This time of year your blood starts flowing again and there are days every so often where you feel like you can actually go out and enjoy the garden and sunshine.
Though you may be confronted by a fecund crop of weeds and mounds of windswept leaves and twigs, it’s OK: the weather is warming up and things can only get better.
Clear away the leaf litter and what you’ll find is damp soil and enough light to start some spring planting.
It’s a good time of year to do some soil prep, so before you plant anything be sure to mix in some organic matter: a bag of compost or manure usually covers about one square metre, and while you’re at it you may want to add some bentonite clay, to improve soil porosity.
This will make a huge difference in the brutally dry summer months.
Mid-Spring is the prime time for raising seeds for all those delicious summer veggies.
Brace yourself for an abundance of Mediterranean goodness: now’s the time to start raising from seed fleshy vegetables like tomatoes, capsicum, chilli, cucumber, zucchini, eggplant and artichokes.
Find a sunny spot and plant them directly into the soil, or use egg cartons for a cheap seed-raising tray.
When raising these plants make sure you’ve got ample snail pellets, or if you’re averse to the chemical stuff, place bowls or mugs of beer around the garden (snails love beer so much they drink it to death).
As these vegetables grow they are also prone to sap-suckers including scale, aphids, and mealy bug.
Use white oil, which can be bought in the store or made at home using vegetable oil and water in a spray bottle, to drench the plant and suffocate the bugs.
When the seeds are raised, mulch the garden bed with about one inch of fine mulch.
There are lots of options for fertilizing summer veggies: I think a dose of all-purpose organic liquid fertilizer once a week is the way to go, because unlike most other plants, with vegetables you want quick absorption.
Stake up your plants to keep them away from ground-dwelling bugs, and if you really want a quality crop, thin out the least successful plants (and individual fruits) to focus efforts on the good stuff.
Aside from vegetables, the herbs to plant now include basil, mint, oregano, and spring onion (which you can grow by planting the cut-off bases of store-bought spring onions, providing their roots are intact).
Do you have a gardening question for Jess? Send your queries to jess.cockerill@fairfaxmedia.com.au