As we now have past the winter solstice, it is time to look back, remember and be thankful for all that the year brought.
Category: Food production
Hedgerow tipples.
Foraging is always close to our hearts. It is a very relaxing and fulfilling activity to go out in the search of nature’s free bounty. We like to seek out places far from roads and houses and ask permission form the landowner if it is not on public land.
September gone.
We have entered October and there is a definite change in the garden. All the lush greens of summer are slowly transforming into browns, russets, buttery yellows, we could go on… It is lovely to walk around and experience the slowing down process of nature. All the leaves are turning and falling as the trees and shrubs prepare for the cold in the coming months.
It’s alive!
Over the last few days something of a bubbling, exhilarating and wonderful revolution has taken place in our kitchen. Unfamiliar smells, sounds and tactile experiences can now be found in every nook and cranny.
August harvest.
August has been another busy month on the land. There are so many things to harvest and process so that they will keep for the coming months. One unusual and tasty vegetable is the strawberry spinach, Chenopodium capitatum, which we grew from seeds in the spring. The red “berries” taste sweet and fresh in salads and the leaves are good in stir-fries.
The vegetable patch in June.
We are just over a week into July and it is time to sum up the past month on the land. So much has happened in the garden. At the start of June plants were still catching up after the very late cold start to the season, but at the end of the month, they were starting to show signs of drought after weeks with next to no rain.
The month of May.
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.
Unraveling beauty.
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.
Not too little and not too much.
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.
A look back at November.
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.
thegreenerdream 