spring garden (frühlings garten)

When I got home after my Austrian holiday, our garden looked like this, above! In fact it was worse because by the looks of the photo, one bed had already been weeded before I snapped this pic and it was very definitely full of weeds when I started! 

Dried cosmos stalks were lounging on the pathway.

The garlic was reaching for the sky above a blanket of small green weeds.

Perpetual spinach had sprouted tall seed-heads that were lolloping about the beds. 

The strawberries were having a life and death struggle with a severe case of twitch grass. 

And weeds, oh the weeds, had taken hold in all the pathways and every bed!! 

 Nach mein urlaub in Österreich war mein garten so überwachsen.

Die Erdbeere voll gras, der Knoblauch verwahrlost und überall Unkraut!

This is a few weeks later and although most of it is in the shade, I hope you can tell the difference after our back breaking, marathon weeding effort! Its taken us quite a few weeks of labour - can you see the hawthorn shrubs in the background which have changed from twiggy stalks to fresh green bushes? Of course, there wasn't just garden work from dawn to dusk each day....... there's cooking and cleaning, teaching and washing, and mowing and building and..... all sorts of other important duties to take care of. All of which also got done. Well, maybe I cheated with the cooking some days......and perhaps the washing piled up a bit but none of the family seemed to mind too much!! 

Etliche Wochen, und viel Arbeit später schaut es so aus! 

 

And now its almost done! The garlic is beautifully weeded and hopefully growing nice fat bulbs!

Knoblauch ist bald zum ernten.

Can you see in the first photo, the very weedy patch with a line of purple beets growing? Well, the weeds were hiding quite a good amount of carrots which was a nice little surprise, although the beetroot could have been just a bit bigger!

Unter viel Unkraut hab ich ans kleine rote Rüben und sehr schöne Karotten gefunden!

The cabbages which I planted a bit too late in the season, are starting to heart. They are huge, about half a metre high with big leaves but will go to seed if I don't harvest them soon. Some we will eat fresh because we love cabbage salad and some I will attempt to turn into sauerkraut. I'll let you know only if it turns out!!!

Das Kraut hatt über denn Winter langsam gewachsen aber jetzt muss ich schnell was davon machen. Ich glaub wir wären momentan viel kraut Salat essen und Ich mochte auch probieren Sauerkraut hehr  stellen.  

Heartsease have self sown all over the garden and I've had to give myself a stern talking to about being ruthless. I have a habit of leaving every self-sown-in-very-odd-spots plant and then trying to garden around them. This time they all went. Except maybe one or two.....! 

Stiefmütterchen hab ich auch müssen raus jäten weil so viel waren, aber sie kommen immer wieder! 

Before I went on holidays, I purchased a couple of bundles of raspberry canes at the Farmers Market. Ever since we moved here I have been attempting to get a berry patch happening and every year something doesn't work in synchronicity and its too late! This year I think I've nailed it!!! When I brought them home back in July, I simply buried the whole bundle, including the sawdust it came in, into an empty garden bed. They've been in there a bit long because they have already sprouted but the roots still came apart easily and they are finally in their own little space...... 

Himbeere waren auch zum einsetzen.... 

 .....right here!! You can just see the skinny green sticks in the narrow beds on the left. Mulch is coming as well as a better watering system. The wide bed on the right is our new strawberry bed complete with our first soaker hose. Today we put the black plastic cover on and perhaps tomorrow I'll get a chance to plant the strawberries. I'm not usually a black plastic person, or a weedmat person, but in the interests of less weeding, I have succumbed at least for this bed. The plastic also heats them up and they will produce earlier which is not a bad thing here in the 'deep south'!!
I hope to have it done today and will 'show and tell' soon!

How is your garden going?  

....und hier sind sie ganz links. Rechts ist unser neues Erdbeere Bett. Heute machen wir alles fertig und dann kommen die kleinen pflanzen dazu. Unser garten ist sehr gros und macht mich viel Arbeit aber ich schaff es gerne und freu mich schon auf eine gute ernte!!