Category: garden
-
In a Vase on Monday | 9th October 2023
It hailed overnight yesterday. That’s not to say that we’ve had a frost yet — it’s been chilly at night but not quite cold enough to upset all but the tenderest of tropicals so far. The temperatures have been fluctuating like crazy, though. The hail melted as soon as the sun rose, but it was…
-
Six on Saturday | 7th October 2023
These pumpkins are not from my garden. I purchased them from a local farm and they are now sitting in my classroom, waiting to be turned into jack-o-lanterns by my students later this month. I’m including them because they are such gorgeous pumpkins and I wanted to have some on this blog, even if my…
-
Garden Inventory | Vitis vinifera ‘Zilga’
Alright, storytime! So not far from where we live, there’s an island with three nuclear power plants. The government has been conducting research projects there to find uses for the heat in the wastewater as the cooling system circulates it out of the plants. After all, we’re five degrees of latitude from the Arctic Circle…
-
In a Vase on Monday | 2nd October 2023
I was going to skip today because of so many repeats, but realistically, I only have a few more days to post before I’ll be forced to skip for lack of materials. So here we go! Two small bunches next to each other because I don’t have a big squat vase to fit all of…
-
Six on Saturday | 30th September 2023
The great thing about doing garden work once autumn fully sets in is knowing that places you tidy up will stay relatively tidy for a while. When you’re out there pulling up all the dead plant material and come across some weeds, you can just tell them “Y’know, can we just… not?” and they’ll usually…
-
Garden Inventory | Pyrus communis ‘Pepi’
Pyrus communis ‘Pepi’ (päärynä) is a pear tree originally bred in Estonia, so it does great in our cold winters. The fruits are abundant and ready to harvest pretty early for a pear — usually in early September. I’ve read that this is a smaller variety and that pear trees grow slowly, to begin with,…
-
In a Vase on Monday | 25th September 2023
I seem to have ended up with mostly single-species vases this week, but that’s down to there being lots of big statement stems appearing in the garden. No complaints about that! ‘Bizar Dutch’ gladiolus, which came in a completely mislabeled package but was quickly identified with a Google search. Thank you, internet. I really do…
-
Six on Saturday | 23rd September 2023
It’s been a gentle September, a couple of chilly nights aside. With the mellow temperatures and increased rainfall has come an amazing mushroom foraging season. The late autumn mushrooms are appearing earlier and the late summer mushrooms are still out in droves, so that I can’t walk from the house to the garage without coming…
-
Six on Saturday | 16th September 2023
Autumn activities are in full swing this week! We had a cold snap two nights ago, hitting a low of 2°C, so there was a lot of mad scrambling to get all the houseplants back inside that evening. Next week, we will officially start dipping below 10°C most evenings, so it is time to start…
-
Garden Inventory | Malus domestica ‘Red Cinnamon’
I’ve had this post in drafts since the beginning of summer, as one thing or another kept my attention from working on it. That’s often how I feel about harvesting this particular apple tree as well, because it ripens in the first weeks of September, just when it gets harder to find any time in…
Little Blue and White House 