Sprouting

It has finally arrived. After 11 months of winter, we have finally reached spring. Everywhere you look the daffodiles are springing up, the cherry blossoms are emerging from their tight cocoons of buds, and the sun is shining just a little bit longer and a little bit harder.

Something I have been looking forward to for a few years now is being in one place long enough to have a garden. Not a couple of containers with flowers, but a real garden with veggies and fruit and herbs. Now we don't live ina large place, nor do we have an enormous amount of space outside for cultivating, but with a little imagination and lots of inginuity we've made some space and I am busily sowing the seeds for my garden to come.

After much pleading, Stephen obligingly built me a wonderfully large wooden container to put right in front of our windows. I also spent some time scrounging around the big shed we have on the property and found some old potting containers that someone was throwing out. Behind said shed there is also a rather larger pile of composting fruit and vege and grass clippings, which after some digging produced some quite rich black soil to fill my containers with. Yippeeee!!!

I did splurge by buying some seeds from the store down the road from us, as well as some baby plants from the farmers market on Saturday. I planted the seeds in an old egg tray I had and covered them with plastic wrap to save them from the cats' sometimes curious mouth. Within a week I had some lovely little green heads poking through the dirt, and now 3 weeks later, I have many transplanted sprouts of tomatoes, basil, nasturtiums, and courgettes (still covered in saran - and cayanne). With a little luck and some nice weather, I may be able to plant my corn, lettuce, and spring onions outside in a few weeks. By the end of summer we should be able to open our window, pull out some food, and toss it in the pot 2 metres away. Now that is fresh food!