Eli's Garden

Elina | Finland

[aijatar]

Started some colourful corn with my sister, since she's planting the three sisters garden this year for a school project. We both thought the seeds I got from a small independent seed company looked pretty damn cool. I guess in America they call these glass gem corn?

[elisgarden]

Peppers!!

Mostly bell peppers, but also one chili variety. I want to try drying them and making chili powder, we don't really use chili pepper in any other form.

[elisgarden]

Squash harvest after a few days of rain 😁

[collapsethelight]

[elisgarden]

It's been so damn hot, the broccoli went to seed. I think I'm gonna try to plant a second batch, have myself a fall garden of broccoli and radishes.

In happier news, the watermelons have started to make fruit. Cross my fingers for a bigger yield than last year; out of four plants I got one single tiny melon.

[elisgarden]

The best breakfast is strawberries straight from the garden.

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The first blushing bell pepper of the year!

[elisgarden]

A couple days ago I finally gathered my seedlings and headed out to plant my three sisters garden (holy shit I was so late with this). Living in Finland, I have to start my maize inside a couple weeks before I plant it outside (this year I was late in both starting the seeds and planting them out). I've always had spotty luck getting beans to germinate too and so I decided to try to start them inside as well. Success!

The toilet roll pots were somewhat mushy but the bottoms were easy to fold open. Super simple to plant them, I think they saved me a fair bit of work. I'll be using them next year too, thanks @turtlesandfrogs !

The maize roots were a huge tangle, and to get one pot out I had to macgyver all the pots around it to get the root out, but it was so easy to just slip them into the ground. Usually when I plant out started maize it all falls down and looks just truly sad for a few days before picking up.

This tiny mushroom was a lovely surprise!

And this is how everything looked like yesterday, a couple days after planting. I was a bit worried the beans would shock, since I've always been told they don't like to be transplanted, but they seem to be doing well!

[plantyhamchuk]

Eighteen million trees to be planted around Glasgow

The aim of the Clyde Climate Forest is to increase woodland cover from 17% to 20% over the next 10 years.

FTA: “George Anderson, from the Woodland Trust, told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme that interconnecting woodland would help wildlife.

“We are seeking to link up existing woodlands as far as possible,” he said. “One of the great problems that wildlife has is that habitats like woodland are very fragmented and that means wildlife can’t move around as easily as it should.”

‘Vast undertaking’

He said the Woodland Trust would ultimately like to see a network of woodland from Helensburgh to Lanark.

“But we are looking at making a native forest wherever we can,” he said. “It’s a really vast undertaking so we are looking for everyone to get on board in the wider region.

“Mr Anderson said trees could be planted in streets or in former industrial or mining areas as well as in the countryside or on the edges of farming land.

"We are looking to plant trees wherever we can get at the moment because of climate change,” he said. “Glasgow is hosting COP26 in November. This is Glasgow making a commitment to reaching net zero.

"He said a variety of native species would be planted to bring benefits to wildlife as well as capturing carbon.

"We just hope people will get involved and make a better future for the area and the planet,” he added.”

[fennopunk]

I finally checked what garlic mustard's name is in Finnish where it is from, and you know what? Garlic mustard is a prime example of why you should always check if certain plant is non-native and/or invasive IN YOUR AREA or not. As it turns out, garlic mustard IS native to where I live and culturally important in that. So while those "Death to Garlic Mustard" shirts are cool and important and all, they are not at all accurate here. Non-native and invasive species don't pop out from the vacuum, they come from somewhere else and odds are that they are not invasive there.

The name in Finnish is 'litulaukka' btw, and I did know of it before, I just never made the connection with the English name.

[fennopunk]

An example of the reverse is lupins. Many lupins are native to the North and South America and are important part of the ecology in their native ranges, but they are invasive and dangerous to the ecology notably in Finland and New Zealand.

[elisgarden]

~Potatoes are planted~

Is this too much? Tune in next september as we find out! I do believe so, but the executive decision wasn't mine.

Last year we planted faaaar too much at dad's insistence, and definitely reaped what we sowed (pun absolutely intended). The harvest was prolific. There's still a ridiculous amount of potatoes in the root cellar - we pulled out ten baskets to sow and there must be at least another ten still left. Probably more like fifteen.

[elisgarden]

Plant happenings, 8.5.2021!

The tomatoes have overgrown my expectations and also my table, so they've been sent to plant jail - the unheated half of the house, where it's about 10°C. They've been there a couple of days and their growth has slowed down a lot, thank goodness.

Toilet roll pots! @turtlesandfrogs made a post about these so I've been saving rolls all spring and today I folded the last of them into shape.

And here we have my summer squash and cucumber seeds that I planted three days ago. Idk, maybe I'll end up planting a few more cucumbers, we'll see.

[elisgarden]

Sometimes Mustikka will close her eyes and rest her head in the crook of my arm and snuffle there, content. I know it's because I've spent lots of time sitting on my favourite rock in the pasture, giving them scritches like this, and she's used to me being a comfortable lean-to, but it never fails to warm my heart. This sheep likes me! Look at her being super adorable! She trusts me so much! She used to be the easily spooked one and now look at her.

[elisgarden]

Gonna have lots of pumpkins this year!

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Planting potatoes 🌱

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This little weirdo grew three first leaves 😂

[elisgarden]

I love to peruse Baker Creek's seed catalogue online and stare at the many varieties on offer in jealousy. Here in Finland we don't have much variety when it comes to seeds - it's the basic classics and some f1 hybrids and not much else. Your best bet for a little extra variety is Nelson Garden, and this is what you get: four seeds total. I'm a little miffed; I'm used to Nelson Garden seed packages being like 4,5€ for four or five seeds but this was a cheaper f1 hybrid that I thought might have more seeds than that.