Salad, rocket & coriander

This time of year is really frustrating for us veg growers and an irritating time of year for anyone that has to live with us. The window sills are full of straggly little things desperately looking for sunshine.

Having ordered so many exciting seeds promising to deliver tasty lettuces etc in just 2-3 weeks, how could I resist... :) This lot went into the soil on 15th Feb:

Mixed rocket

Stir fry mix leaf salad

Italian mix leaf salad

A tray of coriander, a popular ingredient in this house

Onion/garlic update March 2011

Admittedly it's an improvement on last year's attempt, but thing's are moving reeeeaaally slowly.

Apache red salad onion babies

Leek babies

And thanks to the fleece it's been under all winter, the garlic is starting to sprout :)

Garlic sown in Oct 2010

Chilli update March 2011

Just spent the past three hours repotting chillies, which would have been ok but it was in my dressing gown on at 7am on a Sunday morning... Big time middle age warning!!

Anyhoo, here are some pickies of them.

Another harsh winter for wild animals

I didn't really want to share this story, or at least not until there was a happy ending. But I did say that this blog was going to be about everything that goes on out here...

Last weekend we had to have a doe (female deer) put down :'(

A week last Thursday, she turned up on our doorstep looking frail and starved. Shaky legs and horrendous diarrhoea. I called our local hunter, Osborn, with whom I have spoken on numerous occasions and who has also helped out with feed for all my garden buddies, for advice. He dropped by to have look at her and determined that although very sick, she did have a chance. She was eating the food I had put out and was responding to us.

Friday morning, looking frail

So we gave her a day or two, put out food and water and kept an eye on her.

She started to improve and by Friday evening she seemed to be improving. She stayed close to the house, resting in the flowerbeds and moving only to follow the sun. Unfortunately it was a really cold weekend (-15oC at night) and she was so skinny so she must have really been suffering. By Saturday evening she was looking really frail.

When I got up on Sunday morning it was clear that she was very very sick. She couldn't even stand up any more and she hardly flinched when I laid a blanket over her (it was extremely cold and she could no longer move into the sunshine). So I called Osborn. He lives across the field so he arrived really early Sunday morning and quickly and 'humanely' put an end to her suffering.

Sunday morning and she can no longer stand

Anyone that knows me will know how much this affected me. I have tried to be strong and tell myself that I was helping her by ending her suffering, but I can't help but wonder if I could have done more. Should I perhaps have called a vet instead of a hunter? If it was only her tummy, perhaps medicine could have helped...

Anyway, to cheer myself up and as a memorial of sorts to our sickly deer, I drove down to the garden centre and filled the car with cut flowers and hibiscus bushes, which are now in all of the south facing windows that she sat under during her short weekend at Åslyckan.

Hibiscus in honour of our sickly deer

Trying to post from my phone

I've been trying to post a new entry from my new iPhone for the past month. And you may have noticed my lack of success. The only thing I managed to get was a title, Time for bigger pots...

But I'm giving up and going back to the reliable method of using my computer...

Time for bigger pots...

Translation tool

He he he... I've added Google's translation tool (on the right) to my blog and I tested out the Swedish version. :D What a larf! It sounds like me when I'd just moved here... reeeaaally bad! But at least you get the gist if your English isn't too sharp.

Onions

I haven't managed to succeed with any onions yet, despite having attempted a variety of different sorts. I tried spring onions in 2009 which delivered nothing more than really thin grass.

I then tried red onions in 2010 which I bought as onion sets from a garden centre and most of them bolted and gave me ping pong ball sized onions, only slightly bigger than the set onions themselves...

I also tried cultivating leeks from seed in 2010 but without success and instead bought a tray of seedlings from the garden centre (most of these are still in the ground slightly bigger than spring onions).

So, this year I am determined to succeed.

Apache red salad onions, which should look like this:

Apache salad onion

Top: White Lisbon spring onions (below)     Bottom: Herbstriesen 2 leeks (far below)

White Lisbon spring onion

Herbstriesen 2 leek

Fingers crossed...

Chilli update

Having been sick (just a cold) since the New Year, I haven't really had the energy to update my blog, but quite a lot has happened. The boar have been back, which I find amazing - their snouts must be so incredibly strong to be able to plough through snow, ice and frozen earth...

But this entry is about the 2011 chilli season, which is now well underway. In addition to the four I planted in November which are doing really well, I also sowed the following on 14 January:

Aurora, Caribbean Red, Purple Tiger

Spanish Pepper (just appearing), Trinidad Scorpion, Ring of Fire

Thai Chilli, Aji Colorado, Purple Serrano (no show)

And these which I sowed (in kitchen roll because they're fussy) on 10th January:

Bih Jolokia, Hot Paper Lantern

Plus a Fatali that is struggling to surface. So far, the no shows are Purple Serrano, 7 Pod and Fish Pepper. I also had to help quite a few of the ones that did show as the seed pod was reluctant to budge off the growing seedlings.

Garden plans for 2011 & what's growing now

I've just got back from a week's skiing up in the Swedish mountains with a stinking cold, so I'm using the bed-bound time to trawl through seed catalogues. Such a hardship :)

I'm actually going to try and grow some flowers from seed this year. Now that I've been at it a couple of years, I should succeed with some at least. Seeds ordered: Poppy Lilac Pompom, Burning Bush, Dimorphotheca White, Cornflower Blue.

On the veg/fruit front the chilli season has already begun. The four plants I sowed on the 23 November are looking happy:

Two Serrano (Capsicum Annum) plants & two Congo Black (Capsicum Chinense) plants. Aged 7 weeks.

And I sowed another 8 seeds yesterday (4 Hot Paper Lanterns and 4 Bih Jolokias). This time I sowed them onto kitchen paper in freezer bags because the Bhut Jolokias (similar growing instructions) I sowed in November never appeared.

I've also got a box of button mushrooms growing in one of the bathrooms. Very exciting.