Vegan MoFo: How Does Your Garden Grow?

I thought this year I wouldn't post about cooking food on Sundays, but write about growing it! Since it's Spring for those of us in the Southern hemisphere, I'm pretty busy raising seedlings, thinning out, and re-potting but I do have the opportunity also to enjoy everything bursting into life. Our house is an old one, and our garden has a lot of old fashioned sorts of things in it. Beneath our espaliered apple tree are glodioli, and mint that pops up everywhere along the back fence. I don't mind it, but it must have escaped a long time ago, as it is very pungent, and every time Mr Sprout uses the whipper snipper you can smell it through the whole yard!

The japonica on the left has nearly finished it's display, but the pink and white rhododendron next to it has come out his week, and it happens to be my favourite out of the six or seven we have in the garden.

This year, there is quite a bit of blossom on both our cherry trees, and I'm hoping if I net them quickly enough we might just get a punnet or two of bright red fruit in November! Last year the birds got them...

These beds were all installed by Mr Sprout, and Mrs Sprout (that's me) plants them out every year. You can't quite see all of them but there are 12, plus the big one up top, plus a couple more elsewhere. I already have corn seedlings in the top bed, as well a spinach, kale, and volunteer potatoes cropping up.

This is one of my favourite nooks in the garden. Japanese maples, and azaleas, and something else with pretty pink and white blossom that I just can't remember what it is at the moment!

Romanesco broccoli seedlings have been planted with marigolds this year to break up an otherwise boring bed, and to repel some pests. Alas, they don't repel next door's cats, who think it's perfectly acceptable to toilet in my garden!

Shallots, celery, and heartsease, the pretty purple and yellow flowers pop up everywhere and I let it because it's such a cheerful little plant and the ladybugs seem to like it.

Tomato seedlings thinned out again, and here they will remain until they are mildly pot bound and ready to plant out. I have some early ones already in the beds, but will hold these  ones back probably until November when I know the last frost has been and gone. With any luck, Mr Sprout will have relocated the chickens by then, and their previous home will become my greenhouse. Hint hint Beloved... Tomatoes are a staple in our patch, and this year I hope to get a decent crop for bottling and drying. There is nothing like pulling out a jar of preserves, some dried beans, and herbs in the middle of winter for dinner, and knowing it all came from your own backyard. What do you plant?