Lettuces, visitors, chillies and nice neat rows of veg

Been out to take a few photos of the stuff that's growing at the moment. Found lots of rocket and mixed salad leaves, and the carrots and stir fry veg I sowed the other week have turned up in nice neat rows. I do like nice neat rows :)

Mixed salad leaves - spicy & spicy oriental.

Lots of rocket (we like rocket), and other mixed salad leaves.
Check out the cheeky pak choi on the left.

Neat rows :)
Beetroot, Radishes, Stir fry veg, spinach, turnips & carrots.
Behind that are a mix of different onions (spring, red, garlic, leek & chives).

It wasn't until I was right up close, taking these pickies, that I saw this little fella...!!! Grrrrr.

Apart from all this activity outdoors, there's plenty going on in the greenhouse now. With Easter this weekend, the pressure was on to get the house looking purdy. So all (well almost all of) the chilies, and the cucumbers, have now moved down to the greenhouse. I upped the temp on the fan heater just to be on the safe side from 5oC to 12oC. And they seem fine with that, so far...

Lots of funny looking little square Purple Tiger chillies.

Aji Colorado.

The Serrano is almost buckling under the
weight of all the chillies!

Hot Paper Lantern.

And here's a few pickies of the plants still indoors. I didn't want to risk losing all the plants, so I kept four behind as a back-up.

The Thai chillies should be ready to eat soon :)

Short, stout Spanish peppers.

Really pointy Ring of Fire chillies.

Turned into quite a long blog post, sorry about that. But I don't always have time to blog - it takes a while. So I've saved up a bunch of stuff this time. Will try to blog more often with shorter entries.

Thanks for reading and Happy Easter!

Early morning wander round the garden with the camera

Another beautiful morning!! We had frost last night >( but the temperature quickly rose to 14 once the sun had appeared. How can I possibly sit inside on a day like this?! But... I have work to do, so I settled for a quick wander round the garden, a few pickies and a quick blog update so you can all enjoy what I just have.

Carpet of white woodland anemones (vitsippor) in our
west-facing wilderness garden.

Carpet of white woodland anemones (vitsippor) in our
west-facing wilderness garden.

Palest palest palest (almost white) pink star magnolia.

There are still a few crocuses around.

Forced rhubarb.

Otto guarding my earlies from hungry animals.

Amandine potatoes waiting patiently for the new raised beds
to be ready, which are waiting patiently for the manure delivery.

Time to thin the turnips... hmm a little over-zealous
with the seeds perhaps...?

Should have some baby spinach soon, yummy!

I'm determined to succeed with beetroot this year,
no bambies are eating this lot!

Pictures of the house

I thought it was time to post some photos of the house now that we've cut down so many trees. The garden feels much more airy and bright. Might even get some afternoon sun on the terrace this summer...

Flowers for a change

Everything has started getting greener over here in Sweden and I've spent the past few days concentrating on getting the flowerbeds weeded, fertilized and ready for the summer. Something I must admit I haven't been too good at. But an interest in flowers has been slowly creeping up on me and this year I've absolutely relished in planning and digging the flowerbeds. Photos to follow...

On another, slightly related note I was blog shopping over a cup of coffee by the fire yesterday morning and I came across this one, Fint Hemma, which really inspired me to go out and forage for flowers.

When I stepped outside I was blown away by the carpet of white wood anemones (Vitsippor) that appeared to have sprouted overnight! Also inspired by Fint Hemma, I dug out a few antique crystal snaps glasses and filled them with flowers:

Wood anemones - Vitsippor in antique Orrefors snaps glasses

Wood anemones - Vitsippor in antique Orrefors snaps glasses

We inherited a huge magnolia bush when we bought the house, and it keeps trying to grow INTO the house, so I moved the iron stake along the branch a bit yesterday in an attempt to train it to grow along the house. In doing so, there were a few casualties, but they came to good use and have actually started opening :)

Magnolia casualties

Chilli flowers and peppers

I've finally got round to taking some photos of this year's chillies (taken today), most of which have flowers and some of which are already full of peppers!

The beautiful Aji Colorado flower.

The Aurora peppers are changing colour - they all started off purple.

The Bih Jolokia has been slow to develop flowers, but there are a few
forming now.

The Caribbean Red Hot hasn't developed any flowers yet.

Bearing in mind how huge the Congo Black Habanero plant is, and the enormous
size of its leaves, the flowers and peppers are TINY!!

No flowers on the Faatali yet either, but that's probably due
to the little pot it's in - I haven't got room for a bigger one.

The Hot Paper Lantern is chocka full of flowers and already has
a few tiny peppers developing.

Purple Tiger's beautiful flowers and leaves. Very decorative.

The two Ring of Fire plants (which were free replacement seeds) are
also really early, with lots of dainty little pointed peppers.

My hairy superfreak Serrano plants are definitely way ahead of all the others
- masses of flowers and peppers already!

The Spanish Pepper plants (two) have really snow white flowers

I call these ones my Thai Chillies, because the taste a bit Thai-ish, but they
came from a seed chain I joined last year and the packet said '1 cm' chillies.

My only remaining Trinidad Scorpion - nice big healthy leaves, but
no sign of flowers yet.

Extending the kitchen garden

It really is an addictive hobby, gardening. And the three raised beds I spent all of last spring labouring over were never going to be enough... :) So this is what the area looks like now:

Just waiting for the horse manure from the neighbouring stables now..........

Finally greenhouse weather (ish)

So it was 30oC in the greenhouse yesterday... The sun was shining and the birds were singing and there was a real feel of spring in the air.

How could I resist therefore moving all the tomatoes and small hardy-ish plants out into a much lighter room, even if it still a wee bit chilly at night.

I plugged in my new heater and connected up the auto-watering system. And after faffing about with the window-openers for half an hour I decided to leave the task to my husband who has fitted them a few times before.

Tomatoes, potatoes, ruccola and lettuce babies

All of my exciting tomato varieties
getting used to their new home

Spring onions, leeks, tobacco flowers, various
lettuces and stir fry veggies

 I went down to check on everything this morning and everyone seems to have survived the night, but it was the same temperature in the greenhouse as it was outside (5oC). Which is fine as long as it doesn't get colder than that. But this is Sweden. And it will.

So in a panic I rushed up to the house and started trawling the Internet for a decent heater, which I found :D This baby will be mine this evening:

That should keep me toms warm :)

Foggy days

Thanks to the warmer weather, it's been getting really foggy lately. This is the view from my office window today: