Planting

 

Do you remember when I planted Sea Buckthornes into my garden? It is 3 years now. They have grown big and gave me tiny harvest already last year. They are doing so great that I bought one more, you can see it far left behind in the pic. It still is just a tiny baby but hopefully also it will enjoy its living here and grow. (Notice Nuka dreaming away on the terrace deck.)

I bought 3 new apple trees (at behind). We planted them at the end of my strawberry beds. You can see how I've created my strawberry beds on the grass. It makes weeding so much easier. I just mow between the beds and then weed a bit. 

Those 2 apple trees at front are the ones my mother-in-law has grown. It will be interesting see which they are. They usually never are the same from which you get the sprouts. Well, at least these should be able to survive because they are sprouts and wanted to sprout out up here in the north where apple tree doesn't grow much bigger than a man nor thicker than my wrist.

I bought few tomato plants from a friend. I moved also them into my green house. They lived indoors for a week but now they are out in the green house where it begins to be warm enough.

Swallows

At the moment there's a lot going around in my garden... and in the nature. Despite of all the fuss around this is the most exciting thing in my garden.

That one! It is just a piece of timber. He nailed it up there for... no, not for me, but for the swallows. 

I love swallows. As a child I amused myself watching them flying around. I still do it. I never get bored watching the swallows. In my last blog post I told you about my Arctic Garden. After reading that you can understand how fascinating swallows must feel. We have a saying about it that when the swallows arrive the summer has started. They are not here yet, not today.

Swallows are not nesting in my garden but nearby. I can watch them for hours from my terrace deck hammock. Last year I noticed most of them had nest a bit further than usual. For some reason. Or nesting succeed only a bit further. I suspect squirrels are one reason. Around here is enough old houses for the swallows to find nesting places. Around here is also a lot of squirrels. None hunts the squirrels for money anymore. 

There are no squirrels in my garden. If there is they die. My dogs hunt them for food. Both are smart, the dogs and the squirrels. The best and most patient execution I ever saw was dear Nuka to lay like dead for two hours to wait a squirrel come near enough. When it was just under a half meter far away Nuka attacked and killed it. Bad for the squirrels, good for the swallows. But swallows are more endangered than the squirrels so I guess that's ok. (Did you know the squirrels eat also meat like eggs and chicks?)

Squirrels know where my dogs get because very year survives at least one squirrel who is mousy enough and doesn't trust in its luck too much. They know where the borderlines are. They don't even climb my house walls or nest under the roof. The dogs bother them too much. 

That's why last autumn we decided to set up a nesting place for the swallows for the summer 2021. Swallows are quite picky for the nesting. That's why they are endangered. We used old left over timber for the nesting place but still at least this and next few years they may thing it is a trap. But we let it be there and offer them a possibility to get used to it. 

We set it up into the direction that has a proper airstrip. We also put it at warm but shadow place to hide the tiny ones from them most hottest heat of the day (well, frying your eggs is not very likely thread around here). But we also used the radiating heat from the sun to keep the tiny ones warm enough by placing it by our terrace deck (freezing your eggs is more likely option). It is also to the more calm and quiet direction of my garden. 

Exciting! 

Let's hope they'll accept the nesting board some year!

I keep you updated when something happens!

My Arctic Garden

You know we had rabbits in our garden. On 2015 we started to transfer my greenhouse to bunny house. Later on, the bunnies got old and we had to put them away. We planned to fix the bunny house's outdoor pen on summer 2020 and get more rabbits on spring 2021 after my final graduation. But then hit COVID-19 and our plans changed and Pii moved in. 

Having rabbits and 2 hunting dogs in the same garden would be far too exciting for the dogs and far too frightening to the rabbits. It is easy to control one hunting dog,  but when they get inspired to hunt together... oh my oh my.

Since we decided to have Pii I have been thinking what to do with my greenhouse. It is not as simple as it sounds. That's why my green house was at rest last summer. See...

I live on taiga. My exact location is just for about 100 km south from the arctic circle. That means I live at the edge of arctic area. More exactly -in this village- the wind blowing from Gulf of Bothnia hit first at my garden. Golf of Bothnia gets frozen and we need ice breakers over the winter season. That means it is not anything near something we could call a warm sea. All that means my garden is squeezed between the arctic area and freezing winds. It is pretty challenging. Without Gulf Stream here would be even colder. (Please, stop the global warming and climate change: when enough arctic ice melts it pours water into Gulf Stream, slows it down and at the end turns it to the opposite direction and them I am living in ice age!!! Now I am living only in a freezer, ha ha ha.) 

So, what's my problem with the green house? I need a heater for it if I desire to grow tomatoes or cucumber etc. I have learnt they never get ripen enough without extra heat. I can't use electricity to grow my own vegetables. I would need an electric wire for it. That's impossible because the dogs would dig it up or jump to take it down. Oil heater I don't want to use for environmental reasons.

This spring I learnt something and had an idea and that's why we decided to take my green house back for gardening purposes. I show it to you just in case if you want to grow something exotic but have too cold for it.

We used my old bunny nests to make plant boxes. We just turned them upside down. I put some news paper on the bottom. 

We didn't remove the inside walls of the bigger nest. The roots will seek their way through the doorways. He cut Finnfoam frost insulation sheet to cover the boxes inside.The Finnfoam pieces are not permanently attached to each other so they let extra water leak through from the seams. That's very important point because it prevents the water staying in the boxes and the roots get frozen.

It is ok the door ways don't have the wooden cover because there is this Finnfoam to keep the frost away. Finnfoam is strong and stays forever like Styrofoam or plastic.

This box is for the grapevine. It is new and bought from a hardware store. Grapevine!? Yes. I know, it is not for this climate at all. I had one long time ago but it got frozen. Oops! Now I am more competent and can create a frost insulated growing box for it. (I already have frost insulated floor in my green house because of the rabbits, remember...)

At the bottom of the boxes I put some branches. It's because I want to create some air pockets and form out a compost style structure for the soil of the boxes.Then I pour some old soil over the branches. At first I made sure nothing actually grows there anymore. (I picked up the bulbs for the further use.)

Then I pour in some fresh new compost. I fill the rest of the grapevine box like this. Grapevine needs a lot of nutrition.

There it is. My little grapevine Zilga. I donated three earthworms for it to make sure the soil stays good. We'll see if grapevine survives or not. At the moment it is the end of the spring, rainy and around +5 Celsius degrees. No night frost anymore but few days ago we had some snow that melt right away.

For my two other boxes I needed some rotten wood.

I covered the bottom of the boxes by the rotten wood for the same reasons as with grapevine. But also to create a growing environment that reminds forest. 

I have dreamed about blueberry shrubs since I heard about them. Despite our taiga forests are full of wild blueberries these shrubs are not planned to be grown here. It is too cold for them. Now I decided I could try out with them like I do with grapevine. Grapevine is for even warmer climates than blueberry shrubs so at least I could succeed with the blueberries. Then losing grapevine won't feel so bad.

Over the rotten wood I poured some soil to cover some air pockets, hide the wood and create compost-like layers in the boxes.

I water it all every now and then.

After that, I put some soil from the woods into these two boxes to create forest-like growing environment for my blueberry shrubs.

I filled all 3 rooms of the bigger nest in the same way despite I will plant only 2 blueberry shrubs into it. The roots will find their way...

This in NorthCountry.

These are NorthBlue.

They are just tiny plants but I count on it that everything always wants to grow and stay alive in the nature. I've learnt that, if nothing else, doing arctic gardening.

Now we just need to pamper them, wait and see what happens in the future!

AAW Fair Isle Socks No1

I decided to knit long woollen socks for Him from AAW in Fair Isle spirit. That's why I designed new pair of AAW socks. To knit them I used our own pale fog blue AAW yarn (50% our own ethic produced arctic angora wool, 40% ethic produced FinnSheep wool and 10% nylon) (100g = 238m) and grey Novita 7 veljestä yarn (75 % wool, 25% polyamide) (100g = 200m). I am going to knit another long par for him. I've actually started already. They'll be for the next winter. 

 

How do you do my loom?

I made the 1st try out to see if everything is correct for YougLady and her plans. Happy to notice everything is correct at first try! This gives an idea how it all is going to look out when finished... In theory... She chose different shades.

 

1st Time Ever

For the 1st time ever I've set up the loom ready for my child whose intention is to weave rugs for her "new home to become".  I try not to think about it. I knew the big change is about to face us again. Despite I don't know yet when it is stepping in I know it is about to come, sooner or later.

PS. Since Pii arrived she's been sleeping behind the loom. The loom has been resting with peace. It has been quite exciting setting up the loom and see what Pii thinks about it. So far she is happy with it because her nest is still there where it should be.

1st Day of May

We all wish you all very happy and cheery 1st of May!

Little Pii must have grown and to become a big girl...

...because poor Nuka had an accident on the 9th of April.

So far Nuka has been a bucket head for over 3 weeks now and it seems -despite the recovery and rehabilitation goes on well- we'll be going on like this at least for another 3 weeks. She is a dog that obeys me very extremely well but immediately if I take her plastic collar off she gets on to her wound. Anyway, she is happy because now she is allowed to play with Pii so they both are more than satisfied now.