North by North

… though not so fast as we anticipated: harvesting has been slowed down by the (for us) unseasonably warm weather (all of +6!) and today and in days to come by the wintertime (yeah – thanks a lot for that, dear Management! For us it means that it is greyish instead of black when we [...]

We have really done our best to ensure winter vegetables for granddaughter Alexandra (age 3.5 months) – the selection at the moment includes carrots (white, yellow, orange and the raspberry-orange in the photo), parsnip, Hamburg parsley,  cauliflower, calabrese, courgette, squash, sweet corn – we are still discussing Jerusalem artichoke as it causes wind with some [...]

Not at night but just at sunrise – quite pretty and very annoying. Especially as it means that we have to somehow find place in the freezers for carrots, leeks, parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes. Not much for Hamburg parsleys – the everlasting rain has caused them to start rotting in the ground; we managed to [...]

Sorry, couldn’t resist the title though actually we have had a – for our conditions – reasonably warm autumn; and an unreasonably wet one (hence the colds). Most of the root vegetables are still in the ground; let’s hope they won’t stay there permanently. There are still some sweet peppers, chillies and tomatoes in the [...]

OK, so we are living on a hill but that only means no wading while loading the Ark; water will be deep when it gets here (in a week or so at this rate). It was high time to get the squashes in – especially as this is a year of voles and those &¤¤¤#”?!  [...]

Somehow harvesting in the rain is much more pleasant than weeding, thinning, etc. in the rain. A good thing as rain we have, plenty of it, and weeding we have given up some time in July… Maybe it is because harvesting is much more colourful (after all, you try to remove weeds before they flower). [...]

It’s already evening and no rain – we are worried that the vegetation may wilt without its daily inch of rainwater… Basically it (not this day but the previous weeks) means that  the garden has begun to suffer seriously: Pekka has been working in the greenhouse, cutting away the mouldy cucumber stems and rotting tomato [...]

Last time I was whining about the non-performance of cauliflowers – now we are steaming and freezing them for dear life; florets for everybody else, puree for the brand-new granddaughter (who will reject it if she takes after her father…). All the heads seem to be maturing at the same time and now we are [...]

This year we decided to grow greenhouse cucumbers, for the first time ever. We bought seeds for us and for the neighbour lady, 4 Femspot and 8 Flamingo altogether – wickedly expensive they are! Having obtained the seeds, we turned to guide books and Internet. We learned that painting the Sistine Chapel is child’s play [...]

Traditionally, last night the bonfires were burning on lakesides and hilltops and the Finnish flags have been flying from yesterday evening to this evening. The weather has been traditional, too: rain and thunder – but then we tend to count that the summer really begins only after Midsummer (no pun intended). And actually, there is [...]