Spring garden harmony

Around this time last year, we went to our garden for the very first time. And let me tell you that I could cry when I saw it. The woman who sold it to us is ill, so she didn't take care of the garden for the last couple of years, and I could instantly see it. The weeds were up to my knees, there were tons of large rocks, and the soil itself was as hard as stone. I knew we had a long way ahead of us which would take a lot of time and effort.

One year later and we can see huge changes! We kept away the weeds by using green cover, the rocks were removed last year and the soil is much lighter and healthier. There is still way to go before it will look like how I pictured it, but we're making great progress.

Let me show you around!

Our lamb's lettuce is thriving even in higher temperatures. I think we will be able to enjoy it for a few more weeks before it will go to seed. However, I will not remove the plants. I will let them in their place, so that the seeds will fall in the soil, and as soon as the temperature will drop in autumn they will sprout and we will have the lettuce again!

Last year, I didn't manage to plant any garlic, and honestly if we wanted to have enough garlic for our consumption I would have to get much bigger garden and only use it to plant garlic as we eat at least 1 bulb each day. We love it!

My mom's colleague gave me 2 bulbs of her garlic to try and see if we would like it. I planted them in February and waited for a couple of weeks until they sprouted. Look at them now! I only have 18 plants which is far from enough, but we will use them for some special meals.

1.5 weeks ago I planted a mixture of radishes. If all goes well they should have all the colours of a rainbow. I planted them seed by seed, so that I don't need to thin them later on, and it looks so good. They have enough space to grow, and I think that at the beginning of May we will be able to enjoy our first harvest. In a week or two, I will plant more radishes, so that once these are finished I will have another batch.

I also planted some lettuce, and it's coming along nicely. The lettuce seeds are tiny, so it's not possible to plant them one by one. I simply sprinkled them over the raised bed and let the nature do its thing. Looks like it worked.

Both radishes and lettuce are covered by the bubble wrap to speed up the growth. It's still quite cold in the night, so this helps to keep the temperature up.

It took more than 2 weeks for the peas to sprout. I have started to think that the birds ate all the seeds when one day I could finally see tiny plants.

It's been raining a lot recently, so the soil looks very dense, but it's still easy to work with.

We covered them for a couple of weeks until the plants will be about 10 cm big because otherwise the birds could eat them. Birds love those tiny delicate plants, but as soon as they grow a bit bigger they will lose interest and we will remove the cover to place a trellis.

I know that our 'prototype' doesn't look very good, but as it's only for a couple of weeks I don't mind.

I love going to the garden every day (when it doesn't rain) and see the changes. It all goes so fast now!

These are the red currants. We had so many last year and I hope for a good harvest this year too.

Rhubarb is growing nicely. I didn't dare to look under the pots yet, so I don't know how it looks like. I will show it to you as soon as I open them in a few weeks.

Our sea buckthorn survived its first winter! It didn't look good in autumn and it lost all its leaves, but they came back. For some reason I thought that sea buckthorn doesn't lose the leaves over winter...

In autumn, I exchanged two hydrangeas for two gooseberry plants with our friend. We planted them and hoped for the best. It looks like we will have our own gooseberries this year 😊

I let the chives grow big as I still have some in the freezer, and don't need more right now. They don't attract any pests, so it's probably the easiest plant to grow in the garden.

The Quince tree is about to start blooming. Last year, we lost almost all fruit to the rust, so this year we will have to treat it on time.

Raspberries are coming back! They spread easily, and I let them as it means that I don't need to buy seedlings.

Elderflower syrup will be in the making in a couple of months 😊

Wild strawberries spread easily too, and it looks like that we have double as much as we had last year.

Rosemary is growing wild!

Our salads will become colourful soon...

One of my hyacinths is so heavy that it fell over. I will replant it deeper, so that it has more support next year.

I didn't manage to cut back roses, and they have already started growing again. It looks like that I will only remove the dead branches and will see how it goes.

Can you guess the colour of this tulip?

I saw these blue/purplish flowers for the first time in the garden. What a nice surprise!

Peonies! Last year, the blossom was white, and I'm looking forward to see the colour this year. I had no idea that they change colour each year until our neighbour told us.

Daffodils are still growing strong...

We also have this cute tiny variety...

We will be visiting our family for a few days, but as soon as we're back we will start cleaning and planting many more seeds/seedlings, so there we will a lot to share with you 😊

See you next time!