Two Beginners and a Huge Wild Garden full of Lizards

As some of you might know I'm currently house-sitting an off-grid homestead in the Balkan Mountains in Bulgaria, together with my man. At first it was only supposed to be during the winter (we don't have a heater in the van we usually live in) but it seems as if we are gonna stay a little while longer.

Now spring has finally arrived, it's super warm and sunny already, so it's perfect to spend some time outside again and prepare the garden :)

Actually, neither I nor my man have any experience in gardening or caring for a garden in general ^^ But we want to learn and this is a good practice :)
I did study a lot about Permaculture last year, but only the theory ^^
So we basically don't know what we're doing at all. But we're doing our best!

Most of the garden is still quite wild, everything is growing so fast! And I kind of like it this way. But eventually we have to cut back a little, at least the path to the well and the gate, otherwise we get stuck in the house, surrounded by a jungle inhabited by hundreds of lizards, toads and snakes ^^

Dandelions and daisies are the vast majority in the garden.
There are way more dandelions than grass, but I don't mind too much, they're also much prettier than grass ^^ Also we love their leaves in our salad!

We also have some corners where we let the nettles grow wildly. Nettles are awesome, we use them in dishes, make pesto and dry them for tea.
Last year I also made nettle syrup, which is delicious and the most refreshing drink I've ever tasted! (that reminds me, I wanted to write a post about it for the longest time!)

Apart from the wild parts of the garden we also have some garden beds that we try to keep a bit more organized.
I told you in a previous post about how our first attempt to start the garden failed because we were much too early (beginning of April) and got hit by a cold snap with frost and snow and everything a day later ^^
But now it seems to be quite safe to finally move the little plants outside, that we've grown in pots on the window sill.

A funny thing is, that some seeds seem to have survived the frost! Some little lettuce plants and onions were strong enough to withstand the harsh weather!
Tough little guys!

So yesterday we moved the little plants to their new home in the garden beds: Leek, courgette and lettuce (we're gonna have way to much lettuce ^^).
We also planted some shallots and beet roots.

I would love to plant some more stuff, more veggies and herbs! A friend offered us some cucumber plants and I'm gonna buy some more seeds on the next Market Mission Day :-)

Actually there are a lot more garden beds on the property. The owner had a huge vegetable garden with all kinds of food last year.
He always had some volunteers here to help.
But we're only two and it's quite the task to care for a huge garden like this, so I think we keep it simple this time, just practice with a few beds and try to keep the dandelions under control as best as we can ^^

What really makes me happy every morning are all the beautiful apple trees here. They are all in bloom right now and you can imagine the sweet smell and the busy buzzing of bees everywhere, it's just amazing! :)

I'm very happy that my phone started working again and I could take some photos to share with you! I hope it doesn't give up completely before we have found the replacement parts.

For days now I'm trying to get a photo of one of the (many many) lizards that live in the garden, but they are all too fast ^^

It's my first ever gardening experience and quite exciting for me :-)
It's not that easy to keep up with nature and we both have a lot of other projects going on as well, but we're trying our best!

And I love that I can spend time outside again after the long winter!
I spend so much time at the computer due to my journey in the NFT-art-world and gardening and being out in nature helps me a lot to stay balanced <3

By the way, this is my contribution to the Hive #gardenjournal challenge by the #NaturalMedicine Community :)
Check out this post by Hive account@riverflows to learn more about it!