Spring is Sprung

The spring equinox happened this past week. I didn't even know the date until last Sunday when we got invited to a Spring Equinox party. But I have certainly noticed the rapid move from Winter to Spring. The last few weeks it's been noticeably warmer and the days are longer. The grass has turned from a dull shade of bleak to a vibrant green. And yes, we have had rain, but we had rain all through winter and it stayed bleak and miserable. I might also add that this weekend has been an exception to Spring. Winter came back for a few days and may be around for a few more yet. Its nice to be in a place where we can experience all four seasons.

In Central Queensland, we have 2 summer seasons - a dry summer and a wet summer. We do have a few cold days in the middle there, but after being down here what we called winter is not really winter! 

My garden has been a bit disappointing - I was just too late getting planted before winter and so everything just kind of grew in slow motion (except the garlic, it's done alright). The broccoli, brussel sprouts, some of the kale and some of the cabbages went to seed as soon as it warmed up. I've been eating them, but just didn't get as much as I would've liked. The brussel sprouts were a total fail and I'm still waiting to see if some of the cabbages will heart up.

This was a recent harvest, which I turned some of it into a spring garden kimchi with a friends purple cabbage. I used the recipe from The Basics and it's still fermenting - should be ready in the next few days.

broccoli, dandelion, carrots, leek, green garlic, turnips. All but the broccoli went into the kimchi with the red cabbage behind.

I've prepared two new beds in the garden. I didn't want to plant anything too soon because we can still get a frost - apparently late October you can still get frosts! I will plant carrots, beetroot and potatoes in the next root planting window.  I did plant out some silver beet about a week ago. It'll be okay as it can handle frost. I'll wait until November before I plant any tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant etc. I'll have to find out what else I can plant now, but it won't be much.

This is what's in the garden at the moment.

Garlic, kale, cabbage, carrots, onions, lettuce

Snow peas and broad beans

Broad beans - they've been flowering for ages, but no beans yet.

Some of the broccoli that's still shooting, red curly kale, garlic, and in the middle are my new little silverbeet.

I have another bed with some leeks, cabbage, broccoli sprouting, and strawberries. Also all the trees are flowering, so it's very exciting to anticipate what stone fruit or nuts or apples or pears I'm going to have. 

I do look forward to gardening back in Queensland and it's funny to think that if I was at home now, it's our main growing season and yet down here, it's over summer that we grow the main crops. Everything does seem to grow faster here - especially the herbs! They are doing really well. Let me know what you are growing at the moment.