Folke took a pano-
rama picture of the garden the last visit of the year. The tree row
is on the left side of the picture.
The raspberries, on the opposite side, are to the right. On the far
left, you can see the remaining brussel sprouts that were harvested.
In december, the cellar was ready just in time to hibernate Janes Fuchsias.
Atumn sown broad beans show their shoots through the snow. (Sorry to
say, we forgot to protect them, so they became a winter meal for some
hungry dove or rabbit.)
The last brussel sprouts were harvested. There was a lot of them. We
sorted them in three different sizes and stored them in the fridge.
Filling up the space between the cellar and the surrounding soil with Leca pebbles to ensure insolation. The Holma 39 plot was cultivated a last time before winter. The weeds seem somewhat feeble.
The atumn sown broad bean 'Aquadulce claudia' sprouts. Plot A1, A2 and C1 are autumn cultivated, but there are still some plants and late apples to harvest.
The grass cuttings and other compost material collected during the summer has become a beautiful compost. Melica harvests it and digs it in into the A plots, which will carry the cabbages next year. Folke digs the cellar.
The later apple trees, as 'Aroma', 'Ingrid Marie' and 'Cox Orange'
are giving a full harvest. Best of them is 'Aroma', which also is the
first to run out. On the picture is 'Cox Orange, which is a delicious
late apple. They store well into Christmas.
The bean plots is neary harvested and put into storage in the freezer.
About six buckets (60- 70 litres) of beans were harvested. The bench
is in its place. Sitting there, you can have a relaxing look over calendulas,
nasturtiums, 'Red Russian' kale and celery, as well as the rest of the
garden.
In the end of August, everything is abundant. Flowers are cut (Jane with our grand-daughter Johanna). Nasturtiums and sweet peas are on its peak. The flowerheads of the dill are cut for the crayfish feast. Folke finishes the corner for the bench and starts to dig a hole for the small cellar (inner size 80x120 cm)
The cimbing ar beans are on the top of their poles noe. Noone really
believd that they could climb their poles all the way to the top of
them, but it was easy, and they went on flowering all the way up! The
result was a runner bean djungle abundant with beans of different types.
Also the sweet peas and the squash liked the poles.
We decided to rent another plot, 39, that has been abandoned for several
years. It was really a challenge, since it was totally covered with
root weeds. We plan to cultivate it hard until next year, when we plan
to grow potatoes and green manure or ley. The later years, the potato
crop may be moved over iy, so, after three years we have had the possibility
to hoe the weeds during potatogrowing all over.
The harvet is in full pace. The picture is from one days harvest. There are gooseberrys, red currants, green and white runner beans, cucumbers, squash and crispy salad.
The runer bean harvest can start. Also, the onions have stared to lay
down their tops, which means that they have stopped growing and are
staring to make skins. A dinner at the allotment can contain fried squash,
fresh (really fresh!) potatoes boiled with dill, and some chicken
from the neighbour's farm.
Also, the self-sown tomato have ripe fruits. The jar contains pickled
wild tomatoes from the previous year. In the cup, you can find a rhubarb
drink.
Christa Holm, photographer and Geranium specialist visited us to document the garden. To get the best photos, she chose a cloudy day.
The climber beans are almost at the top of the 3.5 m (12 ft) high 'tents', and we are starting to harvest them at the bottom. Marigolds and dill fill up every empty space.
After mid-July, harvesting becomes an important part of the 'work' in the garden. Red currants and peas are the first to come. Also, the earliest apples can be tasted. There is a deep smell of sweet peas in the evening.
A vegetable garden should also have a lot of aestethic qualities. Everywhere where it is a naked spot, you can put in some flowering plants, and the vegetables themselves also have beauty in form or colour.
Although weeding naturally is needed, it is remarkably easy. The "weeds" are replaced by intentionally planted flowers. Marigolds and Nasturtiums gives splashes of colour together with sunflowers and cornflowers. By their colour and smell, they confuse insects that like the vegetables. The climbing beans grow almost a foot a day that covers the ground. Everywhere, there is a lot of dill, growing from last years seeds. Their smell is particularly strong. We let them grow and harvest when required. If they compete with other vegetables, they will add to the compost.
Our friendly neighbour trims the grass for others on several places in the community garden. The cuttings are collected by the machine, and we get them. They are tremendous in the compost!
The broad beans flowers. Take a look att the larger view to see how beautiful a 'common' flower could be. They are also very fragant.
After a week of some warmer wheather, there is a considerable difference in development. We can remove the cover over some of the plots (not those suspectible to doves and other hideous animals!), and we are stalking the peas with the beautifully yellow Salix branches that someone throw away earlier in the spring. Our friendly neighbours gave us lots of newly cut grass for our compost and to cover the land under the bushes.
Now, all the fruit trees are flowering, although in different pace,
order depending on their time of fruiting. The 25 redcurrant bushes
are flowering profoundly, as are the gooseberries and the plum tree.
Our grandchildren Johanna was visiting to give us some hand.
Last year, we visited Lennart
Svärd in Ljugarn, Gotland. He is an artist, working with casting
concrete in soft forms. One of his creations was a soft formed sitting
bench, which we immediately fell in love with. He promised to bring
it to Lund, when he was visiting relatives here. Today, this happened.
Since our relaxation corner is't ready yet, we placed the bench in the
entrance for the time being.
In the middle of May, our plants are starting to establish. Some reserve
plants from the hotbed had to be inserted, but most of the plants were
establishing well. Although small, they are promising.
Some slugs were eating the swedes-seedlings, but vanished when we gave
them iron phosphate.
Jane marks out the exact sowing places for the beans, since the will
have sticks to climb on. The sticks can not be set out yet. The birds
will eat the bean sprouts if we don't cover them with the non-woven
fabric.
Now, all plants that are large enough are planted out, as different
types of cabbage, leek, corn and sunflowers. Flowers are sown and planted
with the vegetables. In the end of the day, only runner beans and peas
are left to be sown, and the celery are waiting in the hotbed. Now,
we are waiting for the results and fighting the snails.
The last days of April, the side-stones towards the path were set. Melica manured the C-plots that Jane had made a hard job digging. Finally, they were limed with ground limestone.
We planted the potatoes that we had grown in the hotbed at home, together with the early potatoes that were pre-grown on trays.
The asparagus peas and the brussel sprout plants were set out.
It was not easy to make Vindla understand that she was not allowed to
run on the non-wowen cloth protecting the young plants.
In April 24, the allotment was finally ready for the first sowing. We had got some pallet collars in half size to make a small compost bin. That was a releif, since biodegradable waste material abunds in a garden, and you can not always just dig it into the soil. Melica dug a deep hole in the clay in order to make an asparagus plot. Then, she filled it up with the composted horse manure we had been storing under a tarpaulin. Plot A1 and B1 was sown and watered. The watering was really necessary, the clay was so dry and hard.
In the intermediate time, when we were not loading garden-stones, we equipped the allotment with some chairs and a table. Sitting on the ground when eating can be awkward. We also got some long Salix-sticks from a nearby energy forest grower, to have for bean-poles.The major job, however, was to lay out the stones in the main paths (See; Design), and digging the plots. In the evening the 18:th, we were ready with the main digging and stonelaying. At that time, the apple-blossom buds were swollen.
It proved that the movement of the garden-stones was a complicated manoeuvre. Three more times was the services from Tommy and Lennart necessary. Together with Jane and Melica, and using late nights we managed to move them to the allotment. In the meantime, we started to lay them out. Jane dug and manured the land, which not was an easy task in the drying clay..
We bought a pile of cement-stones to use at the allotment. They had only three drawbacks; the were heavy, many and situated in Fjelie, about 35 kilometers away. However, we persuaded a friend of us, Tommy, to use his car and cart to move them. This day, with the help of Tommy and Melica, we managed to take about a third of them to the allotment. After the moving, we started to lay them out and Jane started to dig the first plots. The difference between the soil that was green-manured the pevious autumn and that which was not, was tremendous. Ask Jane.
We had some surplus soil and manure at home. Erik and Melica helped us to move it to Holma 35. It was a hard work. After lunch, we moved all the twigs from the pruning to the common storage.
When Jane was at a another cat-show, Folke and Vindla went on pruning the last fruit trees. The pictures show the process, before and after the pruning of the last three trees.
When Jane was at a cat-show, Folke and Vindla went on pruning the fruit trees. On the large picture, all the trees are named. The other picture is after pruning six of the trees.
In January 15, we finished the pruning of the red currant bushes and started with the first three apple-trees. We got a wheel-barrow from a neighbour that was about to move. It was an excellent help to reach he tips of the trees. Jane learned the first lessons in tree-pruning.The pictures are of the trees before pruning.
We started the new year by pruning the last ten red-currant bushes. We had begun this work in November, but we were interrupted by Folkes illness. Some by-passers asked if we had started the potato-planting yet. I think they were ironic.
