the inevitable stolen goods

Part of having a community garden without fences separating the gardens, and a very low fence (easy even for me to jump over when I forget my key) is that garden goodies inevitably get 'sampled'.  One of our neighbors told us she had seen people walking around with small backpacks and knives and then jumping over the gate to get out, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to guess what they were doing.  Of course berries growing along pathways get munched on, no big deal in my opinion.  I once even saw a guy helping himself to some tulips!  Our latest casualty was our first real bell pepper.  After nursing the plant from seed (on March 15th!) and transplanting it out into the big bad world (May 21st)  it had finally started ripening it's very first pepper into a wonderful shade of orange (around Aug 15).  Of course we wanted to pick it at its full color and when we went to the garden, discovered that it was gone!  I guess a large glaring orange bell pepper, babied to ripeness in a climate not fit to grow peppers has an invisible sign on it saying 'take me'.  It was a very sad day indeed, 5 months of anticipation, only to be let down.  Let's hope that the remaining 3 peppers on the plant make it to maturity, and this time I will not be waiting to pick them.  And I hope those #@$&!@ that took it really needed food (which I doubt, because Switzerland is not a poverty ridden nation) or else they should know that karma is a bitch!  In other news, next year I will be growing more exotic vegetables (aka asian veggies)  because I doubt they will steal stuff they have no idea how to cook!

july update

July had nice warm weather but it did rain enough that we didn't have to hand water.

Plant progress:

The fava beans were removed and the bed was prepared for bush beans, swiss chard and beets (the chard and beets failed to germinate, perhaps I planted to deep? and half of the beans didn't germinate, I am guessing they needed more water because they were all on the sunny side of the bed).  The carrots in the middle of the bed have FINALLY reached an edible size, but are still small.  I mean they germinated in the middle of march and still aren't ready at the end of July?!?  What am I doing wrong? 

Not much progress on the celery and all the fall brassicas got planted out (under row cover this time!)  hopefully with the kohlrabi gets harvested i can plant kale to overwinter there. 

The nightshades are really struggling, first the hail knocked half the leaves and fruit off, and then late blight struck.  I know it is inevitable here, but i probably could have slowed it down by training to one leader instead of allowing them to bush.  But old habits die hard, and i have to remember i don't live in texas where plants dry quickly so air circulation is key!  The eggplants are either also affected by the blight or just don't like the weather.  they are still tiny and not really setting any fruit.  Also the cape gosseberries in pots are doing much better than those in the ground, although they need such frequent watering.  The tomatoes under the roof are blight free, but really need more sunlight and those on the balcony are blight free but a bit unwieldy.  Next year, only the miniture bush tomato(really amazed with the variety balkonstar, not for taste but for how well it fruits in a small pot with only half a day of sun) get planted on the balcony along with chile peppers.  The rest will get planted under a foil tunnel to keep dry and promote warmth.  The space on the terrace will be used for potted flowers, cape gooseberries and peppers. 

The curcubits started out strong, giving is plety of cukumbers for fresh eating, but really not any to pickle.  Unfortunate i love pickles!  The variety Picolino was a dud, just not really setting large fruit.  Is it supoosed to be that tiny?  I mean they were cornichon size....too much space and work tiny pickles!  Our lone surviving zucchini plant put out 3 zucchini before succumbing to powdery mildew.   so sad, i would have rather had a glut.  An the pattison also set only 1 fruit.  I am not sure if they just need more compost/fertilizer or more sun or more space.  Thier rotation spot for next year is definitely sunnier and has been heavily composted for the brassicas that were there this year, so ill hope for better luck before blaming the variety. 

Harvests:

some not blight affected tomatoes, enough for salads, but nothing else.
a few baby eggplants that got added to a sambar.  these were picked to destress the tiny plants.

the rest of the onions.  the later onions were less worm ridden, or only on the outer layer which dried anyways and was removed.  The bolting seemed to affect the size, but they have still kept reasonably well.  We haven't purchased onions since the end of April.  

Cukes for fresh eating.  zuchinni/squash

2 pickings of Favas yielded enough for a small treat.  I love fresh favas for their taste and they are unavailable locally, but man do they have low yield/lots of problems (wind, aphids etc).  Plus  it doesn't help that i find the outer skin bitter and double peel which further reduces yield.  I'll still grow them because half of having a garden is to plant things you can't get locally (i mean i really doubt we 'profit' on anything except berries)

some basil, which it would grow faster! 

Rasperries finally coming in.  we have both fall bearing and summer bearing varieties mixed together and it is VERY confusing to prune, so of course I just procrastinated it till i see what dies back in fall.

Flowers:

The gladiolus are really wonderful cut flowers and make me smile every day at breakfast, definitely more colors next year!

The self sown sunflowes are also a delight and make great cut flowers.

The miniture dahlias, while good landscape plants, are pretty unimpressive as flowers, guess I will look for a better compact varity next year with more interesting shapes or colors.

the iris was very short lived ( a bulb type)  so sad, i love iris. but it is so carefree it can stay.

The miniture asters were also quite unimpressive.

I guess the moral of the story is, just because you have a small garden, don't go with miniture everything.  One large/beautiful plant is better than 10 tiny ones that aren't great. 

june update

Plant growth/progress:
June was very fickle, extremely hot (30 C is hot for us!), followed by storms (including one with golfball sized hail, that did considerable damage) and then clouds.  Aside from the hail damage, which mostly affected the curcubits, the weather caused the fennel to prematurely bolt.  I harvested it as soon as I noticed and salvaged some small still edible bulbs.  The lettuce also had enough of the heat and sadly bolted before i could save it, so it all got composted.  The new seedlings are still small, but will get planted soon. The peas that got pulled (they were mostly on the ground after the storm) will be replaced by bush beans.

bolting fennel

The carrots don't seem to have grown at all in the last month, i don't think the shade from the peas helped.

bolting onions

The celery hasn't put on much growth either and i wonder if it will be ready by fall at all.  I can always make stock with the greens, and next year i think i need to fertilize more.

The kohlrabi was planted too close and is taking forever to size up. 

currants ripening

view from walkway: brassica and pea beds

view from top of curcubits and nightshades

Harvests:
Broccoli- main heads and side shoots, although i was really disappointed in one variety (calabrese- small heads and shoots, tendency to flower very soon).  It will get one more shot in the fall before i pass final judgement on it's performance.  Premium crop put out good main heads but the side shoots were small.  Still on the lookout for the perfect broccoli, or perhaps they just need more space/fertilizer.  The plants had worms at the end of the month, as i never covered them, so they got pulled and will be replaced by a fall crop in 2-3 weeks.

Cauliflower- one of the more exciting harvests!  all 6 plants headed up, and would have been perfect had we not gone on vacation.  The first 2 I managed to harvest at the perfect stage.  the next 2 were on their way to bolting but still edible and the last 2 were sadly worm infested and had to be composted (wormy cauliflower smells awful!)  note to self, skipping row cover on brasicas is not an option!  i saw no noticeable difference in the 2 varieties planted, and i'll do another test with the fall crop.

savoy cabbage- had started to head up nicely with the worms hit.  I quickly harvested and removed the outer damage portions, which left very very small heads.  Also the plant was huge, compared to the size of the head.  Many of our neighbors seem to have a variety with large heads and small surrounding foilage (which is better suited to a small garden)  I wonder if they are removing outer leaves or it has something to do with nutrients.  I'll have to ask

Beets- had only planted 12 and they were delicious.  Such a satisfying crop to grow and i will definitely have to grow more next year.  the direct seeded varieties were a bust, so transplanting it is next year

Fennel-  bolted, but still was eaten.  I will only plant after the summer solstice next year (or really early under cover) 

Peas- both snap and shelling.  The amount of shelling peas was perfect, and planting 3 varieties really extended the harvest for us.  we had enough for a serving for 2 each week for about 5 weeks.  The snap peas were also great, but i think we should plant fewer next year or pickle the excess because were pretty sick of them at the end of the month.  Won't be growing the purple flowering Gigante again, becasue like the name says it grows tall and unwieldy and makes finding the pods difficult. 

Lettuce- salads galore, can't complain at all.  would love to have more varities to spice up our salad bowl next year and have to keep in mind to plant replacements sooner, because even the cut and come again varities bolted sooner than anticipated.

Currants-  We harvest over 4 kilos of currants and the were eaten fresh, in cake and mousse and the rest were processed into syrup to add to drinks.  The processing was a pain, but I am sure we will enjoy the bounty in the winter months. 

Flowers:
I don't think I will ever buy mixed bulbs again.  I previously stated that all the daffodils ended up being standard yellow and the Asiatic lilies turned out to be all yellow too.  The gladiolus ended up being pink and yellow.  I mean I like yellow, but i was hoping for more of a cheerful colorful mix and not a monotone view.

there were also all kinds of beetles eating away and procreating on the flowers.  I let them be.
marigolds are lovely and carefree....need many more next year.

Plenty of self seeded weeds/flowers.  (love the sunflowers and poppy, the others not so much)

Diseases/pests:
tiny strange beetles on brassicas.  Bit annoying to wash off but not particularly damaging.  spider web like residue on kohlrabi.  black aphids on fava beans.  Cabbage worms

Thankfully not too much slug or vole damage (knock on wood)  Although the wild foxes seem to like using and freshly dug beds as toilets...

Green Harvests

 It is salad, broccoli and pea sesaon!  We have been eating these 3 things at almost every meal, with some of the bolting onions thrown in.  I just started a second round of salad seedlings and also got a second sowing of beets, fennel and kholrabi in.  Hope the harvests continue!

 It is amazing how fast the plants are growing!

peas at the beginning of june

peas in mid/late june

premium crop broccoli is the first to head up

lettuce at beginning of june

lettuce at end of june (after multiple pickings)

may update

Wow, I am a bad blogger.  It seems I have time for any 3 of the following things and not more: work, garden, cook/bake, bike/hike or blog.  Needless to say, blogging got put on the back burner, especially because I forget to lug my camera around.  We had really good weather in May!  Warm, sunny and a every so often rain, so I didn't have to hand water too much.

Planting:
Our last official frost date is May 15th, but the tomatoes were getting enormous and leggy, and the weather forecast on May 10th showed warm days for the next two weeks, so I went ahead and planted them.  Of course a week later on May 18-19th it got down to 0.2 degrees Celsius.  Close call, but the row cover seemed to help.  The nights were cold in the first half of the month and have just started staying around 10 Celsius.  Daytime highs are around 15-20 Celsius.  A week after the tomatoes, on May 20th the eggplants and peppers got planted, but they haven't put on any growth, probably because of the temperatures.  I will get a row cover on them to hopefully speed things along.  And on May 29th all the curcubits got planted (zucchini, cucumber, and winter squash).  I still need to assemble some type of cucumber trellis that stores well in the winter. One blueberry bush (bluecrop) was replaced because it didn't put on any new growth after an Easter freeze killed the young leaves.  I went ahead and 'splurged' on a slightly older plant this time from a local nursery and bought a miniature variety( top hat) to plant as well. 

Growth:
Some heavy rains followed by sun made the brassicas take off.  Around May 15th I watered all the plants with our homemade nettle tea, which I am sure helped.   The beets and fennel have started to bulb up.  The radishes bolted and had to be composted and the carrots are very very slowly coming along.  The peas started blooming around May 10th, but I have just got a few odd ones here and there.  I am hoping next week will be the 1st big pea harvest.  The favas are overwhelmed by aphids, and don't seem to be setting many pods (this could be because of the spacing or because of the aphids).  The onions have bulbed up, but unfortunately are infested with onion maggot, I'll have to use row cover or a net next year.  Also the drastic swings in temperature caused quite a few to bolt.  The rather small strawberry plants are slowly growing, and have even given us a couple of strawberries every few days.  They are a day neutral variety, so I hope they continue into fall.  The red currents have started ripening (starting May 28th)  and I hope in a few weeks at least some will be ready to eat.  The flavor is supposed to improve as they stay on the bush, but then I will have to share with the birds!  The broccoli has started to head (on May 25th) I hope to harvest the first next week and many side shoots thereafter.  The herbs have taken off and oh yeah....so have the weeds!

beets and fennel, lettuce and radishes

baby brassicas, lettuce and favas

carrots FINALLY have first set of leaves

Harvesting:
I have harvested rhubarb 4 times since April 15th, and about 800 grams each time.  The plants still look strong and are putting on lots of new growth (and surprisingly haven't sent up a flower stalk like the neighbors) so I think I can get in another 1 or 2 harvests before the summer solstice, the date where you are traditionally told to stop harvesting because of the oxalic acid amount and to help the plant store energy for next year.

We haven't purchased salad since May 1st!  the plants were slow to start off but seem to be doing really well in the sunny weather.  Hopefully they wont bolt anytime soon, but I got more seeds of all the salad varieties planted this week as replacements (especially of the heading varieties that have to be pulled after harvest)

A few snap peas and strawberries as well as onions when we need them.
We had to pull lots of mint that was taking over other herbs and tried an entire jar full for tea etc.
Elder flowers are in bloom, we are just going to make a little syrup this year as we don't use very much.

rhubarb and radishes

Cooking:
Other than our daily salads, I have had fun experimenting with the rhubarb, so far I have made
Rhubarb streusel cake
Rhubarb crumble
Rhubarb custard tart
Rhubarb mousse

Still on the list: a small batch of refrigerator jam from the last harvest to use immediately thereafter and possibly a souffle, pie and classic compote.


 Whew, that was a busy month, but now that all my seedlings are in the ground i am somewhat relieved!  On to the weeding, harvesting and processing phase!

Flowers:  the last of the daffodils and tulips are fading, and being replaced by borage, azalea and poppy

borage, a bee magnet

a wonderfully scented rhododendron(i think)

bee swarm

This was actually taken from our Apartment balcony when I noticed a swarm of bees on a tree in the courtyard.  We live on the 4th floor, so they were VERY high up.  I later was informed by my mother in law (she is a hobby bee keeper) that I should have called the fire department, as bee hives that swarm usually are looking for a safe place to live and rarely find one and die.  The fire department apparently can catch them and has a list of bee keepers that will take them.  Hope these guys made it somewhere safe!  I spotted them in the morning and they were still there went i went to bed at night.  They were gone the next morning, so were there for 15-25 hours.

Pentecost

Monday was a national holiday because of Pentecost, so we took advantage of the fantastic weather to do a bike tour from Zurich to Zug and back.  The first half of the tour was riding upstream along the Sihl river from Zurich to Sihlbrugg and then after a short stretch on a main road, we went uphill to catch a great view of the Zugersee.  Heading toward Zug we stopped at a lovely Kloster with a fabulous kitchen garden.  It was enourmous, and they had over 30 tomato varieties growing (under glass roofed tomato houses, of course, to prevent blight).  Along with using glass covered cold frames for seedlings, they had plastic foil high tunnels where they had finished harvesting the first round on florence fennel!  Amazing how early they were able to get a harvest.  It looked like they were selling transplants as well, and I probably would have bought one had we not been on bike with still a ways to go.  Then we passed through the town of Baar before arriving in Zug.  I promptly demanded a Zugerkirschtorte.  The first one we got was from cafe Meier, which was eaten on the steps next to the Train station and the second one we tried was from Confiserie Speck, which was eaten next to the lake.  I think I prefered the first one, as it was a bit less boozy and had a bit more icing to take away from the bite of the alcohol. (can you tell I am not a big drinker?)  Then we headed back to Zurich, which was considerably easier as the last half was downstream.  Definitely a moderate bike tour to do in the area!

planting grapes

One of the things I wanted in our garden was grapes.  They are hard to find organically AND locally, it is typically one or the other and the varieties sold these days tend to be selected for size and seedlessness not flavor.  Both me and my partner love the flavor (and the heavenly smell!) of muscat grapes and we researched a bit to find the best variety to grow organically.  We decided on Muscat Bleu (a red/blue variety) and Birntaler Muskat (a white/green variety).   Both were bare root plants that were mail ordered.  We ended up adding a terraced area along a retaining wall for them.  Hopefully this bed will continue to the walkway when we have time to prep it.  I would love to under plant the grapes with tulips or some other early flowering bulb.  Will this be a good pairing?

soon to be filled with grapes at which point supporting wires will be added and the 'wilderness' on the retaining wall will be scaled back.

why I love Zurich.  A lovely view of the alps from our Garden at dusk.

april update

We just got back from 2 wonderful, warm and sunny weeks in Sicily.  I guess we picked a good time to leave town because we were informed that the weather had been cold and rainy, even below freezing all of Easter weekend.  The peas, radishes and other plants accordingly stalled and look about the same.   Our transplants on the other hand really grew!  Thankfully our neighbor watered while we were gone, and the first thing I did after returning was pot up the tomatoes.  They did get a bit leggy as the lights were further that a few inches away, but I didn't want to ask our neighbor to deal with that too!  Sadly, the eggplants and some of the peppers have a green aphid problem.  They don't seem to be suffering yet, and the organic insecticide oil I sprayed on them seemed to do more damage than the actual aphids, so I will just let them be for another month and hopefully they will make great food for the ladybugs once planted outside.  The beets and fennel under row cover seem to be doing well, but the other brassicas and salad seem to have not grown much.

overwintered mache harvest right before we went on vacation as our last meal

April 15th was my other half's birthday, and of course it was a great excuse to harvest rhubarb from the garden to make a cake (mixed with store bought strawberries).  It was delicious.

first rhubarb harvest and random herbs

 On April 16th, I seeded the pumpkins, cucumber and squashes in newspaper pots and planted a flat of basil and thai basil seed.

mixed daffodils????

We have the loveliest purple tulips and old fashioned daffodils (white) blooming right now, but alas, I forgot to get a picture.  The lilacs are starting to form buds and the daffodils are fading.  By the way the dandelions are growing and blooming, I know busier times are just around the corner.

March update

I had a whole week free at the end of march, so used it to get some garden work done.  The first order of business was preparing a flower bed out of a grassy, sloped corner that was difficult do mow.  New beds sans power tools are hard work!  Of course I changed plans a few times in between, and got distracted and started re-leveling the pavers nearby along the way, but in the end I finished this terraced bed and got the blueberry bushes planted.  It looks a bit random, as i tried to use materials already on hand, but it will do for now.  We aren't allowed to use peat moss so I gathered lots of pine needles in the forest (even though online research tells me that they wont actually change the acidity of the soil) and added lots of compost to the planting hole.  We will only water with rain water and try a sulfur fertilizer to help decrease the pH. 

Our other big project was replacing some rotted posts that formed a retaining wall and pathway.  This was the most irritating project imaginable.  Trying to remove rotted wood that is confined on all sides by other structures and then trying to dig a hole under these confinements takes much longer than usual. 

Right before heading of on vacation I planted some transplants to make watering (at home) easier for our neighbor.  Fennel, salad, beet, savoy cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower got planted under cover even though it was a bit early and they were a bit small. I had too many lettuce seedlings so I gave them away to 3 other gardeners. 




The favas, radishes and peas have germinated, and I think I see the germination leaves on the carrots, although it is hard to tell.  The weather has been warm and sunny but nights have been cold.

hellebores

primroses

sprouting favas

lettuce seedlings

sprouting rhubarb

poor worm, i thought i was 'saving' him from my digging only to see that moments later he was taken by a lizard.

spring is in the air!

Last week the daytime temperatures were about 15 C so I let the seedlings get some sun on the balcony during the day.  Nights are still cold, so they were brought back inside each evening.  I have been watering with dilute fertilizer mix every time I water and that seems to have helped growth a little, although the brassicas are growing VERY slowly.  They are also quite long and falling over.  Any idea of what went wrong?  I have had them under lights since they sprouted, but perhaps they were a few inches too far away?  The lettuce looks good, and if it is warm next week, I'll harden them off and plant them.  That will free up some space under the lights for my recently sown tomatoes.

seedlings enjoying some sun on a mild day

seedling update

The seedlings are finally starting to show signs of true leaves.  The celeriac has finally germinated and the jalapenos as well (although not 100%).  I think the slow growth after germination may be due to the coconut compressed pots I used, I am guessing they are a sterile growing medium but they don't have a lot of nutrients.  Today I fertilized with a dilute liquid fertilizer, hopefully there wont be any root burn.  Oddly the white lettuce seeds (4 varieties) have all sprouted where as the 2 black seeded varieties are still empty.  I wonder if the seed color trait is linked to germination time?

edit: both black seeded varieties never germinated even after a second sowing.  must have been a bad batch and just a coincidence they were both black seeded.

The brassicas seem to be getting leggy even though they are under lights.

planting peas

This past weekend I planted some peas. I overestimated how many I would need and presoaked too many seeds.  I went ahead and plant them anyways and will thin later.  Favas got planted as well as some carrot seed mats.  Our water at the community garden hasn't been turned on yet and it hasn't rained in a while so the soil was fairly dry.  We got 2 watering cans full of water from a nearby fountain, but that is not something I will be doing again.  More work than it is worth, next year I will wait until they turn the water on to plant peas regardless of how warm the weather is.  I also dug some new flowers beds out of an incline that was covered in weeds and those got planted with a variety of summer bulbs.  Unfortunately I forgot to charge my camera so no before and after pictures this time.  Snowdrops and Crocus are blooming in the area, although we don't have any in our plot.  We are looking forward to the daffodils planted last fall, they are about 15 cm high now.  And there are lots of mystery tulips coming up in various places.  The pak choi was starting to bolt so I harvested half of it and it got made into a rice noodle stir fry.  It still tasted great!  Our ground wasn't frozen at all, but when we went back the next day to check on the compost, which is in a somewhat shady corner, we discovered it was frozen solid. 

Seed Mats

Today, I made some carrot and radish seed mats.  I hope to get an early planting in under row cover this weekend.  Daytime temps have been over 10 C, although nights are still below 0 C.  Also on the planting list this weekend; peas and favas.  I wont use up all my seed in case the weather does take a turn for the worse, but it is worth a shot.

These were made using the famous seed mat tutorial from Annie's Granny.  All the cool kids seem to be doing it so I'll hop on the bandwagon.  It was really hard for me to find cheap toilet paper or paper towels here!  Restaurants are stingy with their paper towels in Europe, probably because of all the crazy gardeners that want them.  Now, who is responsible for them being so stingy with the ketchup?  I finally managed to get a couple of rolls from the science lab that is very thin two-ply.   We have extremely expensive equipment, super cheap TP....figures. 

ready to glue

here they are drying

I am trying out a lot of different varieties (6) for both taste and to see what does well here.   Hopefully I can narrow it down to 2 in the future.  I was surprised that they were packaged so differently, even within the same brand of seeds.  At first, I thought it had to do with price or if they were F1 and hence more "valuable",  but there seems to be no correlation.  Some are double packed, where the inside packet is either foil lined or just plain paper, and some are just thrown in the main package.  The foiled lined packs would appear to do a good job of keeping light and moisture out.  I saw a tiny white insect (maybe an aphid, which was quickly squashed) crawling around among some unpacked seeds, which did NOT make me happy.  Perhaps the plain paper keeps insects out?

foil lined, paper an no extra packaging

I only made enough for 1 planting because I think the moisture from the glue reduces how long you can store them.  Hoping for a warm week and speedy germination!

Lights

I rushed to get an inexpensive light system set up.  I had to improvise a bit, because there are no "inexpensive" shop lights here, just fancy ones.  I finally decided on some under cabinet lights (120 cm long, T8 bulbs) that are meant to be wired directly into an electrical source and not plugged into a wall.  I got 4 lights at 5.50 Euros each, so that was by FAR the least expensive option.  I also had to buy some wiring to adapt them into plug in lights and I got an automatic timer.

Yes, condescending employee at home improvement store, I am capable of wiring this myself!

but how do I get you open!? brute force is the answer

oh how nice of you to put the opening instructions inside! 

I managed to not electrocute myself

And now I have light!  Did I mention I transported these on my bicycle, all while having a non-functioning headlight?  Luckily, no cops stopped me as it would have been hard to keep a straight face at the irony of having to explain a broken headlight while transporting 4 fluorescent bulbs.  Yes sir, I realize it is broken which is why I bought these to fix it....?

The seedlings seem happy in their new home!

sowing brassicas

Started white cabbage, red cabbage, savoy, cauliflower and broccoli indoors.

Also got a few cells of 6 different lettuce varieties, some dwarf marigolds, dwarf asters, cape gooseberry and fennel started.  Marigold always takes a long time to germinate for me, so I'll see what happens.  

The germination for spinach was really spotty. I'll probably toss it in about a week if nothing else shows up.  Searches online show that presprouting the seed first helps, but I'll hope that the fall sown spinach makes it.  The leeks are starting to peek out, and the celeriac as well.  Still nothing from the parsley, but the seed was about 2 years old, so it might have not been viable.  Also nothing from the garlic chives, I think it may have been too warm on the radiator.  Eggplants are poking through and peppers as well.  The Jalapenos seem to be the slowest, I am not sure if they just need longer or if the seed was too old.  I'll give them another week as well.

first sowing of the year

I have procrastinated seed starting long enough!  It was such a daunting task with the lack of light, space and time I have right now.  But on Feb 20th, the season got underway with sowings of leeks, green onions, celeriac, parsley, some spinach(an experiment to see if spring transplants work better than direct sowing) and rocket/arugula.  They are on the radiator for now and the rocket has already germinated 2 days later!  Better get the light situation under control.

oops, already reaching

I also have eggplant and peppers planted, as these have always taken a long time to germinate for me.
This week I hope to get broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbages underway as well as cape gooseberries. 

generalversammlung

We RSVPd to the Annual General Assembly meeting, thinking we would probably be one of few people there. We thought it would be good to go considering this is our first year as a member and we don't want to seem like slackers.  Boy were we wrong!  We walked into a room with about 300 people (it turns out that there was a free dinner following and free food lures college students and retirees alike!).  After a short lecture about earthworms and then a summary of last years happenings, we got to vote on everything from next year's budget to changes in the by-laws.  It was interesting, considering I only understood about half of what was going on due to prevalence of Swiss-German.  Dinner, conversation, and Folk music + old people dancing followed.  The relatively younger people at our table informed us that this was about as Swiss as it gets, which was interesting to experience considering how much the Swiss tend to keep to themselves.  Conversation was entertaining to say the least and consisted of me smiling and nodding a lot as well as responding to questions with ambiguous answers. (its hard to know if you are supposed to react positively or negatively when you don't understand the question, so ambiguous is the way to go...)  A local nursery 'sponsored' the table and stage decorations for the event, which were, of course, live flowering plants.  We were told that each family was allowed one to take home and we managed to snag a lovely orange-red rose to take home.  I'll have to find a good spot for it next spring. 

Freak winter cold front

Well, so much for the unseasonably warm winter we have been having.  Enter one of the worst cold fronts in recent European history.  Our highs have been about -5 C for the last week, and nighttime lows about -20 C.  This is supposed to continue for another week (update it lasted for 3 weeks) or so.  The only bright side (for the people) is that it has been relatively dry, which means safer travel whether by car, bike or foot.  I am sure my plants would appreciate the snow cover though.  I am sure that remaining pak choi and mizuna is long gone update they are looking yellow and ratty but hanging on, and I hope that the bulbs, tricked into early growth by the warm weather, make it through this cold spell. 

In other news, the balcony, which I use as a refrigerator in the winter months has turned into a deep freeze.  (Every inch is prime real estate in Europe! no space to be wasted on a large fridge)  Does anyone have ideas for frozen kimchi and frozen heads of cabbage?

I hope spring is on on it's way, so the excitement and planting madness can begin!

january update

It has been pretty cold, rainy and snowy this whole month.  Not too much growing right now.  The spinach, mizuna and pak choi is holding on, but it is so small it is not worth harvesting, I'll see if it makes it through the winter as an experiment.  The daffodils we planted last fall are starting to peek through and I have found a few other mystery plants coming up, very excited to see what spring brings!

There hasn't been too much gardening work going on, although we have been taking our compost up every week and on a walk though the forest discovered that the city was removing some older trees!  We found one pile of "mulch" from the sawing (got distributed on the berries) and another of pine stems ( I am going to try them around the strawberry plants we planted last fall to see if the sharp needles deter slugs).  So needless to say, we went back, grabbed our bikes and some large bags and filled up on some free, carbon neutral mulch!

Also, it appears after some research that our last frost free date is May 15th, later than I had thought, so I will be adjusting the seed starting accordingly.  Also our latitude is about the same as Seattle and shares a similar rainy and cool summer climate, so any tips from western gardeners welcome!

I think we have all the basic seeds we want in order, but I am looking forward to my next trip to the US so I can order some specialty seeds (especially Mexican chile varieties and Asian veggies).  Most of the US seed companies don't deliver here, and I haven't found a good supplier for interesting varieties here yet.