All set in the garden

I have outdone myself this year! The greenhouse is already fully planted, raised beds are full, and only missing items from my plot are pickling cucumbers - first seeds didn't germinate so now it's round two.

The greenhouse got some new polycarbonate panels last summer to replace some broken glass panels. It makes all the difference when there isn't a football sized holes in the roof...
In April I stripped off every last remnants of previous summer's plants. I got the suprise pile of horse manure in September, so I put a nice thick layer of it to the bottom of the benches. As a top soil I used compost (cheapest one available but I have used it several years with good results).
In the first week of May I managed to sow some seeds, radishes, salad, peas, marigolds and chards.

All through May my greenhouse was acting as a nursery. I kept my sweet corn plants there, as well as courgettes, pumpkins, peas, New Zealand spinach and beans. Runner beans didn't germinate this year, I have no idea why they hate me. Last time I was lucky with runner beans was propably 15 years ago when my oldest had grown some in the kindergarden! Next year will be a new spring again...

When weather permitted planting to the plot i got more room in the greenhouse and finally was able to plant those plants inteded in there. 5 watermelons (I don't except to get any melons, but I 'll keep trying occasionally with them), 3 tomatoes, 7 peppers (I think they are sweet peppers, not chillis because the leaves are quite wide, those 10 plants were from my mother's leftovers). A couple of "jungle cucumbers" - I have no idea what they really are because the seed package was in German, I had three plants last summer. Even thought I had them planted really late, I got few mini cucumbers, the were very mild but still nice tasting, hint of melon ot kiwi or gooseberry? and some Caucasian spinach (if only I had known the same plant is also available as Scandinavian spinach which is very hardy and might even be perennial here). Greenhouse looks nice and neat, I even put some woodchips on the middle to greate mud-free path.

Ha! Made some googling, those mini cucumbers are cucamelons.

HB tilled my plot in the mid May - ground is clay so it was way too wet before that, and to be honest, snow falling from the sky didn't encourage any gardening. But it got tilled, and because I knew I couldn't fix it right away, I covered it with thick ground cover membrane to prevent weeds growing (which they did anyway, but not so much as usually - hey, I'm learning!). But now there is a few rows of potato, 50 spuds maybe? and those 15 in bags I planted earlier.
Beets, carrots, peas, bull beans, sweet corn, beans, courgettes and pumpkins. That's it. Oh I forgot sunflowers! Almost 50 plants of red and yellow sunflowers, I really hope I can get some flower this summer, at least the plants are looking good at the moment. And cucumbers, if they finally decide to sprout...

And finally there is my cold frames, or raised beds. I build two frames with our dog before he died, and it was a bit bittersweet moment to start planting vegetables to them, he wasn't by my side anymore. A couple of courgettes (or pumpkins, I lost some of the labels when kittens tried to destroy my seedlings), brassicas, peas, radishes. Some herbs (parsley, thyme and coriander) and carrots. At first i was going to plant mint there too, but I thought everything starts to smell and taste like spearmint so I planted that next to my two other mint plants, which survived winter.

So everything was ready on sunday evening, and then on monday afternoon it started to rain. Perfect timing!

Bye my Love

We lost our precious dog last night. He had a stroke and died in my arms. He was way too young, only eight, but as a big dog (after all he was a giant) life is short. I'm missing my baby, but I know this too shall pass.

My beautiful monster.

And the sky is mourning with us, it has been snowing during the day, and harsh winds from north chill us to the bone.