Our two Jersey heifers arrived today. On the left is Florence ("Flo'"), and on the right with the darker colouring is Jezebel.

Flo and Jezebel are in calf to a purebred Jersey bull (whose name I don't know), and are due in the next two or three months. Once we have weaned the calves, the cows should produce around 20 litres of milk each per day, more than enough for us and the family we share the cows with. I'm thinking yogurt, butter, cream, cheese, and milk. And cows smell great too!

We also have a Dexter cow, Buttercup, who is due in late October. Dexters are a heritage small-breed cow, black and around half to two-thirds the size of a normal big cow.

I'll share more cow pics when we start milking with our one-cow milking machine... 

For the first time this week the sun comes out and I can finally get into the damp garden to attend to this fortnight's planting of peas.

An hour in and I'm just taking my jumper off, warm from the work of clearing out the finished broccoli...but what's that funny rain shower in the next valley over there.....oh, it's snow.

Hello snow! 

It's quite beautiful, swirling in from the south, gentler than rain, slower, drifting then quickening to the gusty winds.

After a few minutes enjoyment, the cold air and the melting snow on my shirt drive me inside to the fire and a nice hot cup of tea.

Half an hour and several cups of tea later it's a beautiful sunny spring day again. I sally forth once more into the garden and continue....

Until the snow resumes, harder this time, in finger-freezing billows that even the dog doesn't enjoy....

Bugger it. I'm having a day off!

An oak sapling from an acorn gathered under the grand trees next to the strawberries on the Huonville road.

Give us 80 years and I'll have some grand oaks too. But doesn't it just say 'Spring!'.

Wattles blooming, willows greening, soils drying and peas popping as we turn back towards the sun.

In the garden it's Here We Go Again, sorting seeds and allocating beds for the coming seasons. The first planting of peas are 3 cm tall, and the third planting went in last week. I will be sowing every two weeks until December. Salad crops are sown with the six-row seeder every two weeks from now until February, as are Hakurei turnips. Beets and carrots are sown monthly, leeks in three big sets September to November, and all the fruiting annuals go out from the potting shed into the garden in mid-October. Herbs and sliverbeet will be squeezed in somewhere, and I must get around to those potatoes, and prepare the Dell Patch for this year's corn!

Those couple of extra kilos I've been carrying through winter won't last long....

But it's not all sunshine and gambolling lambs, for it's also (see next post)....

Along with the bursting buds of spring comes a tricky time for the market gardener: The Bolting Season.

All the plants that have sat tight and hardy over the winter's cold and dark now want to grow again, and to produce seed.

This means that the carrots, beets, turnips, swedes and other root vegetables send out many tiny hairy roots, becoming tough and bland in the process of beginning to flower. Leafing and flowering veggies, like broccoli, leeks, kale, rocket and pak choy join in the fun by becoming coarse and sending up tall flowers (see photo above). 

Additionally, many vegetables planted now will bolt before they are harvest-ready. Leaping out into the garden and planting in a fit of spring joy, like I did last year, led to some quite pretty beds of flowering beets, pak choy and fennel that did absolutely nothing for my bottom line.

Thus, The Bolting Season marks the end of winter produce, and a lean few months ahead for the garden, while all the old crops come out and new plantings slowly mature. 

The Bolting Season is also a time of appraisal in the garden: how did the winter go? Did I get planting times and amounts correct? What can I do better next year?

The answers to some of these questions can be moderately heartbreaking. In the photo above I am doing all the work of harvesting and lugging $500 worth of Hakurei turnips that are bolting and therefore useless. Quite an expensive addition to the compost.

And today I will be turning over four beds of coriander which are no good anymore. There are several things one can do in this situation. Shake fists at sky and curse. Kick stuff and hurt toe. Grumble at wife.

But most importantly: do better next year. Factor in The Bolting Season.