:: blink and maybe you'd miss this ::

 there's a Hindu folk tale about time summed up by Lord Vishnu telling Lord Brahma how so many incredibly huge number of eons occur not even in "the time I take to blink my eye"

 and I feel as though metaphorically, this was the intense amount of growth our garden did this past week or so...

blossoms unfolding fully...bees busily making the most of the sporadic sunshine...

petals fully outstretched...

 ...delicate quince blossoms fading fast...

...the turnover in the floral department running at a tremendous pace...

...more thoughtfully slow in the case of the furry apple leaves...

...while the grape sprout was astonishing to me - even a tiny, tight bunch of ...grapes!

 and this climbing rose had me utterly perplexed as to which leaf stem I'd snapped last week - I'm fairly sure it was this one...

a dramatic burst of growth - like hands reaching up to the warmth of the sun...

another surprise was hiding under the now-thick cover of leaves on this plum-bough...

and here blackcurrants swell...

hoping it's not too late to have mulched and fed the seemingly-voracious strawberry patches this weekend past...

...it really all appears to be growing so urgently right now - blink and I think I'd miss this!

How is your garden growing this Spring?

:: spying on Mother Nature this morning ::

At a time of the year, when these delicate Snowdrops are still lingering here.... 

...and one of my favourite fragrant flowers is just beginning to flourish...

...Mother Nature is magically composing the most joyous symphony in our garden...and I was drawn out there with my camera this morning...delighting in every single (seeming) incredible feat of growth and abundance...

...some of the fruit trees in the orchard can't wait to frock up in their best party frills and shiver in Spring frosts bedecked in petals all pink or white...they would be the stone fruit - plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots and their delicate blossoms are mostly all ephemerally dashed to the ground in the all-too-chilly Spring winds...

...while the pip fruit family like the pear and apple above, dress sensibly in their new leaves first...

...so many wonders - like the beautiful wrapping of these quince bud petals...

...and when was the last time you really looked into the centre of a flower to check out what happens in there? All I could really think about was the promise of luscious berries in Summer...

...and leaf buds literally thrusting miniature furry, leaf-babies heavenward...

...and can you guess what this is?  I was surprised to find this soft, pink tenderness surging forth from the woody tip of...a grapevine! ... 

 and amazed at firstly the brilliant red and secondly the exquisite unpacking of perfect rose leaves...

 ...and here is the plant that spurred my curiosity this morning...a tiny green fig pertly sitting up next to a very new, very first bright green leaf sprout...on a tree, otherwise bare-naked!

 ...and there were more surprises - here are a couple of the earliest plums, while the last unfertilised (?) blossom not yet fallen, dries brown beside them...

 ...lurking beneath leaf-shields are wee blackcurrants, swelling behind flowers as they wither, crumple and shrink... 

...and in the vegetable gardens the first strawberry blossoms were floating - and this - small and green, but soon to be plump, juicy and RED... 

 and last, but not least - asleep in their pod...some baby peas, merely slumbering or growing astronomically-fast?

Ah, Persephone's Return from the Underworld to bring back the light to the Earth - how confident, faithful and abundant indeed - how lucky we humans are - if only we would realise :)

:: big egg ::

 Phoebe came in from collecting the eggs the other day with wonderment and lots of giggles...

there was definitely something different with one of the eggs...

L to R: bantam egg, regular hen's egg, 'whopper' egg

so she set out to see just how much different...

 Phoebe loves to bake and knows perfectly well that an average hen's egg will weigh approximately 60gm...after a bit of thinking she worked out that this beauty is more than half as big again...

 it was agreed that she would have it sunny-side up for her breakfast and indeed it was a DOUBLE YOLKER!

and a breakfast enjoyed at least one and a half times as much as usual, maybe even twice as much :)

:: walkabout wednesday ::

 

A couple of weeks ago now, we were invited to walk a neighbour's organic farm property with a group of other organic-growing farmers and gardeners in our small local area.

The weather afforded us a very fine, sunny Spring morning and we much enjoyed our morning tea then set out to walk their farm.

 It was interesting to meet the herd of lovely Dexter cows who have the privilege of fresh grass every day or so - yes - there are 30-something paddocks here for these bovine beauties.

It was good to just chat and discover ideas and perhaps solutions to common challenges to working with the land organically.

Like this simple, yet highly effective carrot-raising concept: lay newspaper in an open-ended piece of plastic guttering (in another container to hold the soil/seed-raising mix in), fill with soil/seed-raising mix, sow carrot seed.  When the carrots are big enough to go in the ground - simply dig a suitably-matching small trench in the garden and slide the seedlings directly into the ground, including the newspaper - which will break down - and firm up the sides with soil!

Carrots have been one of my difficult crops...and are notorious for their dislike of being transplanted...I shall definitely be trying this.

And I found it fascinating to notice that our neighbour, who is growing this garlic less than 500m from where we are growing ours, has so much more growth there.  Planted at the same time, I wonder whether their garden is just that much more elevated and sheltered than ours?

The name 'walkabout Wednesday' has been coined and the intention is to walk each others' properties over the coming Spring months.

Heck, it was just great to actually stop working on the land for a morning and go and talk with some real, local people about stuff that really  matters!