Late May gardening

When I was a child I had to help in the garden everyday after school. Well, the word 'garden' doesn't really fit the size of the plots that we had. We had large fields that we shared as family. It took so much time and work, and I remember that I truly hated it. In fact, it's not really the work that I disliked, but the fact that I didn't have as much time for my friends as I wanted.

Now, I'm happy when I can spend some time outside after all day behind the screen, but I realize that I don't have as much energy as I had before. Recently, I've been so tired and I must admit that if I don't take my magnesium supplement after working in the garden I do regret it a lot the next morning. But every time we take some produce home I forget all the pain and my heart is filled with pure joy.

I have checked my photos from last year, and the sweet peas was only sprouting around this time. This year, we're harvesting it already! I've only picked a few of them for lunch, but there are so many more of them! It's the easiest vegetable to grow and probably the only one that slugs don't enjoy eating at all (at least in our garden).

We've been harvesting radish for more than a month now. These are one of the last ones before I will plant them again in late summer for another harvest in autumn. I have left a couple of them in the raised bed because the flea beetles found them and focused all their attention there instead of on my Pak choi which is a great news.

We both love scallions and we are so glad with how they turned out this year. We've had a couple of cold days, so we're enjoying them in miso soup every evening.

I'm happy that I got to those ripe forest strawberries before slugs! They are so delicious and very different to standard strawberries.

Strawberries are difficult to grow because they can rot easily and slugs love them, so I save myself some headache and don't grow them at all. However, all our neighbours do and give us a few of them every now and then 😊 When you try home grown strawberries you will never buy them in a shop again, so this is a treat that we really enjoy.

And as promised, let me share our greenhouse update...

We finished it last week, but I forgot to take a photo with doors, so you need to use your imagination. It looks sturdier than the other one, but I think it's only the colour which gives that impression.

Once finished, my husband filled it with fresh potting soil to get it ready for our pepper seedlings...

I spread the soil all over the green house while my husband started working on the doors...

Then I planted the seedlings...

I planted green and red peppers, in total 54 seedlings. Last year, I had over 100 seedlings outside and even though the plants stayed quite small we had a great harvest. This year, I'm hoping for even more peppers as the seedlings are protected from the wind and rain. We'll see 😊

I had some space left after I planted all the seedlings, so we made a few more holes for tomato seedlings. We had 5 of them left in the garden already, and they fitted here perfectly.

Grow well my plant babies!

And this is the detail - yes, I'm really proud of our work.

Meanwhile, our tomato seedlings are living their best life in the second greenhouse. I have planted some marigolds and basil as they are great companion plants.

Look how pretty they are!

Our basil here is much nicer than the one that I planted outside. The cold and rain are damaging it a lot, but I hope that it will perk once the temperature will get a bit higher.

I don't have a before photo, but it took me about 2 hours to get rid of the weeds, so that now I can see the chives and it's so much easier to pick them as well. And frankly, I hope that our neighbours will stop giving me hints to clean it. They are all retired, so they have all the time in the world to spend in the garden, and the concept of working in the garden only in the evening is difficult for them to grasp.

Potatoes are finally coming out! I have a feeling that I planted them a bit too deep, so it took them more than a week to get out. I can't wait to see them growing...

I guess that in a couple of weeks we will start picking our first gooseberries. I can't even count how many times they scratched me when I walked by, so we might have to move them to another spot as my skin will never heal if I keep scratching it every time.

The elderflower started blooming in the worst time possible. It should be harvested during a sunny morning, so that it retains as much pollen as possible, but it's been raining every day in the morning, and therefore I have no chance to harvest it. I hope that there will be at least one sunny morning this week because I would love to make some syrup this year too.

New roses are coming every day, and they seem to love this rainy weather...

This beautiful flower came out of nowhere. Let it be a reminder not to remove everything that we believe is a weed because it could be a pretty flower instead.

And this is me taking a moment away from my pitchfork. This year, I try really hard to enjoy the garden a bit. There is so much to do and I feel like we're so behind, but then I tell myself that tomorrow is a day too and stretch my legs instead 😊

Happy gardening!