The quietness of the weekend has continued – luckily my little one is on the improve healthwise, but we had a very long disrupted night and I now have what he’s been fighting off all week. Even though it’s predictable, I always hope that it will sail past me. So I’m very slow going and gardening has had to be an indoor affair today, which has turned out well in the end. DH found the box where all our seeds are stored (temporarily lost in the renovation of the garage) so I was able to do a stocktake, organise and declutter them and give them a new home in the kitchen hutch.

 

 

I’ve then been able to put together a list from Digger’s seed catalogue to order this week. I think browsing through seed catalogues is one of my favourite adult pastimes. It also requires a great deal of self-restraint 😂 having the stocktake done has helped with that.

I’m going to try a couple of new tomato varieties this year as well as get early, mid and late-season potato varieties. Last year we only planted earlies, and learned that they were so early to grow. We got a marvellous harvest and a taste for what truly fresh potatoes taste like, we’re going the full hog this year.

With the cost of living skyrocketing at the moment, it feels so wonderful to know that we can grow a percentage of our food. Hopefully year on year that percentage will grow as we become better gardeners. I nearly fainted when I saw green beans in the grocery store for $27.99/kg and lettuces for $11.99 each. Pure madness! But sadly, I don’t see how that’s going to change anytime soon. So being able to grow my lettuce feels GREAT.

 

 

Speaking of, my final little task for the day was to prick out last Sunday’s seeds into propagation cells. They’ve sat on my warm kitchen window all week and it’s been such a source of joy watching them stir to life. I’ve now got 32 lettuce and 32 rocket seedlings in their little greenhouse on the north face of the house. These should be ready to go into the garden in about a month. Learning to propagate veggies from seed has been a valuable skill to learn as we’re able to fill the garden with heirloom varieties at a much cheaper price compared to buying them as seedlings. If you’d like to learn, I highly recommend starting here with Charles.