Spring Explosion

It never ceases to amaze me how after just one week of warmer (well, warm for us, about 20 degrees ha ha) weather, the dormant trees just know that it's time to start stirring.  Nature is truly amazing.

This is the almond tree, it is smothered with flowers and the beginnings of teeny tiny nuts, and now it has burst into leaf.  That's one of the big male roos on the other side of the fence, having a nice rest in the sun.

 These lovely pink flowers are from the Angel peach, a flat, white fleshed peach.  This is the tree that has given me the most grief with leaf curl, so I am crossing every finger and toe that it will not be a big problem this year.  Apparently our climate is the main issue, cool and damp spring weather is the harbinger of doom for leaf curl.  We shall see, they are lovely peaches to eat, evidenced from the dozen or so we got a couple of years ago, here's hoping.

 And these pretty white flowers are apricot blossom.  This tree thankfully isn't troubled with leaf curl, and it has an explosion of blossom this year so maybe it's an apricot jam making year!

The chooks just love foraging in the orchard.  They are very useful, there is not a grasshopper to be seen, and very few weevils.  I didn't think the chooks would eat weevils, those ones with armour plating, but I know when a chook has found one from the crunching noises :-)

Once the weather changes it's time to get busy outside.  Steve has put in a mammoth effort this week in the vegie patch.  He spent ages weeding, then cultivating the soil and barrowing in heaps of heavy, wet, smelly, wonderful cow poo to enrich the soil. 
We seem to grow rhubarb very well here, and the plants were massive and getting way too thick.  Oddly it never seems to die off in winter for us, so regardless of the leaves and stems, Steve put some muscle into digging it all out with a big garden fork, then broke it up into smaller crowns, thinned them out and replanted them in newly cow pooed soil.  I potted up the spare crowns to give to some friends.  It's looking a bit limp and sad for now, but already it is sending up new leaves so all good.

 The spring planting has begun.  We need to be careful we don't plant too early in our cooler climate otherwise seedlings languish and often rot.  Steve has just planted some tomatoes and he has built them a little house to harvest the sun and keep off the worst of the wind.  I'm doing a load of various seed planting into tray today and I'll keep them out the back in the sun pocket near the kitchen window, so within a few weeks there will hopefully be tiny leaves sprouting.

The garlics have been sitting quietly through the winter, growing very very slowly.  They are suddenly looking greener and taller so they should put on a big burst of growth over the next few months.

 This bed in the corner of vegie patch is smothered with chickweed that we hadn't got around to removing.  Under all that lot we had planted a few puny asparagus crowns last year, and we'd all but decided that they'd died.  But what's this!  We did a doubletake when we saw this tall thing waving around, it's asparagus!  Just one mind you, but we are excited :-)

I busied myself weeding that bed so we could admire our one asparagus stem better ha ha.  After a careful dig around we found a couple more crowns so there is life in the asparagus bed yet!  Alas we are not allowed to eat any until at least next season, but it's still good knowing it's there.

 The olive is budding up.  This year we are determined to get some olives before the parrots decimate the tree, so it's getting a net thrown over it to keep them away.  Who'd have thought a bird would enjoy eating a revoltingly bitter olive, but they do!

 My cliveas are coming into flower.  Gosh I love these so much, the bank of them under a big peppermint is getting bigger and bigger as the years go by.  They are looking really healthy this year, possibly because the last load of cow poo was positioned not far from them, so the cliveas got the benefit of that in their soil reach.

In the shade of cool, damp forest of peppermint trees I am still finding patches of these delightful, teeny tiny fairy toadstools.  Little glints of red amongst the leaf litter.

 Finally, after weeks of stalking them, I managed to get a nice posed photo of the male Splendid Wren in full blue plumage.  Normally he turns his arse towards me whenever I take his photo, but not this time.  Isn't he beautiful!

 And a close up.

 With the rising of the day's temperatures, the next beastie to awaken was Voldemort The Younger, the King Skink.  We think he hibernated inside this old couch that sits outside our bedroom window.  He loves to spend his days sunning himself on the top of the arm of the couch, and Neo just loves sitting with his nose pressed to the glass watching. Voldemort The Elder, the largest one, is over at the shed, he likes to hang out under the hoppers full of chopped firewood.  There are smaller Voldermorts inside the shed too.  We like them :-)

 I haven't done much crochet this week, I feel guilty doing that when the weather is nice.  I need another week of rain to get it finished!  I am currently on row 6 of 10 of the border, this particular row is very slow going so once I'm over the row 6 hurdle it shouldn't take too much longer to finish..... nearly there....

Okay, I've finished my cuppa and now I'm heading out the back to plant some seeds in pots. 
Til next time  xx