Spring has well and truly sprung.

It's been a while since our last blog post and a lot has been happening in the garden.

We've been planting seeds, saved from last year, into seed trays or directly into the soil and they have responded well.

Above photo - some of the plants awaiting planting out - some are starting to yellow - don't know why.

I'll add some photos showing different stages of development of the garden so you can clearly see how things have progressed.

Above - French beans when first planted out and below....as of two days ago.

(photos above and below - French beans when first planted and now

Above photo - newly planted runner beans against front fence

Below photo same bean plants two days ago

I'm not sure what the problem was earlier on in the season, but plants that were seeming to thrive, suddenly lost their leaves or went yellow or fell victim to slugs and snails.

The snails have been terrible this spring. I've never seen so many.

They were hiding among the mature silver-beet and spinach plants that had started to go to seed. Uprooting the old plants and biffing the snails onto the garage roof for the birds to enjoy soon fixed that.

Above photo - two rows of spuds are thriving. behind them are two rows of peas but the potatoes are growing so fast you can't see the peas. (pity it's not the peas covering the potatoes because then I could have said "you can't see the spuds for the peas" ha-ha)

I put in a couple of rows of potatoes after the frosts had finished so they should be ready to harvest for our Christmas lunch. Yum, new potatoes with butter melted over them. I'm starting to salivate! The tops of the plants are lush and growing well so I hope that what's going on under the soil matches that.

Above photo - our main strawberry bed - around the clothes line. We netted the plants to protect against the birds.

Above photo - delicious strawberries. Spray free and very juicy. We don't use any weedkillers or chemical sprays of any kind.

Above photo - Breakfast delights - strawberries, raspberries, muesli and yoghurt.

A few months ago I divided up our strawberry plants which occupied about a third of the circle garden around our clothes line. After separating off all the runners we ended up with over a hundred plants and they now take up all of the circle garden, plus parts of two other garden beds.

We had our first dozen ripe strawberries about two weeks ago and are now getting a regular colander full every other morning. We've already had enough off the plant to be able to give some away to friends and family. They are juicy and delicious and a welcome addition to breakfasts.

Likewise our raspberry canes, which were in a small cluster in our back garden last year, have been dug up, divided and replanted into 4 separate patches in our front garden, giving us a total of about a hundred canes.

Because of differing amounts of sunlight in the various sections of front garden, the raspberries should ripen at different times over a long period. Some canes at one side of the yard have only small green fruit, where as the row close to the house are already ripening and we've had enough to add to our breakfast for the last few mornings.

Above photo shows near left of pic - a row of raspberries with frame and net plus another half row uncovered behind. Centre of pic behind caravan is row number 2 and out of pic to the right of the caravan is row number 3.

Above photo - raspberries in various stages of ripening

The raspberries are usually about a month behind the strawberries, but having a mix of both fruits for breakfast with muesli and yoghurt is lovely. Or in this mornings case porridge with strawberries cooked into it and fresh raspberries to top it off. Very yummy.

If only we could grow coffee here in Hawke's Bay breakfasts would be perfect! (Due to occasional frosts where we are, it's not possible to grow coffee plants outdoors.)

I'm not sure what went wrong this time compared to last, but none of my carrot seeds came up. Last year growing carrots was very successful, this time.....not a one. Maybe the seed was too old?

Success stories though, other than the strawberries and raspberries of course, have been the runner beans - as usual. Last year I had three frames for runner beans to grow up - this time out I'm growing them in eight different places. Two types of beans - the usual scarlet runners and also the rounder French bean. So we have two frames of the French bean and 4 frames of scarlet runner, plus scarlet runners also growing along the side of the garage - up canes AND up against my rainwater collection cube round the back of the garage.

They only have flowers on the plants so far, but it should be a bumper season!

Above photo - more runner beans starting to grow up my 1000 litre rain water collection cube.

It's not too late to plant runner beans so if anyone wants any seeds to plant (I have a bag full) or seedlings (I have about 5 spare seed trays, 6 plants in each), let me know.

Other success early in the season have been the radishes, spring onion and the larger brown long-keeper onions. Of these three I think that just about every seed germinated and I have been busy thinning rows and replanting.

You may recall last summer we had a fantastic crop of lemon cucumbers....I saved seed and have got about a dozen plants dotted around the garden for this year. I am hopeful that they will be as abundant as last time. We have just finished eating the last jar of pickled cucumbers and still have one jar of cucumber and apple relish left from the last crop.

My lettuce seeds have been a disappointment too. Very few germinated, where as the rocket lived up to its name and rocketed away in the hundreds.

The fruit trees are looking quite good, with the exception of the golden queen peach which has a bad case of curly leaf. But our other two peach trees are coming along well and small fruits have formed awaiting the sunshine and rain needed to make that fruit grow.

The citrus trees either have fruit on them still, or are covered in blossom or a mixture of fruit and blossom (in the case of the ugli fruit tree and one of our lemon trees).

Above photo - Loquat fruit and below Ugli fruit and blossom

The only negative is that the grass and weeds are also growing so it keeps me busy keeping things tidy.....or tidy-ish anyway.

One unexpected bit of good luck is that the compost that we make in our compost piles contain peach pits and they don't decompose. So as a result, I have found a number of small peach trees growing among the veggies. I've potted them up to see if they will grow strong enough to make me a little peach orchard......just need more land. I've got over 20 little tree seedlings potted up so far and I suspect there will be more to come.

Above photo - some of the little peach seedlings potted up ready to move (one day) to our peach orchard. Just need more land.

The loquat tree in the corner of our section is producing a lot more fruit than usual so I guess we should try to make use of it for once. According to google - The diverse range of nutrients contained in loquat fruit and leaves, including pectin, iron, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and fiber, make it very effective for boosting overall human health. AND the fallen fruit grow little trees.....yes more little trees so I've potted up four loquat trees to go with the twenty plus peach trees. Nature is so giving sometimes.

Although it's springtime, it's always time to harvest something. Currently we are picking and drying a number of herbs for cooking or for making teas. These include thyme and mint.

Above photo - Thyme drying in a copper pot in a sunny warm spot in our spare room

We have heaps of mint so picking and hanging a few bunches up to dry hardly makes a dent in the mint border. We both love mint tea so like to have a good supply of dried mint available for those months after the fresh mint is past its best or has died back.....or like last year was obliterated by caterpillars.

Above photo - fresh mint growing in the garden

Photo above - mint drying - hung in a bunch

Photo above - we hang the mint under the carport for a couple of weeks in a dry airy space and then transfer it to the copper pot to finish off. The wooden frame to the right of the pic suspended from the carport roof contains several hundred walnuts drying, collected in the autumn.

Our garden is not just veggies and fruit though....there are flowers too and those lovely blooms are attracting the bees in abundance. Hopefully they will pollinate all our fruit and veg along the way.

Above photo and following 3 photos - assorted flowers - either in the garden or in pots to help attract the bees.

I think I may have mentioned in earlier posts that we have, kind of, adopted a couple of cats from next door. Well it looks like they have been telling their mates what a cushy life they have so now we have a few more hangers on. Problem is that they dig and use the garden as a latrine so I've not only had to put nets over the strawberries and raspberries to keep the birds off, I am also netting other garden beds to try to keep the cats off or I risk having them dig up all my freshly planted seedlings. Grrrrrr!