Garden layout for 2019

Here is the garden layout I designed for the 2019 planting season. There's always a new challenge each year--new flowers and vegetables to plant or a new project waiting in the wings. This year we'll be getting back the 2 meters that was taken from us about one and a half years ago when Oslo's city planners started to do necessary road work on the steep road that parallels the garden. The nice thing is that we'll get back a lot of soil, and that means I have a new area of the garden to plan. So I'll be planting trees: magnolia, lilac, and plum. And planting wild ivy so that it will grow up and along the garden fence to provide privacy. I have English poppies waiting to be planted in that area as well. I'll be posting photos during the summer, but for now, this is the planting plan, and I've already planted most of the seedlings that were in the greenhouse. I'm hoping for a warm and sunny summer.

Lovely autumn in Oslo

I went for a long walk along the Akerselva river last Sunday afternoon, and yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the garden raking leaves and taking up some plants that need to go indoors for the winter. The fall colors this year are striking--some really beautiful reds and golds. I took some photos as I walked along the river last Sunday, and some photos of the garden yesterday. And one photo taken last week of a building that is located on the grounds where I work. Autumn in Oslo--this year, it's lovely!

a covered bridge over the Akerselva river

leaves and more leaves

gorgeous autumn colors

a path you want to wander along

Akerselva river 

the beautiful Akerselva river

so many leaves 

the wild ivy has turned red

the mushrooms are back--these are Pholiota squarrosoides 

the daisies are still blooming 

a building not far from where I work 

A gorgeous autumn day for working in the garden

Today was one of those gorgeous blue-sky days so characteristic of early autumn--warm and sunny, with a temperature around 60 degrees F. There was no wind, so at midday, it was pleasant to be outdoors in the warm sunshine. I went first to the local Plantasjen garden center and purchased two mixed sets of bulbs (crocuses, hyacinths, anemones, muscari, and two kinds of allium) from Holland, as well as one package of hyacinths and one package of tulips. I also purchased two ornamental kale plants. I then went to the local bakery and bought myself a sandwich and something to drink, and walked down to the garden. I got there around lunchtime and stayed until 3 pm, in which time I ate a leisurely lunch and managed to plant many different kinds of bulbs for next spring's blooming. In fact, I planted a total of 120 bulbs. Half of the bulbs will produce flowers of purplish-blue color, the other half will produce flowers of white color.

I made use of areas of the garden that I have not used up until this point, e.g. I planted crocus and allium bulbs under the Emperor rose bush which really is a tree at this point in time. I also planted allium bulbs along the fence that runs along the west end of the garden, and the tulip bulbs on the left side of the greenhouse. Some of the hyacinth bulbs were planted near the garden entrance, and some behind the hops plants on the east side of the garden. Hopefully there will be a profusion of flowers next spring.

Ornamental kale--photo from http://gardenclub.homedepot.com/5-things-know-flowering-kale-cabbage/

End of August garden photos

Some recent photos of the vegetable part of the garden, and of the new perennials purchased for the flower gardens.......

Beautiful Rouge Vif D' Etampes pumpkins (my favorite pumpkin type)

bean plants in the foreground, corn plants behind them 

waiting for the tomatoes to ripen

Physocarpus opulifolius Diable D'Or--beautiful reddish-brown ninebark

Silver ragwort (sølvkrans in Norwegian)

Oxalis--lovely reddish-brown wood sorrel 

Heuchera or alum root

Heuchera

Heuchera

Heuchera 

Astilbe plant--also called false goat's beard

Echinacea--coneflower (solhatt in Norwegian)

Echinacea 

one flower garden

the other flower garden, with two hydrangea plants and a Hebe Wild Romance plant on the lower right side

the sparrows have loved bathing in the bird bath this year, and the bees loved drinking the water

End of August garden update

We've gone from an extremely warm summer, with temperatures around 85 degrees F (very unusual for Norway) back to a usual Norwegian summer, with temperatures around 70 degrees. It didn't rain much during the months of June or July, which resulted in a long hot dry spell, but once August arrived, it began to rain again. It feels more like autumn now, but the weather forecast is still predicting temperatures around 70 degrees and more sunny summer days. We'll see. In any case, the vegetable/fruit garden is nearing the end of the growing season. We've harvested most of the berries (some blackberries remain), and mini-cucumbers and tomatoes are still ripening on the vines. The pumpkins are finished, but not harvested as of yet. The remaining ears of corn are still on the stalks but have not increased much in size, so my guess is that they won't amount to much. I've harvested about six ears of corn so far and they were fairly good; still too small though, with an average taste, similar to the previous two years. I love watching the corn plants grow, but I wish the corn had that fantastic taste that I love. Maybe I need to try another type of corn.

My experience as a kitchen gardener after three years of planting has taught me that I can safely plant corn, pumpkins, mini-cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, snap peas, and several kinds of green beans. I get good harvests from them all. Artichoke plants don't do well, no matter what I do. I planted watermelon seeds this year for the first time, and they grew and spread out as vines (much like the pumpkins), but only began to flower about two weeks ago, so there won't be enough time for them to produce melons. Black currants, red currants, raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries grow very well. And this year, we had a good number of blackberries from the bush I planted in the spring of 2016.

My experience with the flower garden for three seasons has taught me that perennials are the way to go if you want to save yourself a lot of work (and save your back as well). I have invested a fair amount of money in perennials, and I hope it will pay off in the coming years. I have planted four hydrangeas, two peonies, a butterfly bush, a lot of lavender, foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), two types of coneflowers (Echinacea--the Norwegians call it 'solhatt'), three different color alum roots or coral bells (Heuchera), a beautiful reddish-brown ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius Diable D'Or), a lovely reddish-brown wood sorrel (Oxalis), an Astilbe plant (also called false goat's beard), a Hebe Wild Romance shrub, a lily plant, and several types of irises. I've also planted one more rose bush, and two silver ragwort plants--also known as silver dust Dusty Miller (Jacobaea maritima)--not really true perennials. The white climbing rose bushes that I planted on either side of the garden arch have taken off; one of them has reached the top of the arch and I am now trying to weave the branches into the arch itself so that they grow into and around it. They have attached themselves well enough to the arch; during a recent intense wind storm, they kept the top part of the arch from being pulled off the rest of the arch, so that was good to see.

Being a kitchen and flower gardener is one thing; being a farmer is quite another. I've always had respect for farmers, but I have renewed respect for them when I see how dependent they are on good weather for a good harvest. This year was not easy for them in Norway due to the drought conditions. If you depend upon farming for your livelihood, it's a tough life. Irrigating a large farm is nothing like watering a medium-sized garden; in drought conditions, it must border on impossible. I am grateful for the harvest of vegetables and fruit that we got this year, and grateful for the beauty that the flowers bring to our lives. I am grateful simply for the fact that the universe blessed me with a garden at this stage in my life.

Garden update June 2018

Both May and June have been unseasonably warm for this part of the world--temperatures in the 80s and sunny most days. They've been great days for the garden. This year I've planted two types of pumpkins, string beans, corn, radishes, tomatoes and snap peas. I've also planted a few artichoke plants and some potatoes, just to see how well they do. The artichokes are slow to take off, but the potatoes are doing well, so next year I will plant more potatoes.

I've also realized that it makes sense to plant mostly perennial flowers, because they come back each year and that by itself will save me time and money. And it will also spare my back, because sometimes it's pretty tough on my back to be bending and kneeling and getting up and down all the time.

I've taken some photos of the garden during the past two weeks, and am posting them here. Enjoy.....

Sparrows and hens

The sparrows in the community garden enjoy the birdbath; I've watched them having a ball splashing around and bathing before they quickly fly away. Sometimes it's quite funny to watch them and the bees enjoying the bath together. They seem to be peacefully co-existing.

And who would have thought that you would hear hens clucking and cackling in the city of Oslo? The owners of the house across the street installed a hen house in their garden several days ago. The hens are getting used to being there, and it's clear that they like their owner, because whenever he comes into the hen house, they start 'talking' to him. Of course, he has food for them. I enjoy hearing them at different times of the day. There is no rooster (yet), as far as we can determine. If a rooster arrives, we can kiss our alarm clocks goodbye, as they enjoy waking up the neighborhood at the crack of dawn.

I'm posting two videos, one of a sparrow and the birdbath, the other of the hens clucking....Enjoy!

Bees and water

There are two honeybee hives in our community garden. There seem to be many more honeybees this year compared to last year, when the hives were first established. The worker bees are non-aggressive and friendly. And who knew that bees like water? I certainly didn't. After doing some online reading, I now understand that not only do they like water, they need to drink water to survive. They need water just like humans need water. I've watched the bees closely, especially during these May days that are sunny, hot, and dry. The bees line up at the edge of the birdbath, drink water, and then fly away. But every now and then I find a honeybee that has drowned, and I'm not quite sure how or why that happened. I've been filling the birdbath with less water so the bees have more of the ceramic wall edge to hold onto when they drink water. I've also placed a stone with a lot of uneven edges in the center of the birdbath. That seems to have helped. But according to what I read online, some of the dead bees may have died a natural death (they only live five to six weeks during the active season) in the birdbath. But I also wondered if some of them actually drowned. So I went online for more information, and found out that bees cannot swim, and are actually experts at drowning.

I hate to see any living creature die, and if I get the chance to save bees from drowning, I'll do what I can. Today, I found a bee that had flown into my small watering can that was filled with water. When I checked the can, I saw the bee still struggling, so I dumped the water out onto the earth. The bee lay still in the grass, so I found a flat green leaf and maneuvered the bee onto the leaf. I then placed it onto the stone base of my sun umbrella. The bee was moving, but quite slowly. It seemed to need time to recover; from the time I rescued it to the time it flew away, I estimated that the entire recovery period was about twenty minutes. I was so happy when I watched it fly away. I knew it would, since its wings were not damaged. During the recovery time, the bee seemed to be trying to dry itself off. I took a video of it with my cell phone, about five minutes before it flew away; I'm posting it here.  

Garden update May 2018

We are enjoying an unseasonably warm spring, with temperatures the past two weeks hovering around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And it's been sunny as well. Perfect conditions for the garden. It just amazes me how fast a garden comes to life when all the conditions are right, especially after a long hard winter with a lot of snow. It's hard to believe that there was still snow on the ground on April 11th; most of the snow had melted in the garden by that point, but there were patches here and there.

The greenhouse has been invaluable in helping me get started this year. I started most of my seeds in mid-April, and all of them grew and did well in the greenhouse. I learned a lot about what the seedlings needed in terms of light and air. If I was there during the afternoon, I opened the window to let them have some air, but I kept the window closed at night when temperatures hovered around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. But as the sun has grown stronger and the days longer and warmer, I have kept the window open. All of the seedlings have done well, and I planted most of them this week. I will be growing tomatoes and gherkins in the greenhouse the entire summer, but I have also planted gherkins outdoors so that I can get an idea of what works for this part of the world and this part of the country.

I planted two different types of string beans this year, as well as two different types of pumpkins. One of my work colleagues is from Italy, and she is trying to get a hold of some seeds from pumpkins that are native to Italy. According to her, they are sweet pumpkins; I hope she will manage to get some seeds for me. Otherwise, I have planted different kinds of flowers this year--grape hyacinths, a peony plant, sweet rocket, sunflowers, hollyhocks, and plants that resemble hollyhocks. Last fall, I also planted two different types of tulips, and they have now bloomed and look lovely.

Here are some photos of the garden as of yesterday. Enjoy!