, they make better firewood.

As daylight savings started, I let go of resolutions to get some more exercise.  Instead I stood with garden hose in hand, willing everything to just grow.

There were night raids for snails.  I didn't like the idea of the blitzem chemicals doing away with all my healthy garden worms.  The funny thing about articles on organic snail hunting is that they never tell you what to do with the snails once you catch them.  We learnt that the first 2 hours of dark on a damp night was the best time and that snails can escape from inside stacked ice-cream containers.  I also learnt that it is easier to work with the curious 5 year old face that pops up at the window during night time raids, than to tell her to go back to sleep.

After the snails were gone, the slugs turned up and so did the blitzem.

The tomatoes were wonderful, but albeit brief.  Many of them finished mid February, kneecapped by wilt.  I embraced the cherry tomato.  I staked out a teepee of them and even planted out more seedlings in December.  These ones are just coming on now, leaving me with handfuls of shining jewels.

The tiny front door flower patch is finally lifting its head after the summer heat.  There are self sewn hollyhocks and garage sale dahlias bursting into bloom.  They promised to be red and yellow.  I didn't realise this meant both at the same time.

The garden has been a nice diversion.  One I'm a little reluctant to let go of as winter looms closer.  Perhaps this year I will finally get winter crops of carrots and leeks and of course winter roses.

Make way for the butterfly rescue team.

We have two patches of swan plants, planted just for the caterpillars. Last year they ate through one patch. this year we have been ferrying them from the more popular plants to the ones that are still intact.  Despite our best efforts, they still manage to make short work of all we plant.

These guys can eat and eat.  Some escape to shadier places. This one must have been full, as we now have a chrysalis on the rose bush.

There is a spiky, self sown plum tree stretching over our herb garden.  As I weed underneath it and cursing at the spikes, I wonder if this is the year that we cut it down or replace it with something a little less ferocious.  Then over the period of two weeks, each January, the green plums turn a glowing yellow and the tree redeems itself.  The plums make the most wonderful jam and for another year the tree is off the hook.

I am totally enamored with a two year old called Abraham.  He's a rose.  My husband gave me this rose for my birthday last year.  It's called Abraham Darby and finally has enough flowers for me to cut swathes and bring them inside. 

As I get to grips with gardening, I am discovering why standard roses are desirable - easy to weed around.  Perhaps this should have been planted closer to the wall - again, easier to weed around.  Though, I am loving the sneaky iris stems that make their way through the rose bush and the aquilegias that pop up everywhere.  It looks like I have a lot to learn.

Floral arrangement is not one of my talents.  I live by the simple Martha Stewart ethos - 50 of anything will look stunning.  One day we might even have enough roses to get 50 of something, for now I'm just pleased to have enough to bring inside.

 Ready?  It's time to picnic under the blossoms again. 

 Spring has been kind  and the blossoms are ready a whole two weeks earlier than usual.  This year we missed the initial flushes of new pink blossoms, but they were just as nice.






 As we left we saw a memorial of paper cranes left by other visitors.  It is nice to see all 48 cherry blossoms still standing in remembrance of this former POW site.

We have been watching the single quince on our tree all summer. It started as one of a dozen tightly curled flowers on our little tree. A few weeks later there was a series of little quinces waiting to grow. The wind cut all but one to the ground. Miss H found the remaining one and has been watching her squince ever since.

It made me think of Mary, Mary quite contrary ... with a silver nutmeg and a golden pear.

Today it fell in the wind. Fragrant, ripe and ready for crumble.

I know that caterpillars love to eat cabbages, but having a taste for rocket and radishes was new to me. The holes on the radishes started out so small, I figured they had one tiny peppery bite and then faded away. I know I would, if I were that small. Today, the holes on the rocket got to be so big that they were just stalks dotted with famished green caterpillars.

I enlisted the girls' help in wiping them out. I have heard of kids being paid 10 cents for every caterpillar. Fortunately, I realised this would make me a pauper before I made the offer. Instead they have been bundled into the bug catcher for show and tell. The kids were delighted to find hole munching caterpillars just like the one in "The Hungry Caterpillar" and Little E is looking forward to showing her teacher that caterpillars eat radishes and rocket, not just swan plants* and cabbages.

* Our largest swan plant caterpillar was last seen heading for the rose bush, where there is now a new chrysalis. Perhaps they just have a taste for the letter R.

The most successful thing in my vegetable garden this summer was the peas, that grew when I spread pea straw around the strawberry plants. The kids will grab a bowl and help themselves. They tell me the peas are for dinner, but very few of them make it all the way to the kitchen.

As you can see the pumpkins are making their slow march across the lawn. With peas almost finished, our next trick will be pumpkin spotting.