Time to harvest

It's time to harvest now

Finally, after years of investment, it is time to harvest now. Not only the vegetables like the very tasty late potatoes "King Edwards" (you see above), nice apples (sorts Katja and Inge Marie) but also a lot of beautiful red tomatoes, beans, carrots and of course herbs. Fresh mint for the tea, chives and parsley without any pesticides. 

This is also the first year we can harvest the result of years of time investments, with little money and a lot of hard work. Of course it would be easy when you put in a lot of money, but still the plants need to grow by themselves. You can not make them grow quicker by pulling the leaves. It takes even longer when you start with very small cuttings. I brought about 150 plantcuttings from The Netherlands (because plants are soooo expensive here in Sweden) and I got some cuttings form Swedish friends.

So we needed to believe we would reach that moment one day and be patient. This year the plants got more body, filled up the space, started flowering more, the mentioned garden structure became more visible and the big jobs are done.

A big challenge to grow all these. Most difficult (and important) is the very sandy poor ground in Småland. In summertime it get's very dry quickly, you need to water extra to keep things alive beside of that the rain rinses away all nutrition easily. In a wet winter the waterlevel raises very high.

Last years we have been trying to create some drainage in the back of the garden, to get away water (when it is too much and the plants will be rotten).

At the other side we tried to fertilize the ground by carrying lot of compost everywhere or to water with fertilizer and we mulched (covered) the ground with green compost like leafs to appear drying out.  

Typical prairie plant: Red Pimpernel

Also we selected plants for special areas. In the driest parts we like the native ones (plant families who have been growing there naturally for a long time). We replenish with prairie plants, they are "tough guys" and love dry sunny circumstances while they normally grow in prairie landscapes. (I wil write about them later. The Sails and Willow trees like to have a lot of water and don't mind getting wet feet in wintertime (while prairie plants would die). 

I'm happy to see we are coming somewhere now. Now it is time to enjoy it, to look back, select new plants to sow or plant and order in wintertime. Next year will be even better 👍 

Sjöbygget Garden with a view

New experiences in the Swedish garden

 

After a very hot start of summer in June and July, it changed in August. Like the rest of Europe had before, now heavy rains and thunderstorms in Sweden. All this water made the garden plants grow spectacular fast, like it never did before. (At least not in the last 5 years have been living here.) Only problem is that the weeds exploded too!

My herb garden

The new herb garden, which i started in May is fully grown now. It's looking good and very successful,  hopefully I can extend it a little more with some extra plants next year.

Since they have been cutting a lot of trees in my backyard in spring, we have got so much more light, even in our house in the late afternoon or evening. The dark high wall in the back is totally gone, that will be a big difference in wintertime. We are still very happy about it.

Spontaneous grow... Devils Trumpet (Datura)

We found some surprises too in the backyard. The big trees dissapeared and suddenly new plants appeared... The seeds were saved in the bottom for some years and got the possibility now to grow. Suddenly we have spontaneous a very big beautiful white Devils Trumpet (Datura) decorating our garden 😉. (By the way, don't eat anything of the plant, it's a very poisonous one...)

After some time the garden and the plants will be more and more grown, hopefully it takes less time to take out the weeds. Before that it will take extra time to fertilize the soil with compost, to keep the moist a little longer, because it's still very poor. Though we have been putting in a lot.

When you look back, we already achieved a lot. We started with nothing, only weeds, a lot of trees and high grass and no borders at all. Now we have a lot of borders, filled with flowers from spring til autumn, some fruittrees and berries, a path around the house and a fenced garden.

When you are curious what it looked like when we bought this property? Feel free to take a look!