already dreaming of next year's garden

200 new strawberries

our gardening year is winding down. we've just had 4-5 days of sunshine and warm temperatures (in the 70s), which breathed a bit of life into the tomatoes and eggplants in the greenhouse, so they're not as done as i thought they were, but they soon will be. we're also hoping that the sunshine will prove to have ripened the sweetcorn so we can actually eat a few ears of that before the season is completely over. but largely, the garden is in its last stages.

waiting for the corn

big successes were strawberries, raspberries, artichokes, kale (until some kind of caterpillars took it), swiss chard (which strangely was right next to the kale and the worms ignored it), borlotti beans, broad beans and runner beans. my herb bed, which is over closer to the house, did very well - apparently cool, rainy weather is perfect parsley and sage weather, as my parsley and sage have been phenomenal.

less successful were the patchy carrots (tho' i'm feeding fresh carrots to the bunnies every morning these days). not a single beet came up, nor a single leaf of spinach (i planted that twice!) only a single kohlrabi grew, our brassica bed resulted in 3 small heads of white cabbage and tho' the red cabbages are leafy and lush, they're not actually forming proper heads. the broccoli was only enough for a few spindles in the odd stir-fry and the cauliflower, which started off beautiful went strange and black - possibly because of the wet, cool weather. my onions are small and the tops died off quite early, tho' some of them are growing new tops no (which i can't explain). the onions themselves are ok when you pull one to use in a salad or to cook with, but they should have been much better. some of this, i don't know what to learn from it other than to say that we'll just try again next year.

kind of a lot of grass grew up in the paths!

in the greenhouse, we had enough tomatoes for salads, but not enough to can any. the aubergine had loads of blooms, but i think the cool temperatures prevented them from really growing into something, tho' we've had enough to be hooked on home grown aubergine as opposed to store-bought.  plus, some of the kinds i bought were actually petite varieties, so the size didn't matter that much.  the cucumbers produced well, after we saved them from the aphids, but with a cucumber-addicted child in the house, there weren't enough for pickles.  it's partially because we had a cool, wet summer and partially because we didn't have the greenhouse up 'til the end of may, so we missed quite a lot of the growing season. next year, it will be better.

black plastic on the left is where next year's garden will be.

we have super sandy soil and while it has great drainage, it seems like the nutrients quickly wash away as well. we conducted a few experiments, putting horse poo only on one squash and not another and learned that horse poo is KEY. we've prepared a large area for next year's garden - loads and loads of horse poo went into freshly-turned soil and then were covered in black plastic to prevent weeds.  luckily, our neighbors have eleven horses and love to be rid of their manure pile.  husband has built an elaborate composting area, so we'll have compost to add to the soil next year as well.

the new compost staging area

but i find i'm already thinking about what to plant next year. i want to try some new things and do better at some of the old ones. we planted 200 new strawberry plants, so i'm going to be busy making marmalade next june. i want more herbs and i want to try some unusual things, like mustard and horseradish. i'm also feeling pretty inspired looking around the chef's garden website. and despite our dark winter, i would like to try to extend the season a bit by planting lettuces and things inside the greenhouse. hmm, maybe i'd better go pull some weeds in there...

gardening is an exercise in hope

the big overview

husband and i were laughing yesterday as we planted a few more things in the vegetable garden and looked back a year and thought about the few seeds we threw at the ground when we first moved here. we hastily prepared the soil, planted before it was warm enough and most of our peas and beans were surely eaten by birds before they ever came up. this year, it's a different story. tho' the garden isn't there yet, we're moving in the right direction.

the main garden - 12m of healthy strawberries on the left.

the strawberries are going to be a bumper crop - you can see the healthy robust 12-meter row of strawberries on the left and the smaller new ones in the foreground. next to those are rows of potatoes and various kinds of fancy beans. the green weedy-looking bits in the middle are rows of little oak trees and little christmas trees that were left behind by the previous owners and which we haven't had the heart to dig up, except to begin an oak allé across our field and down to the lake. in the top photo (and below), there's a raised bed filled with various brassicas (my new favorite word) - cauliflower, broccoli, white and red cabbage. per amy's advice, i've planted marigolds here and there, since we don't want to use pesticides (or herbicides for that matter).

brassica bed (and tiger the cat)

we've got artichokes down at the far end and a row of asparagus next to the rhubarb (visible on the left of the top shot). asparagus is a vegetable that requires patience. you can't actually begin to harvest it before the third year (talk about slow food!). i even planted some asparagus seeds, completely not following the directions, and every single one of them came up, so much more asparagus will be going in as soon as it has roots enough to set it out. the asparagus should love our sandy soil. we prepared the area last autumn, digging in plenty of good horse manure, and the asparagus seems pleased so far. and it's a good exercise in patience, to wait three years to reap the benefits.

we've planted peas, carrots, four kinds of onions, leeks, tuscan kale, curly kale (which the bunnies and chickens that i hope will come this summer will love next winter), garlic, zucchini, pumpkins, butternut squash, corn, parsnips, beets and several kinds of salad. they keep promising us rain and we got a bit today and hope we get more in the coming days. then we hope the sun returns.

gardening is a kind of exercise in hope. you hope conditions will be right, you hope for sunshine and rain in the right quantities, you hope those tiny seeds will grow into big, beautiful edible veggies, you hope no bugs or slugs will eat it all up before you can. hope and a lot of hard work. but already i think it will be worth it.

garden dreams

it's been a bit grey and dismal for the past week, tho' that big ball of fire in the sky showed itself yesterday. it didn't seem that fun because the temperature was still hovering around freezing. still, there are many signs of spring - the chatter of the birds, snowdrops dotting the lawn, the buds beginning to look plump and hopeful on the trees.

there have been enough warm days that the ground is beginning to thaw and we've even had our tiller out and begun to do a bit of preparation for planting, tho' it's still far too cold to begin. as you can tell, these photos are NOT of our garden here in denmark. they're shots i took last fall of a most lovely place  called sonia's garden - tucked away down a long winding road in tagatay, philippines. it's the sort of garden i dream of as our greyish brown world only begins to come to life.

little winding paths in a lush, green environment. of course ours will never be the tropical lushness of this garden since our season is too short and our climate all wrong for that. but the notion of little hideaways in the garden - secret rooms in which to listen to the birds and snooze with a good book -  that's appealing. 

when i think about sustainable living, my thoughts often turn to gardening - vegetable gardening - as there's something about sustainability that is inextricably linked to self-sufficiency.  but isn't it also important to sustain one's psyche, to imagine a garden that's a relaxing place of refuge after a long, hard day? to have a place to relax and commune with nature, maybe to eat outdoors. i'm trying to push myself to think of sustainability in broader terms. in terms of sustaining my soul and my family while sustaining the earth. and i think a garden like sonia's garden, which is also a restaurant serving only locally-grown, freshly-made food, is a good thing to dream of...

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some more practical sustainable gardening inspiration at eco etsy