It's spring. The garden is springing up all over the place, with double daffodils and native grass orchids poking their heads up from the soil, plus asparagus and seedlings from last year's cosmos and the gladioli I threw out from a vase a decade ago to use as mulch in the vegie garden.
The gladdies I discarded must have already set seed, as they have been springing up every September ever since, a cornucopia that never empties - no matter how many I transplant or give away, more arrive.
The apricot and peach blossom is pink; the apple blossom white, pink or red; the quinces red or white; the plums a giant snowball with white petals blowing like snowflakes in the wind.
We have the blossom. We now need it to set fruit. While this is up to the birds and the bees, plus sometimes native wasps, sugar gliders and other less well-known pollinators, humans have traditionally wanted to get in on the act, to ensure a bounteous crop. It is also fun.
Sadly most traditional spring rituals will lead to a charge of public indecency in the suburbs, unless you have a very private courtyard and no drone arrives to hover over the pair of you - or more - enthusiastically attempting to ensure a good apple crop. Most spring rituals were done in daylight, partly to celebrate the longer warmer days, but also because the ground is chilly, and even chiller at night.
Some spring rituals are still legal, and even suitable for children. When I was kid we'd make daisy crowns, using both Federation daisies and lawn daisies, though the same garlands can be made from clover flowers, hibiscus, calendula and many other flowers too. Choose a flower with a long but sturdy stem; make a small slit in the end of the stem. Use a sharp pointed knife for this, and don't lick your fingers. Most flowers are harmless, but some are toxic or the sap is an irritant. The ones above though are safe, unless you have a rare allergic reaction.
Push the next flower stem through the slit, till the flower at the other end of the stem reaches the slit and won't go any further. Continue adding flowers to the last stem in the garland till you have enough to make a crown for your head. Make a second split in the first stem to push the last stem through, and you have a firmly attached garland. No string is required. Kids love them. You might even make them for a wedding, avoiding a $5000 flower bill and the CO2 spent importing your flowers from Singapore. If you have enough flowers, you can also make garlands to wear like necklaces.
Other innocuous spring garden traditions include eating a pie made with the last year's dried crop, or drinking cider or apple juice from last year's crop, all done while under the apple blossom, of course. Count the petals that fall on you - you will have a month or good fortune for every petal that lands on you - or that kids can catch before they reach the ground. In past years in the Celtic tradition the May/Spring queen would be crowned with garlands and carried through the orchards. The fate of the Spring King should not be detailed in a family newspaper. Let's just say he helped to fertilise the crop.
Our family's spring rituals to ensure a good crop include pulling off any dried fruit still on the tree - they'll spread fruit rot to your new crop; putting out European wasp traps to stop the intruders killing the bees; trying to remember to water the trees now we are once again rain-free for a while; and definitely not mulching or feeding the fruit trees yet. Wait till all the blossom has fallen, then feed, mulch and water well, in that order. Blossom fall is also an excellent sign that it's time to plant tomatoes, pumpkin and zucchini, and put in the first lot of corn and bean seeds.
These may not be as exciting as a lot of nookie under the apple blossom, but they are still pretty good. Let's throw out the understatement: they are wonderful! This truly is a magic time of year. Here in the valley almost every tree is draped in wild wonga or clematis blossom; the male blue wrens are turning even more blue and aggressive, and don't seem to notice that the female is as likely to go off with the loser of their battles as she is to favour the winner. Every whiff of air smells of a different scent.
Perhaps the best spring ritual of all is to choose the punnets of annual flowers you'll enjoy till winter freezes them; plant them; then lay a rug under the most convenient blossom-laden tree; add a picnic and bottles of something bubbly - which may be mineral water, or may not - for an alfresco lunch, then follow a form of an ancient and still practiced Japanese tradition. Lie back and watch the blossom and blue sky, and stay there until you've seen the day's petals open. Just watch, and drink in spring.
This week I should be:
- Planting bok choi, choy sum, kale, potatoes, peas, parsley, snow peas, radish. Coat the seeds in used cooking oil if you are worried about them rotting in cold soil. Dust them with white pepper after oiling if you fear they may be carried off by ants or damaged by slugs or snails before they geminate.
- Eating all the carrots, beetroot, cabbages and other veg left from last year, as they will soon turn woody and go to seed. Mulch them thickly to stop their soil warming up, so they stay tender and richly flavoured for a few more weeks.
- Remembering not to be in a hurry: Tomatoes planted now will probably bear at about the same time as those planted six weeks later - but the later plantings will be sturdier and bear longer. Pests attack early plantings, as they start breeding when the day's minimum is 3 degrees, while most predators only begin to be active at about 12 degrees. Wait till the world is ready to receive your bean seeds and capsicum plants - don't try to hurry spring along.
- Picking the last of this year's camellia flowers.
- Letting some vegetables flower before setting seed. The hoverflies and other natural pest controllers love the nectar, and I love the tall bright yellow stems of bok choi or broccoli flowers.
- Saving the seed from the best of my flowers and veg - even if it's hybrid and so won't breed true, it will be good: delicious and/or beautiful, perfectly suited to your garden conditions, and best of all - there's lots of it, and it will be free.
