Planning the garden

It seems to be coming together bit by bit out in the garden. It's much slower inside. Still haven't decided on wallpaper for the guest room or what the new floor is going to look like downstairs but I'm sure as soon as it gets to cold to do much outside it will get into full swing inside as well.

We staked out our vegetable plot last night before it got too dark to see what you were doing. For the ones who have seen it, it is somewhere in the region of 2 allotment plots or 7x8 meters. I have a hunch James will be eager to start digging it since he was the one dragging me out late last evening to get it done. The plan is simple. A large rectangle set between our biggest apple trees divided into 6 smaller beds with walkways made out of mulch roughly 50 cm wide in between. We are going to build frames of planks so it will be a bit raised and offer an option of having a grid of plastic tubes attached on top to hold up some fleece for those early vegetables to be protected from frost in spring and late autumn. The new hedge will be delivered within the next 2 weeks so got everything ready for that. Also the Mount Everest of soil has disappeared onto some tarpoling underneath one of the big fir trees we have. Plans are taking shape as what to do after we have dug around the house for new draining and seen that done. We had thought about putting down paving around the house to minimize all the weeds that now are growing very well in the sandy gravel closest to the house. It would work out much better I think and also the rain would drain away from the house as you would tilt the paving a bit. We are almost sure of that the 3 big fir trees have to come down. Right now there is a huge amount of space in our garden that is just sitting there in shadow not doing anything really and it is a bit gloomy as well. The trees are magnificent I agree and most certainly around 80 years old or maybe more but still.. Besides, on days like this, rainy and very windy, they are a bit scary. What if they are rotten inside and give way? Not such a pleasant thought.

Other garden news, the tomatoes are finally starting to ripen and I could pick 3 (!) for our salad yesterday. They are very sweet tasting yellow pear tomatoes. But they would have done better in a green house so I don't think many of them will be able to ripen on the vine since the weather has turned most significantly more autumn like the last couple of days. Nice and sunny, warmish yes but colder at night, much colder at night. I think there must have been a slight frost because my lovely Busy Lizzie on the porch had gone all limp one morning so it was off to the compost heap with that one. The others seem alright. The apples are getting tastier according to James. Got to see what we will do with them. I cant eat them raw and James usually gets tired of them after a few weeks of apple eating. And there is just so much you can do with them part from apple pie, apple sauce, apple cake, apple strudel and then you start all over again. Wish I'd now how to do cider or at least some apple juice, but it think it would involve a press and I don't have one. Things to wish for from Santa?

Little Mount Everest

That is what we now got on the lawn after we had a truck leave 10 cubic meters of lovely garden soil. We have tried to make a dent in it dispersing it into the hedge row to be and at least it shrunk a bit. We are going to add some to our existing hedge as well since there seems to be no top soil whatsoever left in it. Not even weeds grow in it!

At the moment James is dreaming sweet dreams happily snoring away in bed but I cant get to sleep. I think that big bold full moon might have something to do with it as well. Isn't it just lovely seeing how everything turns different in moonlight? It is light enough so I can see all of the garden without any help from the front porch lamp. You can tell it's a Saturday night. Slight screeching of car tires and an occasional acceleration roar beyond the railway track, but it is very calm on our street. At the moment..

We have decided to dig a little vegetable patch anyway this autumn. I really want somewhere to grow a little bit of vegetables next year. A few bushes of tomatoes really doesn't do the trick and I doubt there will be any runner beans this year. The soil was too poor for them to grow well. They are spindly little things not even a meter high even though I did fertilize the soil before planting them. Have to see what will grow well and what don't like it at all. At the moment the summer flowers are doing very well and the rose we bought earlier is now flowering with light pink semi filled flowers. The red sunflowers are all flowering looking quite stunning and my pink Silkesblomma is lovely when the sun is out but quite boring on a cloudy day since the flowers don't seem to open up then. We got some seeds from James grandma and we did manage to set one sort of them since we got started so late. I cant remember the English name for them but in Swedish it is Indian krasse, but they are out and have started to flower and shoot of long strands which are filling up by the wall of the old shop.

I think I might have a second go at this sleeping thingy or I'll be no good tomorrow when we are going to see my sister in Ludvika. God natt.

Long time no write and all that jazz..

We have been busy elsewhere, James too even though he is permanently declared a mini zombie by me after his 3 weeks long stretch of working early mornings and not going to bed when falling asleep on the sofa. Go to bed! I say and poke him quite violently and he says, in a minute, soon, and falls happily asleep anyway half laying over me making my watching the telly very uncomfortable indeed. We definitely need a bigger sofa and a lounge to house it. Good thing we are going to knock down a wall then isn't it you think. But by the time James has mustered the courage to knock it down with me we will be old and grey, or so it feels like at the moment. It's just a wall, not a load bearing one either but a thin pathetic partition one where they thieved a bit of the lounge to make a big walk-in-closet. But I think it is the cleaning up bit afterwards that have him scared. Not cleaning cleaning, but the getting a new flooring in and wallpaper the lounge since the wallpapers didn't match in the two rooms. He wants to wait until we know what the chimney chappy is billing us for fixing our trimmings and a rain cover that looks like a hedgehog and what the ventilation chappy is billing us for coming here taking a quick look saying he cant see anything wrong and we should call him again if it starts smelling of burnt rubber from the air outlet. So we are waiting and waiting and you all know how impatient I can be at this waiting malarky don't you... *grits teeth*

Oh, pictures are coming as soon as the batteries are charged enough and I can get my head around a picture view program with tantrum troubles. It wont let me see the thumbnails of the pictures in the camera or to download them to the computer! I'll be looking for a hammer in a minute..!