Rolling down my garden

A few weeks ago, I said that once I finish sowing the summer seedlings in the garden, I'll finish my sowing season. Well, as it turns out I was wrong. I decided to buy more bags of seeds and start sowing more vegetables.  The truth is I didn't think I would need so many plants in my new garden. Once I've finished sowing and planting in the main garden, I saw that I still have empty space in the main garden and that in July I'll also have room in the side garden. This is why I sent my hubby to buy me more seeds. Buying seeds after May 15th in Croatia is actually a real pain to do. Most of the stores order seeds in March and sell what they have during the whole gardening season. In May there's actually a very small selection available, and you have to buy what's left. Usually, the varieties that are left are the most popular ones, which are ordered in huge amounts. This is great for a normal garden, but for my forest garden sometimes this just doesn't work. St...

 This could be a good orchard year. Despite the cold March and the beginning of April, the rest was unusually warm. There wasn't a single day with frost temperatures, and the orchard has used this fact in the best possible way. All of the trees and bushes have formed small fruits, and for the first time in a long period, we could have a nice harvest.  Last year most of the flowers froze, and the only things that survived the frosty April were blackberries and quinces, which started flowering much later than the rest of the orchard. The blackberries gave a nice amount of fruits, and quinces had lots of fruits, but none of them managed to ripe. They all started rotting before the harvest time. This year could be different. We didn't have any frost or damaging weather during the flowering period. Now that the fruits are growing it is hot, but we're still getting enough rain to be in the average amount. There aren't any diseases present right now, and if we don't get a ...

 Sun, sun, and more sun is the review of this week. Temperatures have been through the roof, with morning temperatures around 15°C(59°F), and daily have been around 30°C(86°F). Of course, because of the temperatures, the soil is pretty much all dry, and I've been watering the garden every day. We were supposed to get some rain earlier in the week, but all we got was more wind. Luckily, on Saturday we got a big weather change, and finally some rain. Although the weather reports said we should get lots of rain and even storms, the amount we got was little. I will probably need to water the garden again in a couple of days. The only great thing about this change is that the temperatures dropped to only 12°C(54°F) on Saturday afternoon, and we finally got a much-needed break from the heat. The break will be very short since the forecast is announcing a temperature rise, and another heatwave with maximums over 33°C(91°F) on Friday. I guess this year summer came almost 2 months earlier. ...

We love to eat leeks. Out of all the vegetables, leeks are one of the vegetables that we have every week. Usually, I make leek stew with different ingredients, such as meat, sausages, potato, and barley. But, sometimes, we're in the mood for something different and then I make a casserole.  Actually, this is not really a casserole, but that's the most similar meal description I could find. In Croatian, we call this type of meal "složenac". The rough translation would be "something put together", and actually that is a perfect description. "Složenac" is just that, a meal made by adding a bunch of ingredients and baking them together with cream and eggs. It can be made in any pot or pan. I like to make leek casserole because it's fairly easy and quickly done. The baking itself may take some time, but the preparation is very quick and easy. I usually make casserole when I don't have lots of time to watch over the pot and stir often. I just mix...

  This week in my side garden has been as busy as the past couple of weeks. Honestly, I'm starting to feel trapped on a neverending day. Basically, every day is the same. I wake up at 4 am, have my morning coffee, and at 5:30am I'm off to the garden, first the main garden and then the side garden where I spend most of the morning.  Right now, there's a lot of work in the garden, and I constantly feel like my to-do list keeps getting bigger and bigger. The heat we've been having doesn't help the situation. The temperatures are around 30°C(86°F), which is extremely high considering that our last frost day is actually May 15th. The plants don't mind the heat as much as I do. I'm not supposed to be in the sun, and that's why I rush all the work that I have outside. As soon as the heat starts I start feeling weak, and it takes me twice as much time to do simple tasks. Also, due to the heat, I need to water both gardens every single day, and that's a lot o...

May is usually the beginning of the strawberry harvest, so it's also a perfect time to clean up the weeds. I've cleaned up all of the beds a few weeks ago, but with the rain and high-temperature mix, the weeds are growing like mad, and it was now time to clean them again. Right now I have two strawberry beds on the opposite sides of the garden. The old bed is at the bottom of the garden, and the freshly planted one is at the top. Both were in desperate need of cleaning... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.

 Finally, after a long period and lots of work hours, we've managed to bring the side garden big jobs near the finish. After demolishing the worksheds, removing the demolition material, building a new veggie garden, and filling it with soil, the steps are almost done.  The side garden area has been abandoned for a long time, a few years back we made some brick/concrete steps to soften the slope. The steps worked great for a decade, but due to the constant usage, ice during the winter, and normal subsidence of the soil, the steps started falling apart. Every year the situation was worse until last year we decided that it was time to deal with the side garden. Removing the buildings around the slope opened up a great space for relaxation and gardening, all we needed was to fix it up and add some kind of step solution... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the ne...

Finally, I got some free time to clean up the backyard. The backyard is actually very small. It has only the basement entrance, which I wrote about recently , my new onion/lettuce bed, and a retaining wall area which, no matter how much I try can't get an actual theme or a purpose other than being a retaining wall. Last year I cleaned this whole area , added a tile border, and planted new plants wanting to make a rock garden. I thought this would work well since this side drains really fast, the soil is mixed with rocks and bricks, and the sun burns it fairly easily. Well, I can now say that this plan fell to bits. In the place of the tile border is now my new onion bed and most of the plants which I bought last year did not survive the winter. Although all of them were frost-resistant I'm guessing the drought killed them and since this year April was very warm all of my old plants reappeared and the garden turned back to wild/meadow looking. I tried to make a meadow-style gard...

 Although 90% of seedlings have been planted and are already grown enough to be considered adult plants, there are still a bunch of baby plants all around my garden and the yard. At this time of the season, I rarely have so many small plants in my garden. Usually, I'd start sowing around March and most of the plants would get big. This year, as I mentioned a million times, is different. This year I didn't plan enough plants for my garden, so I had to sow more than initially planned, and now I have lots of baby plants around. Also, I've sown some perennial flowers that are just germinating so there are more baby plants to take care of.  This time of the season is very moody, with lots of showers and temperature jumps and drops and it's hard to grow baby plants in the garden, but as I said, this year is completely different and baby plants are just booming. Temperatures above 30°C(86°F) are speeding the germination process. Since the soil has not heated up fully yet, ther...

 Lots of showers, heat, and wind is the easiest way to describe the week behind us. The temperatures have been way above average, and except for Wednesday and Thursday, daily temperatures have been over 30°C(86°F). This is of course stressful temperature for the plants, but since the soil hasn't had time to heat too much, the plants are still doing very well. The tomatoes, after being completely yellow are now starting to grow and get their normal, green color.  Peppers and cucumbers benefit from the shade I've built them with agro-textile are also growing well, and should start flowering soon if Srećko doesn't kill them before... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.

 This year, besides the main garden, we're making a side garden. It has been a lot of work and we still haven't finished, but we're making some progress. The small veggie garden is finished and mostly planted. I've planted 4 out of 5 beds, the last bed hasn't been planted so that my hubby can work on the support wall for the second terrace. He will make a wall once he finishes the new steps. He made half of the steps and if things go well they should be finished by the end of next week. The veggies in the new garden are growing well, some are growing faster and others are slowlier. The right side of the garden gets more sun, and the veggies on this side grow much quicker than the veggies on the least two beds... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.

  A few months ago I wrote about my accident with my Maranta plant in which I broke off both of the branches. I really thought that my plant was gone, but instead, the little, crazy resistant Maranta awarded my clumsiness with two new branches and rooting of the broken parts. I was really amazed by the way things turned out, but the small Maranta had more surprises for me. A couple of weeks ago I noticed a tall, what I thought branch, forming at the top of the plant... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.

Now that all the spring seedlings have been planted, I finally got the time to organize the rest of the seedlings. They were everywhere. Some were kept in the front yard, others in the side yard, and some even in the basement. Now was the time to gather all of them and see which are worth leaving and which were not.  Most of the seedlings that were left for later sowing are the after-frost flowers, some perennials for next year, and the tomatoes that were sown in March... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.

It is now becoming a pattern. A week of good, even hot weather, is interrupted by a storm at the end of the weekend. The same thing happened this week. This time after the summer temperatures and intense heat, the weather change came abruptly. The wind again did a lot of damage. The strong north wind completely tore down my hail defense and damaged some of the plants. Luckily there was no hail, but the rain looked a lot like a monsoon and in just a couple of minutes half of the garden was flooded and the paths turned into small rivers. I can't really do much in the garden right now, it is just too wet... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.

It has been incredibly hot the past couple few days. We've literally jumped from spring to late summer. Temperatures are over 32°C (89.6°F), and although this means that there is no frost damage, it also means that the freshly planted seedlings will be struggling a lot. The afternoons in the garden are hell, I even had to change my gardening time from evening to sunrise and finish until 8am to avoid the heat. This is something I usually do in the middle of July, not in the first couple of weeks of May. Also, the extreme heat means that I have to water the seedlings every evening, especially since there hasn't been any rain this week. I use a whole barrel of water a day just to keep the seedlings watered. Even with these high temperatures the rest of the seedlings couldn't wait, so during the week, I've transplanted all the seedlings that were ready for transplanting, including cucumbers, the rest of the zucchinis, cabbages, kale, and some of the flower seedlings.  Most ...

 When the thermometer shows 28°C(82.4°F) there's no more reason to keep the seedlings away from the garden. The last frost date is May 15th, so there's no more danger of sudden temperatures drop. This is why this week, while my hubby is working on the new steps, I decided to transplant seedlings.  The first thing I've transplanted are the bell peppers. There were supposed to be two pepper beds, but since I've planted a part of peppers in the new veggie garden, I needed only one bed for all my peppers. As I said before the temperatures are pretty high, above average for this time of the year, and since we're in the stormy period of the year... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.

 May is the month when my tulips are the prettiest. The earlier varieties are still blooming, and the later varieties have just started opening, making the two small tulip beds colorful and full of flowers.  This year the tulips started opening earlier. After the March cold, the April warmth woke up all of the bulbs, and all of the tulips exploded at the same time. Both later and earlier varieties started opening almost at the same time, and by the end of April, all of the tulips have opened. They were even faster than the daffodils, which are still starting to form flower heads. The first to open, like last year, was the Blue parrot tulip... Read more here As of June 2022, Rolling down my garden will be moving to its own side:  https://rollingdownmygarden.com Full new posts can be read on the new page.