This morning, I wished I could cry. I got seriously depressed instead.

I do not remember getting frost in the last week of May. Ever. We got it last night, and it might repeat today.  That means that potatoes, which had just started to emerge from the ground, some recovering from one bout of late frost already, froze again. I tried to protect them with canvas, but it did not help much.

I also planted some beans and corn already, as well as basil and oregano. Most of that is dead; tonight it might get the coup de grâce.

Several days of work down the drain, and I am back to square one. The problem is that if I start beans and corn now, they might not mature enough before the first frost in the fall. I will still try, because that is all I can do, but so far this year, I am only counting my losses – first crappy germination rates and too hot and dry April and now this. Fuck this insane weather, this really is not normal.

The raspberries that grow around different places in my garden and behind my hedge are two-year varieties. First year shoots sprout from the ground and grow in height to 1-1,5 m. The second year, these shoots sprout short twigs with blossoms that bear fruit. In the fall, the whole shoot dies and dries over winter. The growth can become pretty overcrowded and inaccessible if these dead shoots are not removed. It was difficult to remove them without trampling some of the one-year shoots that will bear fruit any given year, so this spring I thought about it a bit. I decided to make a new tool specifically for this task, thus I took an angle grinder, hammer, and forge to an old shovel (first used to make a rondel dagger accessories back in the day) and I carved, forged, and ground a small-ish bill hook. I sharpened the inner side of the curve as well as the forward-facing one, and I affixed it to an approximately 1 m long handle. I can grab the dead shoots, and cut them off at or near the ground level without bending down and without going into the growth and damaging it.

Today, I was facing the problem of fast-growing weeds (mainly Veronica chamaedrys) among my onions that I could not remove with any tool currently at my disposal, and that would be too onerous and time-consuming to pull manually. I still had a bit of the old shovel left, so I cut an outline of the tool and heated up the forge again. It is a sort of tiny mini-shovel, just 5 cm wide and with a sharpened V-cut in the face. It too has an approx 1 m long handle and I can carefully push it between the rows of onions, cutting the weeds several mm under the surface without damaging the crop. The weeds will dry and die and eventually decompose. It is not 100% weed removal, but it did allow me to undercut most of the weeds in all of my onion patches in under an hour, and that is a definitive success. Veronica chamaedrys is impossible to remove once established, so I am not even trying anymore. I only do my best to suppress it enough so it does not choke out the crops.

 

This post will be a bit of a downer, I am afraid. Like every spring, it is a bit nerve-wrecking to buy seeds without actually knowing if something comes out of them. In hindsight, I now know that I could have saved a lot of money.

I had several packets of different pumpkin seeds – pattypan, butternut, courgette “Květa”, and hokkaido. I put all of them on wet paper towels to germinate before putting them into the ground, and so far, only the Květa germinated pretty well. Butternut and pattypan failed to germinate at all, and of all the hokkaido seeds, only three germinated. And those three did not emerge from the ground yet, so I do not know if they are still alive. Thus, so far I have about 12 plants of Květa and exactly 0 of others. That is pissing me off, but not as much as the next thing.

I planted beans and sweet corn behind the house. These are red runner beans that I have grown successfully there for years now. I had a 100% germination rate with seeds sorted out of the previous year’s harvest. I also had the luck to find white runner beans on the internet, and I bought a packet of 20. Only four germinated into sickly looking plants; the rest rotted in the ground. In the fall, I bought two varieties of bush beans and a new variety of pole beans to try out. They all rotted without germinating. On the same website, I bought some sweet peas and sweet corn. Both had a germination rate of about 30%. And do you remember the failed onion seeds? The same website. It is a real disappointment because it is the same site where I bought my seeding garlic that turned out well (so far). Not the wintering onion, though, that too mostly failed. Needless to say, I won’t be buying seeds from that company again, except maybe the garlic.

All this means that I have essentially nothing to plant on my big prepared three sisters patch. So I bought several packets of seeds of beans, pumpkin seeds, and corn from a different supplier, and now I am again in the nail-biting waiting stage, if something sprouts. I also planted an additional 160 red runner beans from my own seeds since that seems reliable.

If it were not for the 100% germination rate for my own beans, I might be inclined to blame a failure on my part. But 100% germination of my own seeds and 20% germination of bought seeds of the same species proves that I did nothing wrong.

The spinach is also a bust. Not only did it have a poor germination rate – about 50% – but most of the plants that did emerge were tiny and sickly looking. And some are already going into blossom, despite being barely five cm tall. I am completely at a loss to understand how this could have happened. Maybe April and May were too warm and dry. I honestly do not know, and it is a real head scratcher. This really pisses me off. I like spinach, and I was really looking forward to growing my own. I might still get some out of the few plants that look healthy and do not go into bloom, but I will be lucky to get enough for one lunch. I still have some seeds left over, so I might try for a fall harvest by planting them in July. If I try that, I will plant the seeds in an egg-tray first.

Carrots started to sprout, though not all that I planted. And yesterday, voles dug under one of the trays, completely destroying it. I hate those fuckers.

Potatoes sprouted too early and froze. Funnily enough, nothing else did, not even nearby oak trees, which are also susceptible to late frost. They seem to be recovering and are sprouting again now.

At least the muck heap continues to rot successfully. I turned it over on Tuesday, and this time, it did not heat up as much and as quickly.

It is still warmer than the outside temperature though. Today it had over 30°C when the outdoors was barely 10°C. I will continue to monitor the temperature, and I will probably delay turning it again until it starts cooling off.

To make liquid fertilizer, I took an old plastic canister and an old solar-powered aerator, and I built this contraption. I will put some shredded weeds in there to ferment and dissolve. Then I will add it to the watering cans for citrus trees and tomatoes. On YouTube, some gardeners swear by this “compost tea”, and some say it is a waste of time and resources. I looked up scientific studies on the subject, and I found one meta-study that said that aerated compost tea is actually a good fertilizer, and since I had all the necessary components lying around, it cost me nothing. I should have no shortage of nettle leaves and other nitrogen-rich weeds to feed it.

In the past, I was making only anaerobic compost tea. That stinks to high heavens, which is a bad thing even if it bothers no one. The smell means loss of nutrients (mainly sulphur and nitrogen) due to off-gassing. Allegedly, this should not be a problem for the aerated method. We shall see, or more precisely, smell, if that is the case. It has been three days and I smell nothing so far.

To end on a hopeful note, if the weather remains frost-free, I might have apples, pears, and walnuts again this year. If, however, frost comes in the second half of May – something that I do not remember happening here, ever – it will be a catastrophe.

Soooo. Yesterday I turned the muck pile. I wanted to do it today, but I changed that plan. Tomorrow I am leaving for a few-day’s trip and I did want to be at least a bit rested before the several hours-long drive.

When turning the pile, there were visibly different forms of decomposition taking place. There were hot spots, all wet and mushy. And there were also cold spots, full of white fungal growth. It was visible that the pile was unevenly watered, which is understandable since I was watering it with cans without the shower spout. Looking at it and realizing that even the dry-ish spots are actually decomposing in the environment made me think that an inconsistently wetted compost pile is perhaps not a bad thing. The wet spots get hot and decompose, and the dry spots allow for gas exchange with the environment. It still had 50-70 °C all over before I turned it and mixed it anew, and since it was cold outside, visible steam rose from it. Unfortunately, I was unable to take a picture of that.

In the days before that, I prepared this, the bean-growing patch. I tilled a grid of 25 squares, approx 50×50 cm, spaced approx 50 cm so I can go between them with a lawn mower. That took me several days since the lawn is tough. Not only due to the ancient grass-growth, but also due to the high content of quartz stones. A fact of which I will never cease to remind you. I collected two full 10 l buckets of stones over 2 cm in diameter.

When the squares were tilled, I planted tall poplar poles in each corner, and I bound the tips over them. I stripped the bark from the poles at about 20 cm at the bottom, and I left them dry for a few weeks before planting them so they do not take root.

I can plant up to two bean plants near each pole and a few corn plants along the edges, too. In the middle, I plan to plant pumpkins. This is an experimental patch for the “tree sisters” system. All three plants should be able to grow fast enough to outgrow the weeds and the grass in the tilled patches. We will see how that goes. At least for the beans, this system is actually tested, and they should thrive in the grass. I am growing beans in the grass for years by now, on the south wall of my house.

I still have about 80 poles left unplanted. I can either put them somewhere dry to save them for next year, or I can make another patch. I still have plenty of unused space left. I will decide what to do when I return from my trip.

I repotted my citrus trees and laurels. While I was at it, I harvested all the laurel leaves/bay leaves that I could. It is not a huge harvest, but it is enough for our needs for the whole year.

My last big apple tree started to blossom.

This is a graft from the dead tree that I grafted a few years back on some unspecified apple tree that sprouted from the roots of another dead tree planted by my grandfather. The rootstock is very hardy since I originally tried to kill it, and only when I failed, I tried to graft it. It is the only successful graft I have ever done.

The compost pile was heating up very unevenly, so I decided to not wait until Friday and I turned it today. I also added all the grass clippings and dead leaves I had elsewhere. Now it is all in one huge pile of moss and grass, and leaves, approximately 2 cubic meters in volume. When forking it over, I also noted that the moss started to heat up and decompose too, but unevenly as well – there were completely dry patches in it where nothing happened whatsoever. So when I was done turning and mixing it all, I poured approximately 200 l of water into it from the seeping pond at the end of my sewage cleaning facility. When I measured the temperature at four different points in the evening, it was already over 30°C  in all of them, so it is heating up. I might pour some more water on it during the week since it is not raining, and it should not be possible to overwater a compost pile.

A little note on making a compost pile – it is important to lay the material in flat layers and for the whole pile to have a flat top, especially when making it from longer dead grass like old hay or straw. If you pile it in a cone or round heap, the grass on top can work like a thatch roof, effectively shielding the center of the pile from water.

This morning, the compost pile was steaming slightly, and although my nose cannot detect it, it probably also smells of ammonia. It attracted some flies and one dung beetle, despite being completely dung-free.

I feel slightly sorry for the poor fellow searching for their shit-snack in vain.

The first potato plant poked out of the ground. That is slightly premature; frost is still possible. I am watching the weather forecast like a hawk every day.

The spinach is so far growing very, very slowly, and it does not look like much. Preliminarily, I am skeptical about this crop.

I started to harden off the basil by exposing it to direct sunlight for a few hours each day. So far, no plant has been burnt and they look healthy enough. Once the danger of frost is over, they go outside.

The first beans are emerging from the soil, too. We shall see how many will actually sprout. I sown a lot.

I did not have much luck with sweet corn these last two years. So far, I have just 25% germination rate this year. I really hope that more emerge from the ground, otherwise I will be pissed.

Clusters of shallots look promising.

And so do the onions.

Teensy tiny carrots have shown up in most, although not all, egg baskets.

And lastly, peas sprouted today, too. They are a good indicator of slug infestation; they are literal slug magnets. So far (knock on wood), the slugs have not shown up this year. I have seen only three, which I killed instantly. It is possible that it is due to the much colder and frostier winter and much sunnier and drier spring. Even so, I have spent the winter researching slug traps, and if they start to show up, I will try a few things.

I had a very busy week in the garden, although I had to push the pause button for two days due to rain. I repotted all bonsai trees that were urgent, and now I can spend a few days taking some new ones out of the nursery and perhaps start putting them into pots. And I spent a lot of time on other works too.

Firstly, I raked a lot of dead grass and tree leaves out of my coppice and around the wire fence. The result was a slightly bigger pile than the moss one I showed you last time. The raking almost led to a relapse of my back pain, but luckily, it seems that a day of rest in the warm has helped.

Having a huge pile of dead grass and leaves has inspired me to do something that I normally do not do – hot composting. I had to do my first mowing of the lawn anyway, and that always results in a huge pile of green grass clippings.

I normally do not bother with hot composting; I only do slow composting. I dump all organic material throughout the year in one designated spot in the garden, and maybe once a year, I turn it, and then I leave it be until I need it. With grass clippings, it is important to let them dry first, otherwise the pile ferments anaerobically and too quickly and starts to stink mightily. That is why I rarely use the collecting basket on my lawn mower. This time, I did use it and I mixed the fresh, wet clippings with the old leaves and dry grass atop the moss pile. It increased its height twice, and its volume probably three-four times.

That is a big pile, but it still was not enough to use all the grass. The first reason why I do not bother with hot composting is that I usually have just too much green grass and never enough browns. For reference, it took me 5 hours of continuous mowing to cut most, not all, of my garden. I walked about 18000 steps whilst doing it, which is probably more than 10 km (I have long steps).

 

So after I started my experimental “hot” pile, I simply dumped the rest of the freshly cut grass on another spot. Since I did not let it dry first this time, it might ferment, but I am not that bothered by the smell. Depending on the weather, I will probably get the same amount of grass several times over during the summer. Which is the second reason why I do not bother with hot composting – I have enough work to keep up with the grass alone. Turning the compost pile over to aerate it would just add a lot of work, and I simply do not want to bother with that. I am only doing it this time because I hope to get compost more quickly to hill up the potatoes when they sprout. It does not need to be perfect for that; it just needs to not be stringy and matted, and it must be decomposed enough to not be hot anymore. That is a lesson that I learned the hard way – even a small pile of organic material might heat up enough to “burn” plants nearby.

I’d love to have a better use for my garden than having to mow grass on most of it, but that is not feasible. Starting an orchard is not possible due to water voles – hell, even starting and maintaining a firewood coppice is a challenge due to those fuckers. Not to mention that I would still need to mow the grass under the trees. Converting it all into vegetable patches is not doable either, not for one person. In the past, we had geese and rabbits who used up the grass and converted it into edibles, but I am not the right kind of person to have poultry or rabbits. So, mowing and composting are the only ways. That at least helps improve the soil on the vegetable patches significantly over the years.

I am almost on top of the work again, and I should be able to start re-potting bonsai tomorrow. Yesterday it rained, and today I tidied up most of the garden.

Before the rain, I managed to run the garden over with the verticutter again, scraping out an awful amount of mess.

It was a huge, fluffy pile that sagged a bit in the rain but not very much. I was considering what to do with it to accelerate decomposition. Moss takes a very long time to die, even in a pile. And after that, it takes a very long time to decompose because it is very poor in nitrogen. Out of the various ways to add nitrogen, I decided on Calcium cyanamide. It should initially kill all the moss and plant material in the pile, and after a while, when the pile gets colonized by bacteria, it should decompose faster. At least those are my hopes.

I estimated that I will have approx one cubic meter of slightly compressed moss, and for that, according to a quick Google search, about 0.5 kg of fertilizer should suffice. So I took a fork and I tidied up the pile, stomped it down a bit, and added the fertilizer throughout. Then I watered it even more with about 30 l of water. I am curious how this experiment turns out.

Due to everything being wet, I could not shred the reed stalks, so I had to break them manually. I added them around the garlic and strawberries to serve as a mulch.

And I also used a few bundles of reed stalks to line the walkpaths between the vegetable beds. This way, I won’t get mud glued to the soles of my shoes whenever I need to go there after rain. And they also should not get overgrown with weeds.

The first fruit tree started flowering – the rootstock of my plum.

I planted one of these separately and tried to graft the plum on it again, so I have two trees. The graft failed, but the tree continued to grow and eventually flower. I also let a second tree to freely sprout from root suckers because it was growing so vigorously that the plum itself might have problem to actually keep the roots alive. I have seen this happen to aronia grafted on mountain ash and thus I left mountain ash root suckers to grow on my aronia too and it has thus outlived other plants by about a decade by now and it still looks healthy. I do not think the old gardening wisdom of removing all suckers all the time is all that wise in this regard because trees need to have a harmony between what is above and below the ground. The voles managed to destroy some other trees by gnawing the roots faster than they can recover, and in my opinion, it is also possible for trees to die when too slow-growing graft is put on to vigorous stock. It is just my opinion based on my personal experience; I am not aware of any studies on the subject. I do not think one is forthcoming because it would take several decades of dozens of trees to be grown in the same environment and meticulously documenting all outputs. Which won’t happen, it would take too long for even a post-graduate researcher to see the fruits (no pun intended) of their labor.

I actually like the flowers of the rootstock and it is a shame that while it flowers extensively, there is very little fruit on it. Because although the fruit is more stone than flesh, it is actually very tasty. I like the flowers anyway and not everything in the garden needs to be useful to me directly. Although I would argue that providing early food to polinators actually is useful to me down the line.

I put the bell peppers in the greenhouse, but I have not planted them in the ground yet. A bout of frost still can hit us, and I want to be able to move them indoors in case that happens. Nevertheless, the plants are apparently doing well because they have started to flower. I had played a bee with a fine brush because it was still too early for actual bees to get into the greenhouse, even if I left the door open. Which I do not do now, it is often still too cold.

I also re-potted basil and oregano into individual pots, 21 plants of each. The jury is still out on whether they survive and if I manage to grow a sufficient supply of my favourite spices.

And the last flower is on a cutting of a hibiscus that my mother put in a glass of water. Normally, these cuttings drop the flower buds, but this one did not. There won’t be any use out of this, and it is not, strictly speaking, gardening-related. I include it because I think it is beautiful.

Initially, I bought three packets of onion seeds and two packets of overwintering onions that were planted in the fall together with the garlic. But two of three seeds did not germinate at all and the germination rate of the third one was abysmal. I bought further two packets of seeds and those had high germination rates, but they were still tiny and I was not very confident they would grow much. Thus I ordered several further sets of onions. It was difficult to estimate how much to order since they are sold by weight, not by number. I decided to go for four onion sets and one shallot set á 250 g.

To make it quick and easy to plant them in my favorite triangle pattern, I made a thingamajig to mark six holes at once. First I used it to scratch three parallel divots in the soil and then I poked in and wriggled it about a bit to mark the holes.

It worked like a charm, I was planting onions like no bee’s knees. I planted all the onions in a 10×10 cm pattern, and the shallots in 20×20 cm pattern.

I also continued to pick stones that got in the way while planting. Even after working on this soil for over half a century, sometimes even sieving portions of it, I still reliably got half a bucket full of stones.

And here you can see the pile of stones behind my garden shed, with the broken bathroom sink for size comparison. All this is from picking stones from the vegetable patches over the last year. Last summer, I used up almost all the stones on this pile to repair my walkway. Now it looks like I did not touch it and it is likely to continue growing until the next time I find a use for them.

With the onions firmly planted in the ground, I lightly brushed the soil over them with a broom. Onions are not supposed to be planted deep so this should suffice.

There still may come late frost but I decided to plant the onion seedlings too since they were getting in the way and on my nerves. I overcrowded those since I will not be trying to grow them into big bulbs – if they survive, they will probably be used mostly green.

I delineated my onion patches with willow twigs and watered them thoroughly. As you can see, they take up a lot of space. Twice as much as I wanted them to in fact. The sets contained a lot of tiny onions, and as can be seen in the picture, one variety even contained a lot more than the other three (ca 30% more) despite them all having the same weight. If they all survive and grow, I could end up with more onions than I can reasonably need and I will have to try to trade some for something else or force them upon unsuspecting family members and friends.

I also planted green peas using the same thingamajig. It too worked like a charm and  I am very glad I made it. It makes the work so much quicker that it saved me the hour and a bit I spent making it several times over. I will probably make another one with 15 sm spacing for crops that need slightly more space.

The peas will need support so I cut a bunch of approx. 80 cm long willow twigs and put them in a sunny place to dry up. I do not need to poke them in the ground near the peas before they poke out of the ground. It is better to let the stakes dry out as much as possible before using them, otherwise they take root.

And yesterday I started harvesting radishes. From now on for about a week, these will be daily condiments accompanying our dinners. They are delicious and once I am done with them, I will tell you how much (in kg) I got from one packet of seeds.