I would love to tell you that we finished the greenhouse, but the truth is that we're still building it. We were tired and took a couple of days off, but now we're back and I hope that we will finish the last construction steps today, and I will be able to plant the pepper seedlings tonight. It's a public holiday in Switzerland today, so we will go to the garden earlier than usually.
We took a couple of days off, but it doesn't mean that we didn't do anything at all. We spent the weekend in the garden and I finally planted my tomato seedlings! I kept procrastinating and postponing it for as long as possible, and I'm so happy that I could tick it off my never ending garden to-do list.
This year it feels like we've started harvesting so early. We harvest baby lettuce every day, and I took some flowering chives home too. I thought that they would be mild in taste, but they are so much more flavourful than chives without flowers. We had a dinner party with our friends on Friday and they were the perfect decoration for my quiche. Not only they taste good, but they are also eye catching.
Our first sweet peas is coming! At first I only spotted one, but when I looked closer I saw so many of them. At this stage they taste like a candy. So delicious!
Look how pretty they are...
Cucumbers are coming along nicely too. This is our only big plant, and it has so many baby cucumbers already, but I've noticed that not all of them were pollinated, so I don't know how many cucumbers we will get. This one we will enjoy soon for sure.
I will start self-pollinated for better harvest. I did it last year and we got way too many cucumbers, so we shared them with our neighbours.
Beans are finally popping too. Not all of them came out, so I will wait for a couple of days and if they don't come I will plant new ones to fill empty slots.
And my tomatoes! I must admit that I'm not sure how many I planted, but the number is somewhere between 25-30. They are 6 varieties and I still have 2 other varieties at home to plant on the balcony.
This is how work in progress looks like. I will plant basil and marigolds there as they like to be planted together. Basil will like the warmth of the greenhouse and the shade that tomatoes will provide, and marigolds will repel aphids that are taking over gardens this year because of warm winter.
However, not everything goes according to my plan and there are some failures too. Maybe I should not even call them failures as such things happen in nature. We have flea beetles on Pak choi. It took them 2 days to demolish all plants. I saw them on the first day, but there was no damage and I had no idea what they were, so I left them there. When I touched the leaves they started to jump away which I found funny.
The next day all the leaves had tiny holes and the beetles were still on them. This is when I realized that I might have a problem. I did a quick research and found all about them. I used a solution of soft soap with water and sprayed the plants in the evening. I knew it would not kill them, but I hoped that they would not like it and stop eating it. It looks like it worked! It's been four day and they disappeared. I have sprayed all plants surrounding Pak choi too, and so far there is no other damage. Fingers crossed it will stay like this as those flea beetles are the most destructing gardening pests that we had so far.
Get ready for some chives spam...
This is my favourite time of the year in the garden as all perennials are coming and they don't require so much maintenance, so we can focus on the vegetable part.
Last year, we only had a couple of peonies, and they are popping in many more places this year. This is one of the flowers that I don't mind spreading.
White ones will open up soon too...
They have many ants on them, so I need to sprinkle them with baking powder or cinnamon because they don't like it. I think I will use baking powder as cinnamon seem to be too expensive to sprinkle around in the garden instead of top of a cake.
Stop and smell the roses...
I wish you could smell them too!
This one seem to be doing so well. It's next to the greenhouse, so we will push it outside a bit. I will also try to cut it down next year and make it grow a bit differently, so that it doesn't go in the way anymore.
Wild roses are pretty too even though they wilt quickly and aphids love them...
I treasure this Iris so much as it's the only one that managed to bloom. The rest was destroyed by slugs. I saw it too late, so I will need to take a note for next year, so that I don't forget to check it before it's too late again.
When you use cover crops instead of manure you might get some beautiful surprises along the way. This is a crimson clover that was in my mixture. I might plant it separately too as I love it.
I will show you the sage flowers when they open up in a day or too, and I'm sure that you will fall in love with them 😊
I can't wait to plant the peppers and show our new greenhouse to you. There is still so much to do in the garden, and I find that it's much easier to do the work when I plan to share it with you, so I think that there will be more and more gardening posts towards the summer.
Happy gardening!