The Sun Comes Out

At last we have some warm, sunny weather that really makes us feel that spring is on its way. Technically it’s still winter but because we have our greenhouse we have been able to get some tomatoes sprouting already. They’ve done so well that it took Lisa and one of our dedicated gardeners the entire session to transplant the seedlings into individual pots. Don’t they look great sitting in the greenhouse on the shelves Mr Reiger made us from a pallet and an old school bench!

We really need them to grow as Mr Reiger is expecting a good supply of tomatoes for his sandwiches throughout the summer as payment ;)

We found several passionfruit vines growing around the school, they must have sprouted from someone’s school lunch passionfruit last summer! We rescued them and Alan helped us build a trellis for them to climb up against the bin shed. We’ve planted two of them here and are keeping one other in a pot in the greenhouse as insurance.

Today it was time to say goodbye to our pea plants. It was a tiny bit sad as we grew those plants from seeds, and they have supplied us with delicious peas, pods and sprouts for weeks. But even though they are finished, they’re still going to keep working for us. The roots of the pea plants contain some special nodes that help fix nitrogen into the soil – nitrogen is really important for plants to grow strong, healthy leaves – so digging these back into the earth will be great for the next crop we grow in there. And the chopped up stems and leaves make a great mulch – mulch stops weeds from growing and keeps the moisture in the soil from evaporating in the sun. So in these ways the peas continue to help us out.

Luckily Matt came to help us today so with his assistance we had the pea plants all chopped up and a new crop of lettuces planted out.