strawberries and apples

Apple Oratia Beauty

I love spring. Have I mentioned that before? Here is the third of our three new apple trees, planted yesterday just before a Southerly (cold) front came through a kindly watered everything for us. If you squint a bit you may be able to see little strawberry plants nestling in the mulch around it. I figured that was as good a place as any for them. Each of the new trees has now got some strawberry plants for company. Oratia Beauty is a New Zealand Gravenstein variant. Sounds yummy.



And here is our rhubarb, gooseberry and garlic patch. The plant in the very foreground is a flowering annual of some description (I'm leaving it there to see what it turns into), but you can see the rhubarb is doing very well just behind it. The gooseberry bushes have both started to sprout little green leaves, evidently both surviving the transplant from our friend's garden - excellent. Right at the far end is the garlic, but you'd have to use your imagination to see that very well. Only the garlic I bought at the local farmers market has sprouted - meaning that the other stuff we bought was imported and irradiated. Something to remember for next time!