Today we have something to celebrate. This is our 200th blog post and we are just as excited about our garden and eco-buildings as we were when we started writing about them back in 2015.
Tag: Gardening
Off to a good start.
The first part of January was unseasonably mild and we were quite worried as many buds on trees and shrubs started to swell and lots of flowers burst open much too early in the season.
Pulmonaria.
Floral notes in December.
When I moved from Sweden to Ireland in 2004 I was most struck by the lack of winter. Coming from a place of snow, ice and soil sometimes frozen solid for months on end, I was amazed when the last leaves falling off the trees and the last flowers of the year were met by hellebores, snowdrops and daffodils without so much as a snowflake to separate them. Read more
Unicorn frills.
July was certainly a busy month on the land. We worked quite hard for the first half of the month, weeding, pruning and generally preparing our garden for the open garden weekend on the 14th and 15th. The weather was very warm and dry, right up to the open days, when the rain and wind created a somewhat dampened but very pleasant event. We made some new friends and caught up with old ones.
For the second half of the month the weather has been changeable and we have not spent a lot of time in the garden, apart from when harvesting vegetables. Our cabbages have grown exceptionally well this year, along with our courgettes and raspberries.
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.
October.
Looking back at October we realize that we have spent another month mostly away from the garden. The building work inside is progressing slowly but we have also spent quite a lot of time working in and for the Ballaghaderreen Community Garden. It is a precious project, lots of fun but equally time consuming now in its early stages. 50 Kg of Daffodils have been planted by the committee and volunteers, well over 1000 bulbs and we are looking forward to the display this coming spring and for many years to come.
Far away but close to home
We believe the best kind of gardens mirror their creators and echo the owner’s interests and passions. Like a green haven that has the power to evoke feelings in the visitor and where creativity is limitless.
High summer
After spending two lovely weeks in half of our family’s native country Sweden, we returned home to a garden full of life. There has been lots of rain while we where away so everything has put on massive amounts of growth, the flowers, vegetables and grass is all looking verdant and lush. It is nice to come back after half a month away and realize that the garden has not suffered at all in our absence. It is one of the positives we can experience from living in a climate with few droughts and no extreme changes in temperature. We think it can also be put down to the fact that we mulch all our plants well with cardboard, straw and just about any organic matter we can get our hands on. This makes for a sustainable eco system in the garden where less intervention is needed to keep the balance right.
June in retrospect.
June was a month that seems to have passed very quickly this year. Maybe that is because we have been busy preparing for our open garden day on July 15th. There is still quite a lot to do in the garden, and we are baking every day and kind friends are letting us use their freezers for all the muffins, Swedish cinnamon buns and scones. We have had masses of ripe raspberries over the last couple of weeks and most of them have been used for vanilla and raspberry muffins for our guests on the open day.
thegreenerdream 