White

Today, a lovely comment from my sweet blog-friend from JARDIN ANGLAIS reminded me how much I neglected this blog. So here I am ! I am fine, and so it is my whole family. Did I say we already celebrated two birthdays this year ? My youngest doughter turned 12 and I turned 40. She is growing, while I experienced some kind of regression, I probably mixed up forty with fourteen. So in the last month I spent so much time drawing, listening to music, writing and spending time outside. I am dreaming of a long series of teenage-like things I want to do. I wonder if this is just normal once you become middle-aged. I mean, I don't need to prove anything anymore, I don't need to compete, I don't need to behave. It's kinda fun, even if few of your children might think you've gone nuts ...
So what about the odd title of this post ? Wait and see, white is the perfect word in this moment ...

Have a wonderful week, and a great new month <3

Love, Flavia

A stroll in the garden

Hello dear friends, so here I am to finally update you about my garden. I have to say that the garden has been producing so much and the forest has given us so much berries that picking and processing it all, took most of my time ( of course I'm not complaining ... just the opposite ! ) and together with getting ready for restaurant day ( which we had last sunday ) and the house openings ( next weekend ) I didn't have much time to come here on my poor neglected blog :). But let's put on our gardening shoes, grab your basket or bucket and let's head outside to pick something !!

Onions have been a great success, here you can see their bed before picking them, now they're drying, all the four kilos !!!! And I already used few of them, so it was more ! 

Here my tomatoes plants, unfortunately the summer here in Finland started only one week ago ... so now I have rather big plants, but only flowers and few tiny green tomatoes ( which probaly will never become ripe, but still a satisfaction )

 

And here peppers (too cold, not even the flowers) and cucumbers.

Cucumbers just like tomatoes have started growing just lately, but since they need lower temperatures we already have few of them almost ready and few more growing.

Here my spring onions, words can't describe how much I love them in salads !! I'm using them all the time !

 

 

Here few of our peas, very good harvest !

 

And here a look of some mixed goodies picked for some day's lunch, onion, garlic leaves, carrots and baby spinach.

And strawberries !! We had plenty of big sweet strawberries ! Unfortunately today we picked the last two, but I still have a frozen bag that I use for smoothies and vegan ice cream ( If you might like some recipe, just drop me a note )

And again carrots and greenbeans 

... and the most lovely carrots ever ! When I picked them I couldn't believe my eyes and came in calling all the family to show my sweet treasure !

I have no idea how this happens :)

In the next days I will show you some of the berries we have been picking in the nearby forrest and the ways I'm using them :)

If you might like please visit my older 'stroll in the garden', just check the archives.

Hopefully you enjoyed this visit. 

Have a great week everybody !

A stroll in the garden

I love so much our walk in the garden. I am so pleased to say that many people come and visit with me during our weekly stroll and I want to thank all of you for your support.
That's why I'm a bit sad to say that for the next 4 or 5 weeks I won't be able to show you around my garden because next sunday ( the 28th ) we will leave for Italy. I will keep updating the blog and Instagram ( probably not so often ) but of course I'l be few thousand of kilometres away from here. But well, let's take a careful look at the garden today, and in little more than one month we will see how much it has changed.... Grab your gardening shoes, and follow me !!!

 

 Peas and carrots are growing so well, greenbeans are struggling a bit, this year we're having a very cold, cloudy and rainy summer...

Potatoes are growing ! And yes I need to get rid of all those weeds, hopefully it will stop rain in the next days .

 

Spinach are slowly coming. Few carrots too, but many plants have died in the colder days.

( we had days with a temps around 10C degree ... )

Gooseberries and strawberries are growing so well ! I hope to still find them when I'll be back !

 

Onions are a joy ! And the sawdust mulching is preventing the weeds ! Hooray !!!

 

 More strawberries and herbs\garlic patch ! Have you ever tried garlic leaves ? I did today, finely chopped few centimetres and added to the salad with parsley ... GREAT !!!!

Few picture from the greenhouse, rucola,sunflower, spring onions, tomatoes and cucumbers. All of them are struggling in spite of being in the greenhouse, is definetly too cold ...

Wild flowers galore !! I still can't get used to the abundance of wild flowers we have, they constantly change from week to week. Such a joy !

And before saying goodby for a while a little treat for all of you living in more southern places. A picture I took yeasterday when finally the rain stopped ( to start again today ... ). The sun was shining still very high in the sky ... and it was almost 10pm ( 22:00)... midsummer in the north ....

I want to wish you all a very nice summer dear friends, our stroll in the garden will start again in august.

A stroll in the garden

After one week off, here we are again for a relaxing stroll in the garden. The weather is rather cold, windy and rainy so a lot of my vegetables are not growing ( I have tomatos, pepperoni, cucumbers and salad in a small greenhouse, but it's not enough ) but anyways I'm satisfied of the look of my garden this summer ... so off we go ...

 

As you can see in the pictures, spinach, carrots and peas are growing quite well, 

greenbeans are struggling, still alive but not very lively so to say.

Potatoes have been put down late, so I guess it's kinda normal that they're not growing yet. Rhubarb is gorgeous, has blossomed so beautifully, but I can't remember if I'm supposed to cut the flower at some point or not. I haven't until now because of the great amount of bees, so I thought it was better to keep the bee restaurant open for a while more, but if you have any insight about, please share it with me !

Strawberries, onions and gooseberries are the ones thriving better in this year's climate, as you can see. But what it's really incredible right now it's the trees. They're all blooming and I wish I could make you smell them too other than seeing them. It's just a piece of heaven on earth, believe me.

Well, wish me and my garden some more sun and warmth, and see you next week !

A stroll in the garden

Here we are again for our weekly stroll in my garden. Today I'm pretty satisfied, this evening I worked really hard for more than three hours digging and planting and mulching and finally enjoying the result. I can say that finally the garden is ready ( beside the salads beds, which I'll put down at the beginning of august when we will be back from Italy ) and now it's time to care and wait and enjoy :)
Before starting today's walk, here the link of the three previous stroll we had here, and here, and here. And now just grab you gardening shoes and follow me ...

 Finally my herbs bed is ready. Garlic on front and back, onion on the side and basil, sage, cilantro and thyme.

 

 Strawberries in the barbeque are growing and so our little 'snail' garden

Gooseberries bushes are luscious

 

 The strawberries in the big bed are growing and are full of blossoming buds. Can't wait to taste the first strawberries !!!

 

I mulched the onion bed using sawdust. The local wood store( which happens to be just few hundreds metres away ) has huge quantity of sawdust and you can take it for free, so we indulged eheheh.

 

Rhubarb is blooming as well and it's already huge and beautiful.

On the other side of the garden the peas and greenbeans bed ...

 

And spinach and carrots

 

And from this picture you can notice another new addition : I put down the potatoes today (and mulched with sawdust again )

 

It was meant to be a square, but the shape it's a bit more ... fanciful....

Wild flowers galore !!!!

And also today we finished our walk. I was thinking, it would be nice if someone might fancy to join me in this adventure. Maybe you don't have a big garden but only vases on the balcony, or maybe you have a big and serious farm or a homestead to support your family. Whatever it is, I'd love to come for a 'walk',so please if you feel like, just leave a link in the comments and I'll come and visit with great pleasure.

Have a wonderful week !