Howdy y’all! Today’s guest is Mel from House of Powell. She blogs about life at her place with her husband, stepdaughter and two very spoiled cats. I totally understand the cat thing!
I am so glad spring has sprung!! The crisp air, warm sun and the excitement in the air is wonderful. Spring is definitely my favorite season. It’s also a great time to plant some veggies in your garden. We were lucky enough to buy a house with a raised garden bed already established. If you don’t have a garden bed, you can still grow a variety of veggies and herbs in pots.
This is our veggie garden prior to prepping it for spring. Note the Broccoli flowers… I forgot to harvest the broccoli! 🙁
Veggies love full sun and great soil. This means positioning your garden bed (or pots) in a place in your garden where they will get at least 6-8 hours of sunlight each day. This not only helps them grow, but the sunlight also provides nutrients and flavor in your veggies. You also need to make sure the soil is rich in nutrients before you plant your seeds/seedlings. This means topping the soil up with some slow release fertiliser before planting your seeds or seedlings. If I’m planting seeds, I like to start these off in seedling trays. Seeds need a little more love than seedlings, and I find I can give them that little bit extra if they’re in seedling trays rather than in the veggie garden straight away.
Our veggie garden, ready to plant our spring veggies. The soil has been turned over, fertalised and given a good watering. I’ll plant the seedlings in about a week once the soil has had time to settle in.
Mulch is another big plus for ensuring the success of your veggie garden. Not only does the mulch help to stop the weeds, it is also great at conserving moisture, which helps your plants not die! (This is great for me, as I do tend to forget about my veggie garden every now and then!). I prefer to use sugar cane mulch, as this eventually breaks down, and adds more nutrients to the soil.
Our harvest of carrots. These are quite small, as I didn’t space them evenly enough.
The only other tips I can give, is to look at the spacing guidelines on the back of your seed packet. They put these there for a reason! I tried putting my red cabbages closer together than was recommended, and it was a disaster!
I hope my tips have helped, and if you have any other questions, please let me know. My favorite spring veggies to grow are tomatoes, capsicum, basil and beans. These will be planted into our veggie garden shortly.
Will you be planting some spring veggies? What are you favorites to plant? What have you had success with?
Mel
Catherine RodieBlagg says
September 22, 2012 at 9:35 pmYour carrots look delicious! I'll be doing a little gardening with my girls, but as they're pretty young we might stick to cress! x
thelifeofclare says
September 22, 2012 at 9:57 pmWe've just planted for Spring! I can't wait to harvest but we've had a small problem with snails!
Melissa Powell says
September 22, 2012 at 10:52 pmSnails are such a pain! Try this: Cut a 1.25L bottle (or a 2L milk bottle) in half. Dig a hole in your garden, so when you pop the bottom of the container in, it sits flush with the ground. Fill the container with some beer (leaving about an inch from the top). The snails are attracted to the beer, and will fall into the container and won't be able to get out. You'll have to clean it out every few days 🙂
Melissa Powell says
September 22, 2012 at 10:55 pmKids love gardening! I think it's the excitement of watching something grow. Try snow peas, these grow super fast, don't require much maintenance – and the kids can pick them right off and eat them!
Celine says
September 25, 2012 at 2:26 pmWow! Amazing harvest! I never have that a huge carrots harvested. Cool! Thank a lot for sharing such post. Check my post at
http://www.egardensheds.com.au
Gemma Nutshell says
September 30, 2012 at 7:16 amOMG! Your carrots!!!!!