Spring planting

 

My Spring seed order arrived in the post this week. The week prior, a friend had sent me a copy of her crop planting schedule she had designed for her garden here in Victoria and moon charts for planting according to the phases of the moon. I sat down and decided which vegetables our family would like to grow and eat and then I worked out which ones could be planted this coming Spring and promptly ordered way too many types! Next I sat down with the moon charts and worked out the dates for planting each vegetable I had ordered. The ones that could be planted this weekend, all seemed fairly suitable to go in our raised bed together and I mapped out exactly which ones could co-exist with which others. I have been saving our toilet rolls to use as seed pots. I usually compost them, but keeping them for this task was no loss to the compost bin.

Of the seeds I purchased, only the Tomato, Capsicum, Bean and Cucumber could be planted this week according to the moon. The Tomato and Capsicums required planting in pots/trays first. The other two could go straight in to the garden. My boy helped me cut some slits in one end of the toilet rolls. We then folded the flaps down, creating a base for the seed pot. I then added seed raising mix to each pot and watered them down. They dropped a fair bit, so I topped them up some more.

I decided to plant five seeds each of the tomatoes and capsicums. I won't have a lot of room so cannot plant too many.  Capsicum seeds are on the left here, tomato on the right. I lightly covered them with potting mix and did not re-water them after doing this.

After planting them I wondered whether the toilet roll pots were the right choice. Would they be supportive enough for the seedlings? Would the toilet rolls break down well enough in the ground for the plants to spread their roots? I had some nursery plants die on me once and when I removed the dead plants from their soil, they were totally pot bound and still encased in those degradable pots. I do know the toilet rolls compost well though, and I can always open up the folded bases easily enough to let the roots free. I have popped them into the greenhouse for now, alongside hubby's nursery bought tomato plants and some corn seedlings that are not yet ready to plant out in the garden. Shall let you know when they first poke up from the soil.

I also planted out the bean and cucumber seeds today, straight into our raised garden bed. I added a few dill and celery seedlings while hubby worked on the uprights that the climbing plants will need.
I didn't take any photos, but will get onto that this week.

Another job for us this weekend was to plant out our new strawberry plants. After killing my last lot I returned to the nursery and picked out another five plants. On Friday I was kindly given five plants from a parent at our kinder. She was removing strawberries from her garden bed to make way for tomato plants, so had plenty to give away. I decided against returning the strawberries to the hanging bag I had. Instead this time we chose to plant them in to the suspended gutter garden hubby had built out of the waste guttering left here by the previous owner.

I purchased a mix of varieties and who knows what the ones I was given are. I have a terrible track record with strawberries. I seem to either kill the plants or something eats the fruit before we ever get to. Looking forward to nurturing these plants and hopefully harvesting some fruit from them.

The gaps in the sugar cane mulch are because I planted some Borage seeds between each plant. Borage is a companion to strawberry. I have no idea how big they grow and whether I have enough room here for them. Maybe someone can tell me, or I will just wait and see.
Happy Spring planting everyone. May your gardens be fruitful this season.