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!

Celebrating Swedish summertimes

Photo: Pixabay

Summer times when the living is easy... Just enjoy! very day we wake up the sun is there, mostly it is already warm. Even in the north of Sweden (Lapland) it has been over 30 degrees for weeks....We worry about it but don't try to think to much about it, because we cannot change this on our own, we can only take our part.

Sometimes it is a little cloudy for some minutes. Already for weeks. As you have been reading in the last post the weather was too hard to work in the garden. Not only the heat (always above 26 at least) but more the horseflies attacking you the whole time. They developed very well due to the high humidity last weeks. We decided to slow down. Celebrate sun and summer before it's dark and lonely again. Just enjoy what's coming up. So now we stopped working and started sleeping in the afternoon, having dinner evening time outside with friends and we decided to travel again (because soccer finally started after the Corona restrictions and we got our second vaccination 😀). Of course we still need to to be careful and take care of the rules in Sweden. But it is never very crowded or close and every one is taking care till now... maybe because it is holiday time? We will see, have a nice summer time too (and don't think it is always cold in Sweden anymore)... Enjoy!

Photo: Pixabay

Summertimes in the Stegaryd Sjöbygget Garden

 

Queen of sun and sand - Jasione

When your are driving somewhere this summertime (in Europe), just have a look beside of the road. Sometimes you can see something shining light grey glow blue beside of the road. Good chance you will find the small flower Jasione, the Queen of sun and sand. In Dutch it's called Sandyblue. No matter how sunny, warm and sandy her place is: she will always flower anyway. Then you know it's summertime 😄.

Normally in summertime you will have less jobs to do in the garden, only some maintaining like cutting the gras and keeping weeds way. Unless you have a summer like this. It has been very warm for weeks already (20-30 degrees) and we have short big showers so the humidity is very high (about 75% right now). It feels like we are living in Indonesia... not Sweden with normally very dry and stabile atmosphere. I have been cutting the grass last week for some hours, it was horrible. I almost got cooked with some proteins of horseflies. So the weeds are growing even faster and we meet a lot of biting insects...

From beginning of June the temperatures were very high. Always above 25, some weeks 35 degrees with full sun 🌞 and strong blue skies. And it is still going on. While the rest of Europe is struggling with thunderstorms ⛈ and water problems we face the 🔥 risk (till now it is ok). It’s amazing and exhausting at the same time. Very nice when you are celebrating holidays, floating in a matras on the lake, dreaming away every day and not having and deadline. 

It’s less nice when you want to prepare the garden to open again end of July. While the fysik working you will get very sweaty 🥵 and uncomfortable. It needs to be done to keep the weeds away (or overgrown your garden), to water 🚿 the plants frequently special now to get the big garden (2500 m2) in best shape. We tried to work early and late on the day but met another problem. Because of the extreme high humidity the number of horseflies totally collapsed. When the midgets were gone the horseflies came. The last ones cause really big and painful bites. Not funny. So it is really impossible to work outside now, without damage. The only thing you will do is chasing away those flies from your body without finishing your job 🤬. In the end we decided to give up, we will forward the event. And we decided to enjoy 😊 the summer weather for a while. The only thing we needed to fix, is to harvest and pick the black currants, they will not wait for better weather, they are ready now. 

So when you are looking for news we are busy to take a swim in the lake nearby, to read a book in the shadow and meet friends outdoors. Happy summertime to all of you 😎. 

I saw we have been here before some time ago, only less wet and no open garden planned yet... do you want to know? Read this story : Summer heat in Småland Sweden

Open garden - öppen trädgård Stegaryd Sjöbyyget Gamla Skola

Every one is welcome to see our new created garden. We have been working in it from 2015 to rediscover. It is our dream to open up a showgarden with grandma's plants and a typical Swedish trädgardskafe. It will be some later, because of Corona, but we came so far yet. So we are very happy to show the result of hard working in the old garden till now. Beside of that, we try to fint out in the old archives about the old school days. We have been looking for old pictures and renovating pictures. When some one knows about former days? We like to hear your stories or to see the pictures.

We like to invite all interested people. We want to Open our garden this year already for a sneak preview, despite of Corona (it is a pity the Swedish Land open garden 15-7 was cancelled). All of this is outside, no problem when we clean our hands and keep some distance, or? 

Of course we will sell some coffee, tea and home baked cakes to have a nice fika somewhere outside in our garden. Everything is arranged till now, hopefully it will be nice (=dry) weather too!

We are prepared, are you ready to come and visit us? You will find us outside of Vittaryd on the way to Skällandsö (Bolmen). Hope to seen you soon!

Do you want to know about last years special (Swedish Tusen Trädgården) Open Garden, you can find more here Tusen Tradgarder 2021.

Bzzzz Buzzy busy times in the Swedish garden

 

It is buzzing all around me, lots of bees looking for new flowers.... very happy with our big wild cherry tree flowering. All wild animals are busy, all birdhouses are already booked, the red squirrel is running through the garden without even seeing us and the hare was too busy to prepare a solid nest for the small ones (so we gave her a little help outside our garden).

And we are very busy too.... there is a lot to do in the garden now, nature isn't waiting. It just goes on, like in normal life 😉. We fixed the fence around our garden (so we hope there will be less visits of hare and deer eating our flowers we worked very hard for), we made a southfacing herb garden, started a sunny fruitcorner, we have been digging, mixing and spreading compost in big parts of the garden, we restored the hedge (where some beech trees died in wintertime) and sawed and planted some greenery and summer flowers.

Because lots of rain through out the days last weeks, you can see thousand colors of fresh green 💚. As you know, green of nature around you give lot's of positivity and energy.

The result is also there is less time left to work outside, there is a swimmingpool on the grass (so we have problems to cut the grass) and everything is growing even faster. Even the weeds, they are growing so fast it's hard to manage (in less time outside) when your garden is 2500 m2. At the same time, I have to admit, it feels very good and healthy to keep busy outside (while being at home that much together with the two of us for months due to Corona), no need for the gym and the greens around us give lots of energy 💚.

And we have to hurry now, only few days of higher temperature next week and it will be also busy with midgets or knots, because it has been so wet till now. It will be impossible to be outside without being eaten, so we try to do as much as possible now when it's not raining. 

After one nice week with good temperature (half of May), temperatures went down again (average only 13 degrees). So nature is still little behind with flowering, only four weeks before Midsommar (the longest day of the year, after this days will shorten again till Christmas 😏). At the other side it's very good weather to recreate your gardendesign and replant some plants without spending hours for of watering.

Still I hope summer will start soon, we are longing for some sun and warmth after a long Corona year, with so much restrictions and without any traveling . I just took a quick look for next week, I saw some sun, higher temperatures and no raindrops anymore, let's hope 🙏

Work in progress spring projects outside

Yes, spring arrived in Sweden too! All of a sudden it's very sunny and 18 degrees....and in 2 days it became very green... I'm very happy my "Kungsängliljor" (Kievitsbloemen or Fritilaria Meleagris), the white and the black ones, are doing so well, this year (and they haven't been eaten (yet). They are lucky, they like to have wet feet 😂.

But what a crazy weather. Last week it was still frosty in the night, so I had to cover my small tiny plants (which got outside already) and new grown tomatoes every night. Yes, I know it's possible before the Icesaints come. But I was very lucky I didn't put out all my young plants yet. I was looking at the weather forecast daily 😬 and little stressed because they were inside too long. And I wanted to move forward of course, to be ready the end of May. For the first time I lost also several plants this winter, outside in the garden (my lovely Dutch red berries...) as well inside in the barn where I put them for wintertime (the Canna I found in my fathers garden 😢,) it became too cold. 

After the cutting down a lot of trees in the woods in our backyard, we needed to repair the lawn. Now it's planting time too. We chose some trees and bushes: a beautiful special and hardy oak (Quercus Rubus), a Flowering Cherry (Prunus Sagentii) with nice autumn colors and an Acer Japonica among other things. They were planted and started growing already. They had also little damage because of the late frost but now they are very happy on their new place and with al the rain they got later on😂

Meanwhile we try to get rid of the old Syringa, with the entrance. A very heavy job for us, getting a little older. So we try to fix very little parts each time we are working outside, bit by bit, but it is a tough guy 💪. We have been digging in our compost side to build a new one, we opened up the first one we made to use the ground which already is digested to new compost (from all weeds we took there from the start). We found already some older places where the old lady already made her compost, we use it and it is super ground with nutrition and moist to grow new plants with.

We were also very creative (to use old stuff in a new way): we planted an old rusty stairway (used for the chimney sweeper in former days), now it will be the Clematis Climber. An eyecatcher in our garden coming years!

We have been creating a new garden for some years now. At first we had to recover the old garden again because it was overgrown for some years. Of course we need to maintaine now as well. But now we are more and more creating something. It will be a mixed design of Grandma's Garden plants with a touch of Piet Oudolf natural garden (have a look at my Garden Dreams some time ago). It takes a lot of time but it makes us so happy, working, taking care of something and creating something new. Maybe one day...

Already a long time I have been dreaming about a sort of visiting garden, maybe just for people who are interested in gardening. It is very Swedish to have a coffee or tea with small cakes enjoying nature in a  small outside gardencafe (trädgårdscafe). Now we have the opportunity, a beautiful natural flowering garden (even it is work in progress) in the middle of Smålands nature close to a lake. Only Corona is responsible for some delay.. and the weather shows it is an unreliable partner too. The garden is not ready after winter to show yet.

PS We have a sort of try out to protect our new plants, just coming out of the earth after winter against the deers... we put some blinking CD's in the trees... in the dusk it's like "dangerous" animal eyes, they scare them away.... we hope 🙏 But we are not sure, maybe it also scares the birds? We will see, to be continued...

Time for sowing and growing

Finally, nearly spring... a little late this year. Inside I have been busy already. I bought some special plants at the Botanical Garden in Göteborg. They have been inside for some weeks now and started growing very well. They need to go out soon. But they need to get used to the lower temperatures first.So they will move downstairs to the hall and get outside daytime, to get used to it. After a week they will be planted outside.  

I have been very busy sowing in a very small but sufficient greenhouse in my room upstairs. The plants are doing very well also. They have beautiful names in English, such as: Grandma's Sweethearts, Peony Poppies, Limegreen Tobacco plants, Aster and Hollyhocks. But for now they have to wait a little more... because it has been snowing this morning, again 😟

But after this, it will be busy times in the garden. Like it is every year. Except we didn't have the sow the new grass anymore like we had to, last year. Don't you remember?

Spring is coming soon: Crocus time in Småland Sweden

The landscape is still looking like after winter, its very brown. Just now there is a warning for "grassbrandrisk"(grassfire risk). But the garden is already wakening up very quick. When you look carefully you see things coming out again. Also the deer in my neighborhood noticed. So we had to make some protect for the fresh leafs coming out. Already for weeks we hope spring will come soon. Every week we think next week will be less cold, less winter. We managed the biggest part from winter, the last steps are always most difficult. It challenges your patience again. But maybe next week?

We have seen already the snowdrops coming through the wintercover. We took it off last week in the total garden. We did some pruning of bushes and trees. We planted some now trees. We checked of the plants had survived the severe winter temperatures for some weeks. It looks like most of the plants managed to get through, except those in the barn. We'll be sure next weeks. We were lucky because we had a lot of snow (it isolates), it good have been worse. 

It's Crocus time now in Småland, but they will be finished soon. We wait for some more sun and higher temperatures. It's getting better but feeling cold. We will wait for the yellow Påskliljor (Narcis), Blåsippa (Hepatica) and Vitsippa (Anemone)..... It's Eastern soon, have very cosy days together with your beloved ones.  It will be spring one day too!

Last year this time  we were very busy with repairing the garden after the sewer disaster.... I'm very happy that's far behind now 😇

Living a more sustainable life

Living on the countryside, very close to a beautiful small lake means automatically living close with nature. And living more sustainable. We haven't got a kommunal watersystem or sewer. It's only forest around us, no industries, not much neighbors. We have our own source. And we share it with the people living around us. We have our own source in the garden and use it to drink and eat. It makes you responsabel for your own living, no one to blame but yourself when something happens. You don't want to spoil it. 

That means also we will clean the house, as well as the toilet, with ECO friendly stuff. No chlorine's or very aggressive detergent att all. When we really need things we use grandma's advice to clean up. Like you can clean the fireplace door, it's easy to fix (without expensive fluids) when you know how to (Grandma's wisdom: how-to-clean-your-fireplace-door. ). 

Nowadays you will find a lot of special made stuff in shops for special circumstances, which are extremely expensive and not really necessary. It will not work better most of the time and you can do it cheaper. Only very good to make extra money for the producers. 

We started to buy less, to consume less and to throw away less. We don't buy to have the newest trends, we buy something when the old one broke down or crashed and we really need a new one. It costs less money and brings less possessions to care about.  It will bring you luck and happiness, which is not depending on money at all. 

We are gardening without any pesticides. We have to clean the gravel by hand instead of buying some aggressive poison to destroy the weeds. We tried encourage the bees, bird and other wildlife in our garden (though the deer not always are liked that much because they eat the nicest plants...). 

We have our own compost side, where we throw all the digged out weeds from the garden. When it is full we will close the side and cover it. After some years alle the weeds died, the result is a beautiful gardencompost. No more need to buy any fertilizer. From the bigger parts, like pruning waste, we make a natural hedge, where birds can have their nests.

Living on the countryside made us more conscious about nature. It's about living together in a balance, enjoy the small things. To take care about Mother Earth. It's about investing in your (children's) future, it brings peace and harmony. You can feel the satisfaction immediately in your heart, also with small steps. And you know what? It's lovely to meet nature again. To see the seasons come and go, even if it it spring or wintertime. To see the cranes come and go. To see the moonlight once a month lightening your garden at night. To feel the circle of life, to be part of it.