Fascinating blog post from NY State Parks and Historic Sites

I subscribe to their blog, and this post appeared in my emails yesterday. I wanted to share it with you. It's entitled 'Growing the Future in Gilded Age Greenhouses'
https://nystateparks.blog/2020/01/21/growing-the-future-in-gilded-age-greenhouses/#like-8286

Visiting the Sonnenberg area of NY State and these greenhouses is on my bucket list. I'll have to save it for when I have more time to spend in NY State (when I'm retired, in other words!).

Anything having to do with gardens, plants, seeds, greenhouses, state parks, conservation and preservation hooks me immediately and makes me happy. Reading about this today made my day. It helps to obliterate all the bad and depressing news in the world.

Speaking kindly

In the age of Trump, who has little to no idea of what it means to speak kindly, it would behoove us to remember the following, especially when trying to 'teach our children well' (my apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Teach Your Children):

Update on our garden--July 2017

It hardly seems possible that we've nearly reached August. It feels like gardening season has just begun. We put up the greenhouse in late April, and spent some time organizing and arranging it as documented in an earlier post (https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2017/04/this-years-garden-project-greenhouse.html). May, June, and July seem to have flown by. There are now six pots with tomato plants in the greenhouse that are doing well and starting to produce tomatoes. The tomatoes are still small and green, but I have high hopes that in a month or so we'll be able to try eating one. The two cucumber plants are flowering but have not yet produced cucumbers, whereas the chili pepper plant is producing a lot of small peppers.

In the garden itself, the corn plants are growing tall and straight and appear to be quite healthy; ditto for the three different types of pumpkins I planted this year--two French varieties and a Jack-o-Lantern variety. The pumpkins now have vines that are spreading happily in every direction, just like last year. Some of them have produced very small pumpkins already. It remains to be seen how fast the pumpkins will grow and mature. Last year at this time the pumpkins were a bit further along. I also planted three different kinds of string beans--standard green beans, asparagus beans, and dwarf beans. If you ask me, they're all variations on a theme; the type that stands out is the one with a mottled appearance, but otherwise they all taste pretty much the same--good. The snap peas are also doing very well, and have produced a lot of edible pods, also good.

The sunflower plants have grown tall and straight and I hope they'll stay that way as the summer progresses. One never knows, especially if a very windy storm comes along. My flower garden looks lovely--a combination of lavender plants, a butterfly bush, pink and purple Salvia, marigolds, hollyhocks, chrysanthemums, among others--and under the dead cherry tree that is covered in wild ivy, I've planted Heuchera plants (lovely perennials in gold, green and red colors) as well as daisies.

I love watching the garden grow a little bit more for each day that passes. Generally I just love being in the garden. There is always something to do--weeding, transplanting, cutting the grass, pruning, fertilizing, watering, or just puttering. The greenhouse has all the tools and accessories needed for doing all these things. Here are some recent photos from one of the wonderfully sunny days we've had:

corn and string bean plants in background, pumpkin plants in foreground

pumpkin plants

Heuchera plants and daisies

view of the vegetable part of the garden

view from the garden entrance

flower garden--lavender, hollyhocks, Salvia--among others

another view of the garden with hydrangea plant in the background

 

Summer raindrops and winter frost

Both of these photos are 'water' photos--but in two different seasons. I happened to be in my garden during a thunderstorm this past summer, and after the storm, the plants still had drops of rain on them that I was able to photograph before they evaporated. The winter photo is of a plant whose name I don't know, but that was covered in frost one day last week. Frost is defined by the online Merriam-Webster dictionary as 'a covering of tiny ice crystals on a cold surface formed from the water vapor in the air'. You can see the ice crystal patterns--beautiful. Again, I was lucky to take the photo when I did, because the sun came out and the frost disappeared.

The freedom of garden life

I've been working in the garden nearly every day this week after work. It's been very warm here, unusual for Oslo at this time of year, over 80 degrees Fahrenheit each day. Sunny and warm, perfect conditions for plant growth, but a bit exhausting to work in such weather. Our rescued rhododendron is now blooming (I cannot believe that our co-op complex had just tossed it onto the garbage heap--their loss), and last night I found a tiny bud in one cauliflower plant, but not in any of the others. My spinach plants have also taken off, and the corn plants and pumpkin plants are also doing well. I have learned something for next year already; I can plant a lot more vegetable plants than I did this year. I was afraid of crowding them, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. I've harvested a lot of rhubarb stalks already; my husband uses them in the smoothies we make each morning, and I will make pies and muffins with the remainder. The red currant bush is loaded with developing berries, and that will be an interesting harvest when that time comes. I've sown grass seed in some of the barren areas, but it seems that grass takes a while to grow, even though the package I bought said that I could see growth within four days. Highly doubtful.

The bird bath seems to be well-used by the birds, for bathing and pooping. I clean it out each evening when I am there and refill it with water. I rescued a honeybee from drowning in it the other day. I've made friends with the local cat who likes to frequent our garden (because of the bird bath, I'm guessing). He sneaks silently into the garden and makes his way toward the bird bath. I caught him the other night and he reacted the way cats react when you catch them doing something they know they shouldn't be doing--a bit startled and embarrassed.

There is a harmony in the garden that I like--between me and nature, first of all, but among the various insects, birds, and plant life. It's interesting to see the worms, ants, beetles, snails and slugs all move about at their own pace and in their 'habitats'. The natural order of things, without interference from man--that is a blessing and a lesson in how to leave the natural world alone. It carries on quite well without us. I am blessed to have this garden, but I want to coexist peacefully with all of the other creatures that live there, even the slugs, but we have been informed by the garden board that we must clear the garden of them, as they will destroy most vegetables they come across. I do it, but I must say that I don't enjoy doing it.

Being in the garden gives me a sense of peace and connection with nature that I haven't had in years, at least not in this way. I love being outdoors and always have, but I've been active in other ways--walking and biking. Gardening has given me a sense of freedom that I have longed for, for so many years--freedom from worrying and freedom from my computer. The hard work, the sweating, the dirt on my hands and knees and face, the tired back and stiff muscles are all worth it for the feeling I get when I enter the garden and when I leave it. I think about it during my workday and I want to be there. It's given me a purpose and a focus that I need now.

Here are some new photos:

red poppies

rhododendron in bloom

baby cauliflower?!

Update on our garden

My last post about our garden was on May 1st, almost two weeks ago. A lot has happened since then. The entire garden has been raked clean of leaves and twigs, filling almost five large garbage bags. I've been doing a fair amount of weeding to get rid of the dandelions that have spread throughout the garden. I've also cleaned up both strawberry patches, removing dead vines and leaves and giving the plants some breathing room. Along the way, I've gotten to know the insects that live in our garden--a lot of earthworms, several kinds of snails, spiders, centipedes, silver-brown beetles, and bees. I'm fine with all of them, although I know I'm going to have to kill some of the snails when they start to devour the vegetable plants, because we're not allowed to use any kind of insecticides in the garden. We'll see how many snails invade the garden when the vegetable plants start to bloom. I've heard from the other gardeners that the snails love pumpkin plants. but that they also go after squash and other vegetables as well.

I've invested a fair amount of money already in the garden and garden accessories--weeding tools, a spade, a claw-like tool, a water pistol with eight different shower functions to water the plants (very useful since it means I won't have to carry heavy watering cans back and forth), pruning shears, and knee pads (I recommend them highly). I've also purchased a parasol and a heavy stone foot to hold it in place; they've found their place in the garden along with the bird bath (the little birds are using it--yay!) and the table and chairs. I also bought a garden arch to demarcate the entrance but that hasn't arrived yet. Today I bought some irregular flat stones to make an entrance path, and placed a few extra stones at other locations so that it is easier to water all parts of the garden without standing in muddy soil.

I've planted corn, pumpkins, spinach, cauliflower, string beans, and beets. My broccoli plants that I grew from seeds did not survive, nor did my pumpkin plants (they grew too quickly and were too spindly). So I had to buy new pumpkin plants. My husband got eight raspberry bushes from his friend, and planted them last weekend. He also planted a rhododendron bush that he rescued from the garbage pile generated by our apartment complex's annual cleanup. Why they decided to throw away a perfectly good bush is beyond us. So we're hoping it survives. The garden already had a cherry tree, two rhubarb plants that are doing well, a black currant bush, a red currant bush, and a gooseberry bush. It will be interesting to see what produces fruit this year and what doesn't. It will also be interesting to see how we manage the harvesting should there be an abundance of vegetables and fruits.

I've also planted three lavender plants (for the bees) and a lot of pansies that are also doing well. This past week has been very warm (close to 80 degrees Fahrenheit), so the plants took off. The warm weather has now given way to cooler temperatures, so it will be interesting to see how the plants tackle the cooler weather during the next week or so. I've read that pansies like cooler weather, so it's mostly the vegetable plants I'll be worrying about. I'm hoping that there won't be any night frosts.

Here are some photos of our garden:

new stone path between the strawberry patches

a view toward our neighbor's garden, with the rhododendron bush in the foreground 

corn plants

rhubarb plant 

pansies and the bird bath 

green (string) bean plants

bird bath 

parasol, table and chairs 

cherry tree with pansies planted in front of it 

Getting ready to plant our garden

We finally got word that we will be getting a garden plot in a nearby community garden (in Norwegian called 'parselhage'), and will pick up the keys very soon. We've been on the list to get a garden plot for about seven years; last year we were told that this year would be the year. My plans are to plant vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, beets, and spinach). My husband would like to plant fruit bushes, among them raspberry bushes. We haven't seen the plot of land yet, so we don't know how much space we'll be getting. Plots range in size from 800 to 2000 square feet, fairly large by my estimation. I've already started some plants from seed, and they are growing fairly well so far, especially the pumpkin plants (see the photos below).

cauliflower and broccoli

spinach to the right

pumpkin plants

beet plants

pumpkin plants growing large

Growing vegetables and fruits in the city

Our co-op board recently approved the purchase of ‘grønnsakskasser’ to be placed in the inner yard of our co-op so that those residents who want to grow vegetables/fruits, can do so. The word grønnsakskasse is translated into English as vegetable crate, and I guess it’s as good a translation as any, except that these crates have no bottoms, only sides, and they are much more solid that supermarket vegetable crates. They are made of thick wooden slats that connect at all four corners with interweaving metal pieces that have holes in them, so that when they are lined up, a long metal pin can be inserted through them to hold them all together. Once the crates are placed where they shall stand, you fill them with a lot of earth and then plant what you want to plant.

There were two of us in our co-op who were interested in getting one crate each in order to plant vegetables, so the co-op board bought two such crates. The other woman chose a variety of vegetables (and one fruit) to plant—cabbage, brussel sprouts, lettuce, chili peppers, and melon. I chose to plant three cherry tomato plants (technically tomatoes are fruit, but often fall under the vegetable label) and parsley. And I may plant a few herbs as well, but I want to see how all of the different plants grow before I invest more money in this project. So far, the tomato plants are doing fine and we are picking cherry tomatoes each day to have with dinner. (see photos)

It was raining lightly (more of a drizzle) the day we sat out the crates and planted our vegetable plants. Both of us were in a very good mood; we didn’t mind the rain or getting wet. We found a really old metal watering can in the cellar to water the crates; it is better than most of the new plastic ones that don’t have spouts with tiny holes. I am hoping this project takes off, because I can envision planting other types of vegetables next year—cucumbers, squash, broccoli. But we’ll need more crates, and that won’t be a problem if the outcome is successful this year. So far, the birds have left the crates alone, ditto for the cats that wander through the neighborhood. I’m hoping the human animals that wander through the yard will leave the crates in peace, but you never know. We’re hoping for the best.

Eventually, our co-op may also allow the addition of balconies to some apartments, and ours will be one of those lucky enough to get a balcony. At that point, I will be on cloud nine, because then I will be able to plant even more vegetables and flours in pots on our balcony. I’m looking forward to that day. In the meantime, our vegetable crates suffice. The take-home message is that is possible to develop a ‘green thumb’ even if you live in a city apartment building. And many cities around the world have common urban gardens for apartment residents, who enjoy working and tilling their little plot of land so that it yields produce. Oslo is no different, but the waiting lists to get such a plot are long. We are on one of those lists to get a plot in a city garden not far from where we live; we applied for one in 2009 and there were one hundred people ahead of us. The organizers contacted us last year to ask if we were still interested in getting one, and we said yes. At that point, we had moved up the list and were at place number 39. So perhaps by the time we are retired, we’ll have our own little plot of land to till and enjoy. Until then, I’m happy with my vegetable crate and eventual balcony plantings.

The island of Gressholmen

This past Tuesday was another warm summer day in Oslo; blue skies with some clouds, even rather hazy toward the early evening. Perfect boating weather. My husband and I ended up out on the Oslo fjord for a few hours, first sailing past Tjuvholmen and Aker Brygge, then Rådhusplassen, and then around the island of Hovedøya where we sometimes end up if we’re in the mood for a really good seafood dinner. But this time we had taken dinner with us to eat on the boat—shrimp, a loaf of bread, and mayonnaise. We ended up docking at the guest marina on the small island of Gressholmen. It didn’t take the ducks and geese very long to discover that we had bread on the boat; they swam up to the boat to get some handouts shortly after we docked.

Gressholmen is a nature reserve with many types of wild flowers and plants; up until 2007 it was also home to thousands of rabbits, but they were unfortunately done away with so as to preserve the natural vegetation. The reason given for killing the rabbits was that they decimated the vegetation. I’m not sure this was the only reason, but who can argue with the nameless authorities and bureaucrats who make these decisions? The rabbits weren’t hurting anyone; in fact, they were one of the main attractions of the island. Cute, and tame enough so that they would hop right up to you as you walked along the island’s many narrow dirt paths. That happened to us any number of times. These days the island feels rather empty without them.

I took a lot of photos that evening, as the lighting and the weather were perfect. Some are of the island’s flower and plant life, some of the bird life, and one photo is of the summer restaurant, Gressholmen Kro (http://www.gressholmen.no/index.html), that we frequented much more often during the 1990s. It’s possible to get dinner here; we drank our after-dinner coffee here that evening, walking up from the boat to the kro and along the way stopping to look at the many wildflowers. And then back to the boat to greet more of the ever-present bird life.

Geese near the boat

Dirt path on the way to the restaurant, where we would often meet the rabbits when they were still alive

Wild rose bush

Wild rose

View of Oslo from Gressholmen

Wild roses

A twig that looked like a snake

Gressholmen Kro

City Gardeners

During the last ten years or so, my husband and I became city gardeners, despite the fact that we live in a co-op apartment building without a balcony or terrace on which to set out plants and flowers. Of course we wish we had one, because we love to experiment with growing different plants from seeds as well as buying new plants at the local plant store or at Plantasjen, the larger garden center. Our kitchen, living room and dining room window sills are filled with different kinds of plants. My husband loves to nurture his orchids, and has about six orchid plants at home and about as many in his office at work. He is the only person I know who manages to get orchids to bloom more than once, and he has his weekly routines for spritzing them with water and keeping them happy. I prefer nurturing food plants; that is to say, plants that produce fruit or vegetables. I have grown tomato, pepper, orange and fig trees in our apartment, with some success. Right now I am the proud parent of an orange tree that is very fruitful, as well as a fig tree that manages to produce about three to four figs per season. My husband brought home a small cherry tomato plant at the beginning of the summer, and it has grown to some height and has produced (so far) about five cherry tomatoes. We also have a small coffee plant in the kitchen; the leaves smell good but we don’t expect to find coffee beans on the stems one day. But it looks nice in the window and one can of course dream.

The first vegetable plant I ever purchased was a small pepper plant; the peppers looked like small chili peppers but I don’t remember if we ever got more than the five or so peppers that hung on the plant when I bought it. In the summer of 2005 I grew tomato plants from seeds; only one seedling plant really took off though and I did my best to keep it happy. It even joined us on vacation that year; we rented a cottage on the sea, not so far from where we live, and I took it with us in the car and let it stand out on the large terrace that overlooked the ocean. It was there in the morning that it got a lot of sunshine. I think we may have gotten several tomatoes that year; the problem is that the plants don’t always get enough sun, or get it long enough. Summers are short in Oslo and it amazes me that my orange tree produces the numbers of oranges it produces. We got about twenty-three oranges off the tree the first year we had it; the second year saw only a yield of about four oranges, whereas the third and fourth years have been very fruitful—with yields of about twenty-five and thirty-five oranges (this year) respectively. The oranges are not large and sweet, they are small and sour, but they are beautiful to look at and during the flowering season before the oranges begin to grow, the smell in the room is wonderful. The white flowers that will produce the oranges produce an intense sweet smell that dominates the room. I use the oranges in the smoothies that we make from fresh or fresh-frozen fruit each morning, and I have used them in marmalades to add a kind of ‘bite’ to the sweetness. Last year I made pear/ginger/pineapple marmalade and added a few small oranges to the mix—it was a heavenly result and the marmalade disappeared rather quickly. I’ll probably do the same thing this year.

We often debate the advantages and disadvantages of moving into our own home; one of the advantages would be that we could have our own garden. We know for sure that we would fill the backyard with fruit trees and plant a garden, both flower and vegetable. So why haven’t we moved by now? That’s a good question. Part of the answer lies in the fact that we don’t have the time we would need to tend a large garden, at least not in the way that would be required. Also, we would like to live in Oslo and not commute into the city each morning; traffic is horrendous and we would like to avoid that. But to buy a house in Oslo is not really a viable option—houses cost a fortune; we’re talking upwards of 800,000 USD for a decent-sized house (two bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, living room). It seems a tad unrealistic to want a house in order to have a garden. There are so many hidden costs attached to owning a home. The garden has to supersede all the problems of owning a home in the city. Time will tell. In the meantime, we have our gardens in the different rooms of our apartment. I’m waiting for the day when there won’t be room for any more plants or any more room for us. I believe that day is coming soon.

Ripe oranges

My orange tree

Our tomato plant

My husband's orchid plant