Gearing up for the growing season

It's been a lovely couple of days and I've been working hard in the garden.

Tomato seedlings which have been potted up, will be potted up one more time before planting out November or so.

Eggplant and chillis/capsicums.

The rest of the chillis and capsicums and trying again on a few things that failed to germinate. This setup works pretty well.

Main bed is getting full sun at least some of the day now.

Pots enjoying the spring sunshine and putting on a lot of growth.

In the brassica bed, I'm going to pull out the mustards (rocket and mizuna) and chop them up and just leave them on top to break down I think.

Unfortunately I noticed tiny flowers in the wom bok so that's another fail, I guess I tried it wrong time of year or kept it as a seedling too long.

That's one huge mizuna plant!

Herbs all back in full swing.

Mints. This will get less sun as the season goes on so I'll either move out the stand a little or relocate them.

Snow peas and Chinese broccoli. Haven't had as many rat problems as last year with them biting off my seedlings.

Transplanted beets, giant red mustard - probably not the best place for it but I have nowhere else to put it right now.

Miner's lettuce and sorrel growing prolifically, I have snuck in another red veined sorrel plant.

Broad beans flowering and looking great - no signs of the brown spots I had last year, I have been careful to keep leaves away from the stem.

I've tossed a bunch of spring onion seeds here. I think the over wintered onions will probably flower and subdivide, so I might be able to dig up sets to plant out again in autumn.

New lettuce out of the greenhouse.

Strawberries are sending out new stems.

The strawberry volunteers are back on the balcony, trying to get as much growth as possible so they fruit this season.

Kohlrabi getting bigger.

Fennel is huge and I have some huge bulbs so growing them over winter has worked well. They don't appear to be bolting yet but I should start harvesting them soon.

Snow peas with makeshift trellis. There are regular and purple podded, I'm looking forward to seeing the flowers.

Minutina growing great. Still can't really say it has much if any flavour but it's been an interesting thing to try all the same.

Blueberry has lots of new growth, flowers and green fruit. I'm probably going to put this on the lawn and net it from birds, to maximise growth as well as make it easier to harvest.

Lime buds.

Lemon buds.

It's a few weeks behind last year but raspberry is finally putting out its second year growth. There are 5 canes instead of 2 this year so I have high hopes. Not going to be easy to net it though!

Chard is enjoying getting some afternoon sun, fingers crossed it doesn't bolt. Put another red veined sorrel here and a red mustard, will see how it does in this part shade area.

Borage volunteer and a tasty looking leek.

Not sure about the carrots - some appear to be putting up flower stalks. The perils of planting biennials in autumn.

Turnips nearly ready to harvest, most of them golf ball size.

Not for the hard work bit - harvesting the worm castings. They were still quite wet but I did my best, added in a bunch of shredded cardboard when I was done. It really needed to be done and it was a bright, calm day so I couldn't wait for them to be dry as well. I mixed them in with old potting soil which will be used for the warm season's container plantings. These large black tubs are extremely useful for things like this as well as making up potting mixes and so on.

I also potted up some carrots and an early cucumber, will see how it goes or if I have gone too early. Being in a pot I can move it under cover if I need to if we have a bad frost.

Mystery herb in brassica bed. It tastes like oregano but there was no oregano here, only basil. It could just be a weed.

Well that's it for now. The largest of the balcony cabbages are pretty much ready to harvest and look fantastic, so thinking of what to do with them - can always make coleslaw if I can't think of anything else!