Growing

Since the rabbit has been confined to a pen on the grass, the plants have had the opportunity to grow safely. And grow they have! Not only do we have a lovely amount of weeds, there is actually a lot of edible and enjoyable plants in between them to look at and talk to.
The herb snail is full since I added wild garlic and garlic mustard. They are lovely as a spicy addition to salads, and as the first is endangered, I thought it would be great to have it in our garden. The only thing missing is basil, as that still hasn’t grown back since the ‘bunny attack’. I fear I’ll have to sow that in again, and see if it catches. As we are now in the third week of May, it should be safe enough.
Next to the herbs are our peas. They’re coming up nicely! I’ve started off a second batch of peas and 3 types of beans, which can hopefully be planted out in a month or so. No sigh yet of the spinach, which should be next to it. I fear the birds have been eating away at the seeds…
We’re keeping our fingers crossed for our apple tree… Last year, after the move into the garden from the allotment, the tree dropped all its blossoms and nothing happened… There were blossoms this year, and it looks as if something is happening…
Our pear tree is in full leaf and seems to be doing great again. It might need extra support, as without fruit, it is already leaning over like the tower of Pisa… But look to that clematis next to it. It has never been this lovely! Amazing! We’ll try to guide and spread it a bit after flowering, so beautiful…
Our Jerusalem artichokes are coming up nicely as well, in between the weeds. These will not be weeded away as much, as there are some things I want to keep and move to another border. We’ll see what comes up! Besides the artichokes, I have also sown some Helianthus strumosus, which will, after a complicated germination process, be planted here as well.
Some more earthlings, our potatoes! I got 10 from the eco supermarket, so we should have a few meals from our own garden. We don’t eat potatoes that much, so these are going to be a real treat.
And our parsnips came up, as did our carrots and big tomatoes in a tub (not on a photo), just when I thought it wouldn’t happen…
Four of the eight wall boxes of strawberries and some of the hanging baskets, spread around the garden for colour. We have so many blooms this year, there will definitely be enough strawberries from some ice cream and sorbet…
Ah, and the violets… They are just being awful pretty…
Lots to do, lots more to see, but that’s for next time! Now we’re off to enjoy it all!

Getting there

Slowly but surely, the garden is becoming green. The grass is growing, the trees and shrubs are budding, and the first seeds are peeking there little heads above the soil. Still no sign of the Jerusalem artichokes, though… It’s a waiting game, gardening!

The rhubarb is growing bigger every day. By the weekend, we’ll be eating our first rhubarb crumble, I think! I might even make a rhubarb birthday cake…

As we’re slowly but surely eating the lettuce in our guttering, it was nice to see that the new lettuces are sprouting up. We get the odd lettuce in our veggie bag, so that should tide us over until these little sprouts are big enough. 

And then there is the rocket. This stuff grows fast, so I’m expecting wonders the next few weeks. Today, I also sewed some lamb’s lettuce, in front of the (still invisible) Jerusalem artichokes. I’m thinking about adding a wild flower seed mix in that border, to make it nice and colourful… 

The beasties are enjoying the garden as well, a bit too much for my liking… The geraniums were slaughtered by our rabbit, who apparently enjoyed eating the leaves… Bad bunny! To recuperate, they’ve now been fenced in (the plants, that is). Since this unfortunate incident, Flappie has also nibbled from some of the strawberry plants, petunia’s and decimated the red sorrel, but new sorrel has been planted and the red variety will regrow again, I’m sure. Better keep the beasties in check!

 

A new year, a new garden!

Over the winter time, ideas have started to take form in our heads about how we wanted to alter our garden this season. We wanted more space for vegetables, less ‘non-necessary’ plants in the back garden, and – essentially – more home-grown food to eat. As I’m now a full-time vegetarian, more vegetables are being consumed, and as I’ve become quite a veggie snob, my purse is also looking forward to less spending on bio products, by picking them from our own back garden.
A few weeks ago, the first spade was pushed into the ground to set up the new borders:
All the berries and fruity plants were grouped together and hydrangeas moved to the front of the house to make room.
I was lucky enough to have a friend who was selling Jerusalem artichokes and these got their own border. I look forward to massive plumes of yellow flowers this summer… The garden fence was also closed off at the bottom, to give the rabbit and guinea pigs free reign of the garden. We now have our own grazing ‘sheep’, which keep the grass short and healthy with fresh ‘manure’…
It’s great to see them running around the garden!
With the old cobble stones from our garden I created a herb spiral, which is filling up nicely. Coriander, more chives, dill, basil and savory are still on the window sill.
This piece of old guttering was salvaged when our next-door neighbours got new guttering installed. We forgot to keep ours when we had ours replaced last year, but here I was in time to save a piece from the skip. It is now in use as ‘salad bowl’. Three store-bought plants for now and lots of seeds for various different types of lettuce.
The first coat of paint is on the garden tables and seat, and next weekend I’ll finish them off. They almost look like new, especially pimped up with some colourful cushions and flowers.
And despite growing in full shade for now, these are growing like mad. I’ll let you know when the first rhubarb crumble has been cooked!

It’s a smelly job, but someone has to do it…

Over the last few weeks, my interest has been grabbed by soap. I’ve been smelling a lot of it in the shops, I’ve bought several lovely bars and I was gifted several bars of olive soap as well. But what do you do with soap when, really, you don’t wash yourself with it? Yes, you make laundry detergent. As a follower of several green/eco/idealist blogs, it didn’t take me long to find an easy recipe. And actually, easy it is. Very easy, to be honest. So easy, that I wonder why not more people do it…
The recipe is quite simple:

40 grams of soap (preferably Sunlight or a similar type of soap), grated and diluted in half a liter of water
40 grams of soda
2 liters of water

Put it all in a bucket, stir and leave to set for the night. The next morning you have a nice gloopy (in my case also slightly lumpy) wallpaper-paste-like mess, which you can transfer to recycled detergent/softener bottles, or, as I did, in glass bottles.
And the results? Well, comparable to washing nuts. The smell of the green tea soap bar I used, was still noticeable in the detergent, but not in the washed laundry. That may be because I used a commercial softener, and because I am forced to dry the laundry inside because of the atrocious autumnal weather at the moment.
I am a fan though, because it is super easy to do, it is a lot cheaper than normal liquid laundry detergent, and it is better for the environment. If used in combination with natural vinegar, you also keep the pipes in your washing machine free from calcium deposits. The soda in the mix does apparently affect older machines with an aluminium drum, but I’ve used soda before to clean the machine and haven’t really seen any adverse effects in my machine.
Somewhere I read that the type of soap and the hardness of the water can be a factor determining how clean your laundry gets, but I haven’t delved into the subject enough and haven’t used the detergent long enough to be able to say anything sensible about it.
The experiment continues!

Baby steps

Going green is something you do in small steps. It’s not feasible to just turn your entire life around to make it totally climate-neutral, animal-friendly and self-sufficient. We still have a car, use electricity from the grid, enjoy hot showers and baths and yes, have so much electrical hardwire that we can’t even go camping – although it was a Nature Camping (not naturist, as we love to joke…) – without a wire plugged into the holy box of power.
But still, baby steps are being taken… For over 2 months now, I’ve stopped eating meat. It took only a little nudge from the people from Permacultuur Nederland during a meeting about the Living City to convince me to finally kick the habit. And I’m enjoying it as much as I thought. It’s not ‘hard’ to eat meatless, and we’re trying to stay away from the veggie alternatives such as soy mince and veggie burgers, but once in a while it is nice to just stir some through your pasta or have a burger-type-thing lying on your plate next to vegetables and potatoes. Baby steps… Now I’ve discovered the Greendelicious blog, who also is one of my friends on Twitter, I have plenty of inspiration to cook vegetable-based dishes where the meat is nowhere near necessary. Great!
Another baby step are these little fella’s:

Bee hotels

On our camping trip last weekend we visited the Bee Fair in Appelscha, where they showed us a few ways of creating a bee-friendly environment in the garden. On our walk yesterday, we found a great log, which the hubby sawed into three and then drilled holes into. I’ve no idea if the hotel will attract any visitors, but they’re more than welcome! I’ve also planted some more butterfly and bee plants, and judging on the amount of bumble bees buzzing around, we’re on the right track.
More news from Moss-a-lot…

Raspberry season has been opened!

Talking to pears helps... they are growing like mad!

Playing hide and seek...

The Japanese wineberry is a joy this year!

Outside the garden…

On our daily walks we are discovering little bits of heaven just around the corner...

Bearclaw alley

Cooking al fresco

From fleece to...

The first signs of orange…

Calendula officinalis

Even though I do my rounds through the garden every day, plants have the great habit of ‘creaping up on you’. This little orange fella just appeared out of nowhere…

Growing a pear

There are several pears on the pear tree, growing slowly but surely…

Real aubergine plants

And I have some real aubergine plants, at last!

Hanging garden

The hanging garden, with courgette and cucumber, is progressing slowly but surely…

Strawberries

The only thing the strawberries need is some more colour…

Peas and snow peas

and one by one, the pea pods are appearing…
Today, we’re having a nice garden salad with our food (burritos). YUM!

Green in the garden

After six weeks of drought, the garden enjoyed a few rainy days this week. This resulted in a true explosion of weeds, flowers and GREEN! The lawn is nearly ready for its first mow, and we have lots to show for our hard work the last couple of weeks…

Green tomatoes

Despite the sunshine, these little buggers just don’t want to turn red. I’m pleading with them, stroking them, but to no avail. Ach, I think it will just take time…

The one aubergine that made it...

In the meantime, I’m also talking to the one aubergine plant that made it. It can stay in its pot for a while longer, but I’m thinking of where to put it, as we want to reclaim our terrace area back, now that our ‘Enjoy the garden’-season has really started…

Successes...

Our pear tree is doing well. It is trying its best to give us some nice pears this year…

... and failures

While the apple tree succumbed to some unknown pest… All its blossoms whithered and then fell off. Such a shame! Even though we only had a few, small apples last year, I was really looking forward to these!

Calendula

One of the things I was missing from my allotment, was the Calendula. I had heaps and heaps of the flowers there. With some help from Tijm, my garden has now been restocked, and I’m hoping for a lot of happy orange in a few weeks’ time!

Red-veined sorrel

She also gave me some red-veined sorrel, which will look and taste great in any salad, Tropaeolum (Indian cress), borage and a few seedlings I forgot the name of. Together with the heap of pots I still have to put out, I’ll be surprised if there’s any black earth visible later on this Summer.

A small selection of pots with plants

Next time: strawberries! There are few starting out, but they’re still very GREEN…