Backyard cleaning

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 garden a few years back, but due to the drought and extreme winters, the plants I've sown and planted just wouldn't grow so I thought I'd try something else.

One of the plants that I wanted to grow was Hesperis Matronalis aka Sweet rocket. Although, this is in some countries considered an invasive plant, here it is not native and we don't have them in the gardens. I was ecstatic when I managed to grow it in my garden, and it started actually spreading around. I thought I have achieved my plan of covering the area with a purple beauty, only to be disappointed when every year I got fewer and fewer plants until eventually last year they were growing in just one small area, and I had only a couple of plants. This is why I gave up on them and went with finding a different garden style.

But as always, the retaining wall had other ideas in its mind, and this year Dame's rocket is back and stronger than ever. The plants are everywhere... Read more here

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We've been busy at rollingdownmygarden new page

New posts on https://rollingdownmygarden.com 1) Apple harvest: compote and dehydrated apples 08/23/2022 2) Lazy Sunday lunch: All-in-one pot 08/21/2022 3) Garden diary: still dealing with drought 08/19/2022 4) Mini buhtle: sweet jam and chocolate buns 08/14/2022 5) Pasta with cabbages-krpice sa zeljem 08/10/2022 6) Watering the overheated garden: When and how 08/08/2022 7) Garden diary:late summer sowing 08/03/2022 8) Blackberries: how to store them for winter 07/31/2022 9) Garden diary: July side garden progress 07/29/2022

The anti-hail netting is up

After years of worrying if we'll get a destructive storm or not, this year we finally said that it was enough and ordered anti-hail netting. It took a while to get it. Probably due to a lot of storms around us, and the increase in orders, but last Friday it finally arrived and we decided to install it right away. The best way to install an anti-hail net is to secure it on a strong metal frame. This way the netting can last up to 10 years without much maintenance, but that's not possible in our garden. Having a forest garden means that every possible flat surface needs a way to be cleaned. Once the autumn starts the garden is full of leaves that cover everything. We need an easy way to clean the netting, and having a fixed netting isn't an option... 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

Tomatoes are out of control

For most of the past week, I was away from the garden. The weather changed abruptly, and after a few warm weeks, we again had an episode of cold, rainy, and windy days. Of course, as soon as we get rain that lasts a couple of days, it takes at least 48h for the garden to dry enough to be able to enter it. Still, I wasn't too upset since I've done everything that had to be done, and honestly I needed a break. I really thought that after the break I will just dig the garden again and that would be it, but I didn't count on the tomato's ability to grow. This year I'm growing my tomatoes differently... 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.

Orchard in May

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 ...

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