The smell of jasmine and apple blossoms are now upon us.  Spring is here, and it's time now to start planting again!

What to plant...

If you've recently bought a Fully Planted or Deluxe VEG Bed you can probably skip this section. But if you've a home vegie gardener, design client or have bought VEG Edging, read on...

• Vegies: As long as the frosts have finished in your area start packing in those climbing beans, dwarf beans, basil, tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum, cucumber, zucchini and pumpkin. Sunflowers and sweet corn both add yellow to our happy VEG gardens, thyme, watermelon and zucchini.

  Plus you can put in beetroot, borage, cabbage (if you haven't had enough of greens after that winter), carrots, celeriac, coriander, and don't forget the all year round favourite - cress, okra, spring onions, oregano, parsley, parsnip (which coincidentally was the subject of the western world's first ever printed gardening book in the 1600's - the parsnip being very trendy at the time, the Euro's just couldn't get enough of the stuff).

  Potatoes can still go in as tubers, radish (all year and a fast grower), rhubarb, rockmelon, silverbeet - again all year round, squash, strawberry runners (love strawberries in the garden nearly as much as little kids, my mum used to get my sister and I to go out and pick them for ourselves whenever we wanted, which meant she hardly got any, except of course the "trophies" - the huge ones, we would have to show her in our pride at finding them. Ahh the simple joys of gardening and childhood rolled into one beatific piece of personal nostalgia).
  
  

  Now if that isn't enough of a list of Spring vegies to get you started then you may as well begin with haste at an investigation into the almost inexhaustible list of heirloom varieties of the above mentioned list. Check out Eden Seeds or Diggers or Phoenix Seeds or the seed savers networks. There you will find all manner of earthly delights. Peach coloured, pear-shaped tomatoes, red eggplants, yellow zucchini's and radishes with stripes. We are not lying ladies and gentlemen. There are mysteries to be discovered. Why only last winter we were at Bulleen Art and Garden when we noticed a yellow tomato covered in fine hairs, pinched one (had to) tasted it (delicious) and asked of it's origin. We hear it came from a back yard in Western Australia and know no more...

• Fruit: It's time to plant citrus, blueberries, passionfruit, citrus, feijoas, guavas and if you've got a taste for the exotic, babaco (a type of paw paw which grows well in front of well sheltered north facing walls in Melbourne.)  And although there's no longer any bareroot stock, you can still plant all your favourite deciduous fruit trees too.  Did you know that VEG now offer mini-orchard installation services.

Fertilising, mulching and watering

• It has still been a very dry year to date, but if you're a customer with an automated tap timer, we've been getting just enough rain that you can turn the tap off or on low, and turn it back on in dry spells.
  
  
• In Winter and early Spring we can consider raking up mulch to expose the dark soil, allowing it to warm up under the day's sunshine.  However be sure to return it by mid Spring or if it looks like the soil is drying out.
  
  
• Before you put in all those wonderful spring planted vegetables, prepare your beds.  Everything will appreciate some well made compost, a dash of dynamic lifter, finished off of course with some straw mulch.