"Farm1" wrote in message
...
...now it's spring, what are you all up to?

I've been busy in the veg patch, the rose bed and doing garden visits
which always inspire me and fire me into action.

We've had 8 huge pine trees removed from between my rose bed and the veg
patch so now there will be no further root competition from the blasted
things. It was amazing to watch the men clib the trees to drop them in
chunks but in the process they dropped a huge branch on my wonderful old
Hills Hoist and it took weeks before they replaced it with a new one. Of
course the new one is crap quality.


Here in the West I have about four decent weekends in which to accomplish
everything, in my case too early and the hayfever gets to me and too late
and the heat makes it very uncomfortable. I have been out and about planted
a dozen tomatoes from cherries to beef steak first time this year I have
planted out capsicums and chillies and I have a plot of spuds from some
volunteers in the pantry and a couple of rows of beetroots.

My question is, I buy packets of seeds and read the backs for planting
instructions and I can't help but notice that no matter where one lives in
Australia the seeds get planted at the same time of year. Now living in
Perth I am reliably informed that our weather is warmer and drier than
Melbourne, for example and nowhere near as tropical as FNQ. I suspect the
little packets are lying to me and I don't think I have enough seasons left
in me for trial and error. Can anybody recommend a book/publication aimed
at the Perth region?

Mike