Well, I'm almost convinced spring is finally here...though I've been tricked before. It's sunny enough outside to take stock of the state of our little garden.
It's only a 4m2 patch plus a couple of scrappy strips out front of our flat, so we have to be very considered in what we plant, though it also means little successes are that much more pleasant. We're still in experimental mode, trying different things in different combinations, so when we make the full move to the Auberge we can hit the ground running.
Working in very little space by necessity makes us plant close and take a few gambles, and I'm always reinforcing to myself that we have to maintain some of this mindset even when we finally do have ample space.
The lemon balm is overjoyed by the sunshine--it had spent winter as a flat pad tangled up with weeds:
Much of this small space was covered with mulch while we spent the winter up in the northern hemisphere summer. Now it's very rich soil where a few years ago it was a solid block of builder's clay.
Here we have a little patch of mixed salad greens sprouting up. We will thin these out as they grow, eating the micro-greens, then harvest as they start to grow and put things like tomatoes, peppers, basil in their place. A few will hopefully get to full size and we'll be in salad all summer long.
Here is a straggler cabbage that we maybe planted too late to have ready over winter.
We've also planted some sugar snaps and snow peas, hoping for an early summer harvest.
I'm thinking of starting a fan club for fenugreek. We always have the seeds on hand for curries, but it is a great garden player. It's a great ground cover, and it sprouts very quickly, only a couple of days after sowing. It's a nitrogen fixer, gives off a nice scent, and is a tasty addition to a meal either as a micro-green or larger leaves. Here we sowed it in another bare patch, it looks like there might be some coriander in there, too.
I haven't let it go to seed yet, either mulching it or eating it, but it does have nice little flowers:
We popped a couple of potatoes in at the back of the patch, and one of them has sprouted nicely. I'm not sure how it will go, but I'm mounding it up with soil and mulch.
Now, one of our ongoing challenges is getting sunflowers up. They'd be a nice addition at the back of our plot, stretching up over all the other plants. Unfortunately they seem to get munched wherever we put them:
I blame the birds, as there is evidence of their scratching all around. I think they're after the seeds. Here are a couple that survived out front, where they get the morning sun. Next to a couple of Thai peppers we planted under the tap to catch any dripping. I topped these peppers, and they overwintered well, now bushing up nicely.
We've really struggled to have any success with celery--pots, indoors, outdoors, straight in the ground, nothing seems to have worked. But today I discovered a couple that seem to be taking nicely. Here is one in the midst of sprawling, seeding coriander.
And another by the lemon tree. Next to it is a little mustard patch and a lovely little lemongrass--this we just stuck the bottom couple inches of a stick in the ground. It's taken a while to do much, but it's still there and quite nice to look at.
A nice little bonus was another snack sized bunch of carrots. These should be a nice fresh side to tonight's curry, and the greens will get added to the potato mound.
All images by the author.
