Cucumbers and red currants

October has set in. Leaves are falling faster than anyone can rake them. Mushrooms are popping up in funny clusters. I was out in the yard doing a Littlest Pet Shop photoshoot and noticed that our unlucky plants have actually produced two sorry looking cucumbers. There are also some red currants, uneaten by birds, still in one of the already leafless bushes.

Potatoes, onions and berries

Starting to be harvest time. Yesterday I dug some new potatoes and onions from our garden. I did try to get a few radishes too, but they don't seem to like that clay soil much. Berry bushes are heavy with berries. I never had th patience to pick more of those red currants myself, so we had a neighbor pick them for herself. I am determined to go and do some gooseberry and raspberry picking today though. We'll see how that goes ;) 

Unfortunately there's not much else to be harvested from our garden this year. The poor summer, poor dirt, all the other projects etc. sort of took over and ate the motivation. Apples we will have, though a whole lot of them are already rotting into the tree and falling off - not because of being over ripe yet, but because the locusts destroyed the tree a lot in the early summer. The other tree does not bear too much fruit this summer, but those few apples there are looking quite delicious already, though not ripe yet.

Busy lizzies are finally blooming, in two colors: fuchsia and orange.

Flower additions to our garden

Yesterday was a fine summer day. Sun was shining, it was nicely warm until late evening - for the first time this year we stayed out in the yard enjoying the summer evening until midnight, I think. The wind was real strong though, which has been quite typical this spring and early summer. It was my birthday yesterday, and more often than not, my birthday has seen some quite good weather. Today it is raining again.

I got a couple of roses, a flaiming Katy and some busy Lizzies for birthday and having seen the weather forecast I immediately put them the roses the ground and the other flowers to some pots. Last week I also planted some potatoes.

Rototilling

The previous owner of our house used to have a garden, used to grow poatoes. The plot has been uncultivated for the past five years. We wanted to have a proper garden there again, so last weekend we started a rented rototiller and began to turn the ground. It was hard work with the almost 10cm of hard grass roots and the soil heavily clay. My husband worked real hard and I helped as much as I could, and after eight hours of work, the job was done. 32m2 of  lawn turned into a garden patch. A couple of little birds were keeping us company, enjoying the little creatures that surfaced as we turned the ground over.

We immediately ploughed it too, and planted the first plants there too: radishes, broccoli and onions. Some potatoes will go into the ground soon too, and hopefully our zucchinis, cucumbers etc. will start soon - or we might just go and get some plants from the store.

Next to our garden patch, the rhubarbs have grown flowers, knapweeds have opened most of theirs, whereas the bergenias have dropped theirs. Lilacs are plenty in our yard and full of sweet smelling flowers now.

There's daisies growing next to our house where tulips used to grow, and chives in the box have flowers. And lilies of the valley have opened their flowers in the forest.

Lilacs, berries, apple blossoms...

That yard of ours. I went out to take som photos again. The other apple tree is a cloud of flowers, bees busily buzzing from flower to flower. Gooseberry and red currant bushes are heavy with tiny baby berries. Lilacs are not in full bloom yet, but getting there, same goes for lilies in the valley in the forest. There's strawberries growing everywhere, even blueberry bushels in the forest. Rhubarb is tall and some knapweeds are growing here and there. This will also be a huge pine cone year in our yard.

Apple blossoms and other flowers

I was away for a couple days and when I returned this evening, the apple trees had finally started to bloom, a little bit anyway. The other one is on a sabbatical this year, so there's only a few flowers here and there, but the other one will bear a whole lot of apples!

The lilacs between our and the neighbor's yards have buds, as do some of the lilies of the valley in the forest behind our yard. Next to them grow stellaria holosteas (great stitchworts) with their delicate little flowers.

The last of our tulips are growing in the forest, a group of three and one stray one. They are tall! At least 50cm tall beautiful ones.

Bushes in our garden

We've got a couple of quite big currently blooming berry bushes in our yard. The other one I have identified as red currant, the other one is gooseberry. I am thrilled :) Both make excellent jelly, red currant makes real good whipped cream of wheat, and gooseberries I have loved since I was a kid. I love our yard!

We also have a small patch of rhubarb growing in our yard. Last week I cut some and made some real good rhubarb pie to take to my grandmother for her birthday.

Birches and our garden

Birches are turning green. The ultimate sign of spring for me! Some are already very green, other types of birches are only getting there, some aren't even remotely green yet. The birches in our neighbor's yard are of the first type, those two latter ones can be found in our yard. 

In our yard, the flowers continue to bloom, tulips are the size of tea cups, and the apple trees are pushing out green and the surprise-berry-bushes have leaves. I found a ladybug snuggled in the nook of a twig on the other tree. A couple of pheasants came for a visit.

Our little starts of a garden have started to sprout, at least some of the stuff we planted. Broccoli, sunflowers, radishes, a cucumber or two, marigolds, chives at least. The nights have still been too cold for basil, parsley, dill, peppers et al.

We live inside the city limits of Helsinki, but we really don't live IN the CITY. I'm loving it!