Sprouting Broccoli

It's getting towards the "hungry gap" now that the sprouting broccoli is nearly over. Last year I sowed Lancer Mix which mature successionally and included a mid to late white variety as well as early, mid and late purple types.

The only plant left to harvest has the best looking purple sprouts of all of them.

Over the new year I nearly pulled up the Red Ursa kale as it looked fairly bedraggled ,but I'm now glad I didn't as it's having a final burst of growth. Apart from the broccoli and some parsley it's about the only thing still producing, as I dug up the last of the leeks today and sowed some chard and lettuce now that the weeds are emerging ( a sign that the soil is warming up?)

Early Spring garden

Early Spring garden photo album now on line.

Having planted my potatoes, first broad beans and peas on the allotment in late March I'm now letting the soil warm up a bit before doing any more over there. However I thought that photos of soil covered with black fabric might be just that bit too exciting for you.

While the back garden always looks colourful in springtime,hopefully this will continue throughout the rest of the year now that I'm introducing new shrubs and flowers into the raised beds where I used to grow my veg in  pre-allotment days.

 My veggie based job today was to clean up one of the cold frames and sow red celery and leek seed.,plus some mixed onion sets (red,white and yellow ) that I got half price.

Potato planting

In the dry spells since returning from NZ I've managed to clear and fork over the first beds for planting up and now have the middle fabric path running the whole length of the plot.

Yesterday was a warm dry day so I decided to go for it and plant my potatoes, as the clods of recently forked soil broke down surprisingly well when raking them over.
Rather than dig trenches I made planting holes with the long handle dipper and then recovered with soil.
This seemed a quick and easy method especially as I used walk boards ,rather than a planting line, to align the rows.
I usually earth up rows from the start but this year I'll wait until the shoots emerge.

Blue Kestrel.These and some of the other varieties are planted in "wide rows" due to an over estimate in my potato seed buying.

North Island New Zealand photos

North Island New Zealand photos best viewed as full screen slideshow.

I went with my pal Andrew,who'd been with me on the trip to South Island in 2012.He features as foreground in some of the pics.
On this visit to NI I managed to reach some more remote spots in the Kaimanawa,Kaweka and Tararua mountains than I'd been to on previous trips.Lots of good tracks ,huts and scenery and quite a bit of time spent crossing and walking in rivers!

On the way back we stopped over in Hong Kong for a couple days with a friend of Andrew.It was fairly cold and misty but there were some fascinating sights.