Sunshine and soil: Garden gratitude

We've had a couple of extremely hot days (for April), and our garden is progressing faster than expected. From tomorrow the temperatures should drop drastically for a few days, so I will cover some crops as I'm afraid that they will not enjoy the change so much.

We were working in the garden all Saturday and also came back yesterday to put the windows of our greenhouse in place again. We have a plan now to help the windows stay in there, and with some help from our friend I hope to finish it next Sunday. I will show you what we did as it might help someone.

But today, I want to show you our very first harvest this year, and also some cleaning work that I did on Saturday. Let's start!

I planted a small patch of rainbow radishes in our raised bed about three weeks ago. It was still cold and raining a lot, so I covered the raised bed with a thick bubble wrap foil to help the seeds sprout and to protect the seedlings later on. I watered it a bit, and let the nature do its magic.

The seedlings were about 3 cm big when I checked it about one week and a half later. The bubble wrap foil worked like a tiny greenhouse and the seedlings loved it. I watered it again, and when I opened the bubble wrap on Saturday I couldn't believe my eyes. There were already plenty of colourful bulbs after only 3 weeks of growing. I have never seen radishes grow so fast, and even my mom was surprised to see it when I showed her.

I was so excited, and took one of each colour 😊 I also planted another small patch next to this one, so that we can enjoy more radishes in a few weeks time.

I took the photos right after I watered them, so don't worry, they are not overwatered. I don't like thinning of my seedlings, and try to plant them with some distance, so that I don't need to thin them later on. Each radish has enough space to grow.

They didn't even manage to grow large leaves yet, but used all their energy to grow bulbs. I believe that the bubble wrap foil is not the only reason why they grow so fast. I have filled the raised bed with fresh soil and compost before I planted the seeds, so they have a lot of nutrients to grow.

There are yellow ones too...

But my favourite is of course the purple one!

They must be delicious as there was someone else who munched on them too 😊 We don't mind sharing, and take such damages as the prove that we do something right.

And here is what I took home. It's not much, but I wanted the bulbs to grow a little bit more before I harvest them. This batch was only to try and they were good. The lighter ones are not as spicy as the darker ones.

Someone asked me what kind of lettuce I was growing in the raised bed, and I wasn't able to answer. Last year, I harvested the seeds from all the lettuces that we had left and put them in one jar. This year, I simply planted what I have as we're up to some surprises.

Not everything goes as planned and you can see that the seedlings at the bottom (on the right) are damaged. I'm actually surprised that they survived. We were not here for Easter and when I came back to water them they seemed to be dried out. However, after a good drink they came back up and I think they will be slower growers, but just as delicious as their big siblings on the left.

If you ever planted some lettuce seeds then you know that it's almost impossible to space them out as they are so tiny and light. I just sprinkle them over the raised bed and as soon as the leaves are about 15 cm long we start harvesting the outer ones. Like that we have the baby salad all spring and summer.

A few warm days and the onions almost doubled in size. I didn't expect that almost all of them would survive winter. Actually, none of them died because of the cold, but a couple of them were eaten by the mice. They really eat everything!

Do you remember that I've tried to force rhubarb this year?

I have removed one of the pots and this is what I found. There are plenty of long crunchy rhubarb sticks. I will harvest the ones with bigger leaves because they will keep growing and create a rhubarb jungle taking over half of the garden.

One of the rhubarbs that I didn't cover started flowering. I removed the flower, so that the plant can focus its energy into growing the sticks. When you leave the flower in place, the plant will focus its energy into growing it and your harvest will be much smaller.

Our rosemary is now in the full bloom. I'm so happy as I love the flowers in salads. They are not as strong as the branches, and also add some colours to your meals.

The sea ​​buckthorn keeps growing an growing. This is the male bush which will grow flowers needed to pollinate the female plant. You need to plant them about 2 meters apart to make it work and get some berries.

And the female plant. This one has large spikes which makes the harvest complicated. I hope it will start flowering soon.

Hydrangeas should be pruned in spring so that you see the new buds. The plant blooms on the old wood, and you should not prune it in autumn because you will cut off potential flowers too. I have waited until I could clearly see the buds to remove the old flowers and dead wood.

While working on the bush I came across a few snails which I left in place. It's always better when they enjoy hydrangeas instead of my vegetables.

After half an hour my bucket was full of old flowers and dead branches.

And the bush looks like this now 😊

Most of the mustard plants are about to start flowering...

Some of them flower already, so it's the right time to cut them off and incorporate them in the soil. This will work as fertilizers in summer, and it helped us right now too as it blocked the weeds. I will try to work on it this week and will show you the results soon 😊

Happy gardening and see you next time!