On to Spring

Officially, Spring is here. But in Melbourne, you're never really sure. The weather's still pretty cold and wet but on some days there have been bursts of sunshine, warmth and blue skies. Anyway forget about weather reports and thermometers. The most telling sign of Spring can be seen in the gardens and fields. Nature has a way of knowing.

The canola fields next to the highway has turned into a sea of yellow. The sight is so amazing, many times I'm tempted to just stop the car along the highway and take some photos. Daisies are in full bloom and wild flowers are sprouting up at our front and backyard, together with the flourishing weeds. New rocket leaves are growing and new shoots are appearing on our rose branches. It's like everything is now waking up from their winter slumber and getting ready for Nature's beauty contest to begin. The prettiest thing in our premises now are the white lillies along our driveway that have bloomed over the last weekend. During the whole of autumn and winter, they were just a bunch of leaves. Now suddenly, the smooth white petals of 4 elegant lillies farewell me as I reverse my car out and welcome me back as I drive in.







During the coldest days of winter, I have largely left the garden alone. However, there have been some vegetable harvest from what we had planted earlier. We had some chillies and a few capsicums. The chillies were great but the capsicums were not as big nor tasty as those sold in the stores.











We grew lettuce too in a box and they were growing so well we couldn't eat them fast enough. It went into our stomachs as cruncy salads.

Radish just uprooted from the soil.

We uprooted our 3 radishes too. They were outgrowing the soil and had started to pop out and grow sideways, the leaves turning into an enormous bush. The radish roots were really deformed looking but they were gigantic. The biggest one weighed about 2 kg. I used them in soups and made radish cake and they were the juciest and sweetest radishes I had tasted. I also planted broccoli and chinese cabbage (wong bok) but somehow their growth were really slow. I'm not sure if it's due to the winter or maybe I planted them too low in a box, they couldn't get enough sunlight. Hopefully, with Spring, they will start bearing results.

After it's washed and cleaned.