Yeah I know it hasn’t quite arrived here yet, but it will and soon…and frankly I can’t wait! Spring – yay! Now I do feel a little sad for all those of you who live in the Northern hemisphere for whom the end of August means the end of summer but seeing as most of you seem to be having it either ridiculously hot, windy or in the case England temperatures marginally warmer than our winters it doesn’t sound like too many of you will miss Summer anyway. Besides Autumn’s a lovely season too. So with no further ado these are my Top 5 things to enjoy in Spring:
The garden smells lovely. In my case this is because of two plants – the Jasmine and the Boronia Megastigma. I know that neither are particularly kitchen garden related but in my defence my daughter does suck the nectar from the jasmine so I guess it does have some culinary application if you are fairly loose with your definition of culinary. I have no excuse at all for mentioning the Boronia – its not in the least edible to my knowledge but it is a great plant in that it smells divine, has these nice browny red flowers and best of all grows happily in fairly shaded spots.
Tomato seedlings – I love growing tomatoes but quite often I find the anticipation of growing tomatoes is better than the reality. My plants often don’t quite live up to expectation, by either not producing sufficient crops, succumbing to some sort of disease or just generally looking a bit sad and sorry for themselves. In Spring though its all anticipation, the plants look healthy, they grow lots, start setting flowers and generally the world is filled with hope.
Watercress – My garden suffers from something of a hungry gap for quite a bit of Spring but one thing that does come into its own from the end of winter onwards is the watercress. Peppery, green, delicious and highly nutritious its such a fabulous plant. And it makes great soup and great salads so no matter what Springs weather throws at you there is a watercress dish to suit.
Broad Beans – Broad Beans pretty much only crop here in Spring, and as such they remain one of the truly seasonal joys of kitchen gardening. Mine have just started flowering and I have to admit I can’t wait to eat the first beans, ideally with some lovely green garlic and mint (both of which are great Spring fare).
Its gardening weather! Summer is often too hot, Winter often too cold, Autumn here moves from too hot to too cold in the matter of a couple of weeks whereas Spring is usually mild. Spring temperatures here are generally somewhere in the 20s, low 20s at the start moving to the occasional 30 degree day by Springs end. All very civilised really and absolutely perfect for being outside in the garden. And that is where I very much want to be, ideally with a glass of wine and a BBQ dinner after a day of seed sowing and planting out. Ahhhhh – just a few days to go…
What do you like about Spring? (or indeed Autumn if that’s more on your mind at the moment.) What else should I be savouring before it disappears to make way for Summer?
At the time of posting the New Goodlife has yet to publish her Top 5 – stop by and see if she has yet.
Oh this is hard there are too many things to like. In no particular order, I agree with your first point – the bit about the garden smelling nice – especially when you have that wonderful brown boronia, but I might actually say , the garden looks wonderful. Everywhere has new growth on it and many of our native flowers are out – wattle, grevillia, epacris, banksia, lomatia, lomnandra.
Seeds – they are endlessly varied in their appearance and its great when they put out their first little baby leaves.
Violas – I always have then in my winter spring vegetable patch.
Chives – its the time of year when they shoot up their newest stems and they are wonderfully chivey.
Lemon and lime flowers – they smell heavenly and the promise of citrus glut to come is very exciting.
Its interesting – your signs of spring come a bit earlier than ours so if I’d written this post in a months time I might be talking about these too but we don’t have much new growth yet, the citrus hasn’t started flowering and my chives have yet to reshoot (although I may have accidently killed them….), now that you’ve mentioned them I am really really looking forward to them. Really enjoying all the wattle flowers and grevillea flowers though.
My garden smells like freesias at the moment. I planted them for nostalgic reasons – they grew wild all around my neighbourhood. I agree about the tomato seedlings – so much promise! My very favourite thing about spring is the start of daylight savings.
I like freesias, actually I really enjoy all bulbs – fun to grow and i have to say – I probably shoudl have included some in my Top 5
I’ll be happy when autumn hits here. It has been way too hot and humid. I mostly stay out of the garden except for the early morning. And I love both spring and autumn for their gardening weather too. Sometimes we get the drizzly weather then, but still at least it isn’t hot. Then again our summers usually aren’t all that hot either. This year they have been, but our highest high average for the summer is only about 28C. This year it has been so much higher.
I’m not great when it gets too hot either – in between suits me – if it could be between 20-32 all the time I’d be pretty happy.
Oh, yes, the smells! Boronia! I don’t have any at the moment but I love being out on a walk around the neighbourhood and catching a delicious wiff and not knowing where it came from. It’s such a modest-looking plant. Jasmine is wonderful too as is daphne which is just about done by the start of spring. AND the freesias, as Louise said. My parents had freesias that naturalised through their garden beds and I have some of those bulbs doing the same in some of mine. They are a lovely reminder of them.
And I can’t wait for daylight saving, too! To see and appreciate the garden at times other than the weekend is such a joy. I’m all excited about the prospect of spring, now!
Daylight saving is great – I’m not quite sure why we don’t it all year round – except perhaps to have something to look forward to. I love the idea of naturalising freesias – they must be lovely.
Oh yes, I am definitely the one who doesn’t enjoy hot summer, and am happy the weather is getting cooler and I can also garden… I would love to have a salad with that watercress, it’s just so beautiful! 🙂
I think I’ll have another watercress salad for lunch tomorrow – it is delicious!
For me the best thing about spring is the feeling of optimism, freshness and the colours of the flowers.
I absolutely agree – Spring is optimistic isn’t it. Very excited now especially as our first Spring day was beautifully sunny.
I like fall for the relief it brings from the almost oppressive heat and humidity. I always love to see little seeds bursting from the soil, no matter the season. I like the color of the sky in fall. It’s a deeper blue that we only see at this season.
Its funny isn’t it the season changes brings relief across the hemisphere – for you from the heat and for us from the cold. I love the idea of the sky being bluer – that must be amazing.
I hope you are not disappointed, Liz. Our weather pattern here this year has been totally crazy, and the seasons seem have got completely mixed up. You never know what to expect. Maybe your Spring will be more normal.
They reckon we are going to have a hot and dry Spring which actually isn’t that normal – our Springs are usually our wettest season and they tend to be mild. We’ll see though, I have known forecasters to get it wrong on the ‘odd’ occasion.
I love spring – the start of a whole new growing season, seeds germinating, new growth on the herbs and the first bumblebees. I’d love autumn too, if it wasn’t for the fact that winter follows!
I have to say I found late Autumn to be particularly hard in the UK – I remember November being particularly depressing, but I did love Spring there – the absolute relief I’d feel seeing the first signs. Here I’m glad but there I was excited, glad, relieved and joyous all at the same time.
Spring is such a very exciting time of year! Enjoy.
Ooh ooh i’m sooo excited. Spring’s great cos we can sit outside and eat our meals or have a cuppa. For the warmth. For the excitement and wind down of the term 4 school year. For the flowers and plantings and bees and butterflies. For daylight savings. I could go on but no need.
I love your boronia. I have tried to grow several and every one has died. My broad beans have only just started flowering too. I thought maybe I’d planted them later than last year but maybe it’s just been the Melbourne weather.
Maybe your giving your boronia too much care – mine is in the most niturient depleted part of the garden, in almost complete shade and I ignore it most of the year. I do water in summer though as its near some things that would die without the watering. I’m finding quite a few plants seem slower, maybe its the cold, or mayube its my impatience – not sure, I should go back really.
You’re so right, spring is the best time for gardening! We’re expecting more record-breaking heat this week, and have been feeling too lethargic to garden, cook or preserve. The broad beans look gorgeous, what variety are you growing?
The Broad Bean variety is Exhibition Long Pod, and I have been really pleased with them.
The best thing about heading into autumn around here is that summer is about to start. Really. Now is when the fog backs off and the weather warms up. It means the tomatoes start coming in in earnest and the eggplant is ready to harvest and the sweet peppers finally start to ripen. September and October are the warmest months around here, I just wish the days were a bit longer.
Eggplant and capsicum ripen in Autumn here too – I enjoy Autumn – we get a nice mix a warm, mild and getting colder.
Hi Liz,
Your Tomatoes are a bit ahead of mine, and they sure look good and healthy. My broadbeans in Gippsland are just starting to pod. We can’t wait, we have been watching the River Cottage series on the telly and the kids cant wait for “beans on toast”. They also love a salad we make with broadbeans, feta, young green (wet) garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, parsely and S & P.
I share your enthusiasum and anticipation for the growing season!!
Glenn
I wish my broad beans were at podding stage – I have a couple of flowers but thats it (the photo was taken last year). I make a very similar dish to yours but with mint rather than parsley, delicious isn’t it?
I’m green with envy! We had what, five days maybe of over 25 degrees? This year has been awful. Late frosts, nipped tomato seedlings, no plums, fewer pears and a nightly assault of slugs and snails. Mega sulk.
Horrible, horrible, horrible – hope Autumn proves warmer!
Too true about the tomato seedlings! LOL! I am infatuated with them and so hopeful but rarely am I given the end result I desire. The thing I love about spring is the first days that it warms up enough that you have to shed your light jacket while out in the garden working. It always has to go quickly back on once out of direct sun or I quit doing “work” – but the joy of shedding extra layers of clothing is rite of spring.
You’re absolutely right! I managed to take off my jumper during the walk to school yesterday morning and it felt fabulous!
I love Spring too but this year the weather has been so dire and now we are rolling into Autumn…I’ll be picking the last of my broad beans tomorrow and its now a race to get my tomatoes to ripen-some plants are only just flowering. Time to get the seed catalogues and plan for next Spring!
That is the great thing about gardening isn’t it – there’s always next year.