Strawberries and cornflowers

I've got to say that with the June having been as cold as it was, we sort of lost any interest in gardening this year. So whatever has been growing in the garden after we initially planted it, has been doing so on their own. Strawberries have done well. Salad and beans somewhat, but not flourishing. Some of the flowers have finally started to blossom, a cornflower being the first one to bloom.

 

 

 

Summer at last

It's finally summer, with the night temperatures staying above +10C too. Things in our garden grow nicely: beans, both planted and wild flowers, strawberries and the midsummer night's rose bloom and we already made our first rocket salad out of our own rucola. 

Today we put our zucchinis, cucumbers and tomatoes to the ground (not pots this time), and basil into big garden boxes. We also planted some thyme and oregano and some more salad too.

Besides the rucola and onions growing for the second year unexpectedly, we also have found a couple real surprises in our garden. A little maple is growing in one of last year's pots, and I found a little yellow violet growing in last year's onion bed. I salvaged it to a pot before turning and cleaning the dirt for the zucchinis and cucumbers.

Beans, apple blossoms and other flowers

Spring is rapidly turning into summer. While it is still May, the nature is in full summer mode. We have +26C in the day time, and even during the night the temperature doesn't drop below 15 degrees. Everything is in flower. Apple trees, dandelions (many of them already turned to those white balls already), all sorts of little road side flowers, hedges and vines in peoples yards, and rhododendrons and tulips (many of which are already beyond) et al. And trees are heavy with catkins, though birches seem to be past the worst.

Yesterday I went to the stables at Nurmijärvi with my eldest daughter; there are many apple trees there, starting to bloom, whereas here they are already in full bloom. Today I walked aroud our neighborhood with our dog and my camera.

Also, our beans and last year's rucola (I guess it dropped a whole lot of seeds!) are growing nicely :) Hosta undulatas on our yard are growig fast too, and those flower seeds I planted a week ago are starting to sprout.

 

 

 

 

Garden coming along

Despite the colder weathers, chives and spring onions are growing nicely outside, and even the salads and beans are to be sprouting. Inside, the zucchinis are growing, as is basil, but the aubergines are taking their time. Also, on the yard, the hosta undulatas are poking through the ground.

 

Garden work

Finally we got around to do some garden work. We planted basil, zucchini, aubergines, dill, parsley, beans, rucola, salad and spinach seeds in boxes. A whole lot of herbs, tomato and chili plants etc. are on the shopping list, probably getting some plants instead of seeds again later on. And we were thinking of getting some flower seeds this year too.

 

 

Chives are already growing nicely by the sunny wall, but I cleaned the pot and added some new seeds there today. I also cleaned and turned the dirt in the bean pots, and planted those beans where they were growing last summer too. Otherwise the sunny wall is still all old pots waiting to be cleaned out and re-planted. And the bunnies are waiting for some of those flower seeds ;)

 

Spring onions will be ready for harvest here soon!

 

Garden in late July

I was away for a mere week. Yet, so much had happened in our garden in that short time! The medina chilis had started to turn red, as had the first cherry tomatoes. The green pepper and naga jolokia had started to grow their first fruits. Cucumber, aubergine and zucchini were hanging heavy with ripe fruits. Beans and sugar peas were ready to be harvested.

 

We harvested quite a lot of the stuff yesterday evening.

 

Beans we made into a side dish by boiling them and then adding oil and crushed garlic. Zucchinis we grilled, and the aubergine I peeled, sliced and deepfried. We also have more rucola than we can possibly eat, so we had some if that at the dinner table too. At least a small effort ;)

 

The sunny wall got hit by some hard winds, knocking the tomatoes and some other pots over. The plants are a bit leaning on each other now, but still they seem to be happy enough!

 

Beans

A couple days away and we had one ripe cucumber, and the beans have really started to grow.

 

 

Harvesting

We went to visit my sister for some grilling and such and took with us some zucchinis, eggplants, zucchini flowers (stuffed with feta cheese), the first ripe tomato, basil and and salads - a little bit of harvesting of our garden :)

 

The sugar peas are full of ripe peas, while the beans have just started to produce flowers. Strawberries, every day there's a few new ripe delicious ones!

 

Garden update

Both green pepper and the bhut jolokia have been growing a lot lately. Jolokia has a whole lot of flowers, green pepper is getting ready to bloom too. Cucumber plants have grown very tall, our bamboo poles aren't even tall enough for them anymore! And little cucumbers are growing on both plants.

Salad, rucola and spring onions continue to prosper on the hilltop, despite the continuous invasion of red clover (which I weeded out again today, after taking the picture). Rucola in the pot has gone wild, and parsley is growing nicely.

Only sad ones on our sunny wall are those chives, for some reason or other.

 

Zucchinis are growing by the day, soon we'll be having our first grilled ones! And the first tomato is starting to turn red.

It also seems that our funny scarecrow is actully keeping the birds away, for now for the first time I have seen the strawberries stay intact while ripening.

 

 

Going on in the garden

A lot of stuff going on. We hung the sugar peas on the wooden fence - hope their feelers find their way to the fence and grab on!

I hung a red christmas ball both on the big tomato and chili plants to keep the birda away, for they had been messing around in the plant boxes.

Oregano was transplanted in a bigger box and found its place between the basil boxes.

We got some bamboo poles and wire and built some supports for the beans that had started to fall over.

The eggplant and cherry tomatoes and other tomatoes are growing by the day. Cucumber plant has the first little starts of cucumbers now too!

That first zucchini flower is really big and growing right before our eyes. It more or less doubled its size only today! There's a whole lot of those zucchini flowers already, but that first one out is really showing the way for the others.

We also started today to build a drip irrigation system for our garden. Its somewhat complicated...

Things growing

Zucchini plants are getting bigger and bigger and have started yo grow zucchinis.

Spinach in the box is doing much better than that on the hill ever did (it started to groq flowers before there were reallyany usable leaves) and yesterday we made our first spinach salad out of our own box.

Beans and sugar peas are seemingly happy.

Basil is soon big enough to contribute to our meals.

Our garden in early June

A heatwave has been caressing our garden these past days. Eggplant has its first flower, several tomatoes are growing, there's 14 chilis on the medina, and everything is growing right before our eyes.

Eggplant, tomatoes and the medina

Basil, oregano, spinach and dill

Zucchini, cucumber, peas and beans

Our bhut jolokia seems to be a bit tiny and is not growing taller all that fast, but it does have some flower buds already too!

Beans and peas

On this wonderfully sunny hot Sunday our garden plants have taken a spurt, tomato producing a bunch of new leaves, zucchinis doubling their size, the new batch of dill and spinach and all of the beans and sugar peas sprouting.