Treading lightly, one step at a time.
It has been a very busy month here at the Greener dream. We managed to finally get the window into the shed wall and now we are blessed with light in a space that has been completely dark since we moved in five years ago. All we have to do now is go through all the boxes of stuff that have accumulated in there and then we will have a nice work and storage space. We are planning to put in a new door as well with glass panels and one more window, so that even more light can flood into the space.
Looking back at April, we find that spring is about two weeks later than usual here on the land. It took until the end of the month for most plants to start to flower, but by now the bees are making up for any time lost and if you walk out amongst the berry shrubs you are surrounded by a loud chorus of buzzing insects. It looks like it will be a very large berry and fruit crop this year, judging by the amount of blossom.
After a couple of weeks in Sweden we are now back home with our feet firmly planted on Irish soil. Before we left it was unusually cold but in our absence quite a remarkable transformation has taken place.
March has arrived and with it the promise of the heaviest snowy weather Ireland has seen for over 35 years. We have stocked up on food, candles and other necessities, filled up the bird-feeders, brought in firewood and covered some our vulnerable plants with fleeces. We are ready for the storm.
As we look back at the month of January we would like to use a Swedish word that sums up our involvement in the garden during that period, and it is lagom. Lagom is a word that has slowly spread out across the world in the last couple of years and there is not really any one word in the English language that it translates directly into. The closest might be moderate, adequate, good enough or just the right amount. Not too little and not too much.
The light is returning slowly, every day we have a few more minutes of day light. As we look back on the darkest month of the year, we realize that more time should have been spent in the garden.
We had our first frosts in November and now the land is really settling into some winter rest. Plants grow very slowly if at all and many annuals have withered and collapsed.
