Shoots and leaves...
The whims and woes, highs and lows, of trying to grow fruit and veg in Nordic latitudes.
Tom is here for the weekend so we have the Incredible Hulk we needed to install a fence around the saskatoons. It's a huge job but we had all the materials: fencing, posts and the staples and the gates mostly acquired secondhand from various sources (mostly online). Now that everything is in place, I am tempted to move a few wooden boxes in there and grow some lettuce and radishes too! The jury is still out on whether the fence will keep the rabbits out. I think not. But if we can keep the deer and the elk out, then maybe we'll get some berries this year. When we had finally finished erecting the fence, we were able to remove the plastic tubes from the saskatoon plants and discovered that many of the bushes were flowering. Fantastic! Brilliant! The stems looks really strong - they have had to fight back from the devouring forces of the local fauna for several years. Now, at last, they can thrive without the plastic tubes. So why are we growing saskatoon berries? Well, they are suited to Nordic conditions and they are an excellent source of vitamins and anti-oxidants. They may not be native to Finland (neither are potatoes), but they do well here and they taste so good. I think the flavour is similar to cherry. They are also easy to grow, low maintenance (if you don't count installing the fence) and, as far as we know, are disease resistant and very hardy.
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It is still a bit too cold and damp to put in parsnips and carrots etc but I did sow some Early Purple Sprouting broccoli in a seed bed and another row of broad beans. I weeded the garlic again, the asparagus is coming through and hopefully we will soon be able to eat the first spears. This year we should get a good harvest as the plants are well established. The spears look much fatter than last year so the mulching has helped through the winter. We also have French sorrel coming through and the first of the rhubarb is almost ready. The visiting Slow Food foragers thought it very odd that I had a bucket over my rhubarb. But I just love those pale pink tender stems that come from forced rhubarb. The colour is so pretty and the thin stems can be chopped and baked in muffins - they don't produce as much liquid as the thick green stems.
The soft fruit bushes are looking really good this spring. I hope the wind calms down when the flowers bloom, so that our "workers" are able to do their job. The bees hate a strong wind. We're getting to grips with extending the vegetable garden. Peter ordered some peat last week and today he ploughed it into the clay and the whole area looks much more like it might actually be possible to grow something there!
When the boys have finished school, we'll get them out to help move the fence posts and then we can start building beds and transplanting some of the old plants into the new area. Peter has gone to Ylöjärvi for a "boys and toys" outing at the Avant factory. He didn't take the trailer so whatever he ends up buying has to fit in the boot of the Qashqai. Avant has moved into the old Pilkington factory and warehouse. They have all the diggers on display and there is a man-size sandpit in the middle so fully-grown adults can play with the machines. Anyway. it's terrific to see a Finnish engineering company go international. These are the companies that create real jobs. Meanwhile, Slow Food Helsinki came for a forage which was quite successful and after that went to Koskis farm in Salo to watch "Lehmalöikka" when the cows move out to their summer pastures. Pontius from the Köttkontrolen gastropub in Karis was there grilling pulled-beef burgers, so we had one of those for lunch. The cows are beautiful Herefords and the farm is in a wonderful location: it's a beautiful place with a lot of history and truly sustainable ethics.
We stopped in Backers bakery in Bollstad (near Fiskars) on the way back - I bought some of their new sourdough bread and some cardammon crispbread and then I came home and the others went on to Karis to visit Köttkontrolen. A busy day, it was exhausting being out in the wind all day but it was nice to go somewhere new, and fun being in a group. On Saturday it just poured with rain all day so we went to Fiskars for lunch at Wärdhus (whitefish and asparagus with spinach and lemon) and visited to Red Cross fleamarket (got a book) and then went on to Billnäs to visit the fleamarket there. Peter got another axehead for his collection.
Couldn't do much in the garden though. I did some weeding before the rain started but otherwise spent the day indoors cleaning the cabin. It's still too early to plant things like French beans. Today, Sunday, was more productive. We tapped a couple of birch trees and then did some more digging in the vegetable garden. We went up to Rosendal where Peter sowed the tansy field next to the house while I cleaned indoors. Got up late (it's Vappu - the May Day holiday) and decided to repair the holes in the polytunnel. Standing outside the cabin with the sun shining on the plastic tunnel, it appeared that the poles had ripped through the sheeting on the roof of the tunnel. With wails of impending doom we ran into the tunnel only to discover that the tunnel was in fact intact - an optical illusion, rather weird. But anyway, we fixed all the small holes on the sides of the tunnel with the magic tape from the UK.
Then Peter dug another drainage ditch through a very damp area towards the southern end of the tunnel. Meanwhile I split and transplanted some perennial herbs: chives, sage and tarragon. We are extending the vegetable garden and will change the layout of the whole area. Obviously the asparagus, rhubarb, garlic (planted last autumn) and the sorrel will stay where they are but everything else has been cleared out and we are redesigning the beds before we install the new fence. I moved the "green" blackcurrant outside the garden where all the others are. We dug up one blackcurrant that looked like it had big bud mite and threw it in the bin (not on the compost). I'm amazed at how good the earth is in the vegetable garden now compared to a few years ago when we first started growing vegetables here. We must be doing something right. Peter also spent a few hours on the tractor (the neighbours must love us) ploughing the lower fields on the Rosendal side. The earth there is rich and fertile, way better than the clay in Ovanträsk. These are difficult fields to manage as there is willow and marsh tea pushing through all over. We are going to try planting clover and using the fields to graze the sheep in the autumn. Before we can do that we need to widen the ditches around the fields so the sheep can't wander into the forest. It's nice and warm in the polytunnel so we decided to plant the butternuts.
Harrier Hunter Waltham Hurricane Autumn crown (a round butternut) As usual we plant them quite close together as some will not germinate and we can always sell plants if we have too many or just pull them up. The seeds are planted about 3-4 cm deep on a ridge of earth that runs north-south through the tunnel. They will trail into the centre of the tunnel. We will have to water them by hand for a while until we get the pump fixed but there is so much moisture in the ground, it won't be a problem for a while. Peter got Stefan and his friends out of bed at 5am to get the plastic up over the tunnel before the wind got up. Just in time -they managed to get the ropes fixed before it got too breezy. Now the ground will warm up really quickly during the day and we'll be able to start planting next weekend.
I was working today so Fred helped Peter to plant the Timo (early new potatoes). Just one row of 25 seed poatatoes.
They are covered with fleece as we will have more frosts.. We bought a sack of Timo seed potatoes and I set them out in egg cartons to chit.
Given how warm it is (+10C forecast for this afternoon) and the fact that the snow has melted, we are hoping to get them in the ground before Vappu (1 May). This will hopefully guarantee a few new potatoes for Juhannus (mid-summer). Timo is the most popular new potato in Finland. They don't keep, their best flavour is straight from the ground into the pot. I've had trouble getting the tomatoes to germinate, it is just not hot enough in our house (we are quite frugal with the heating), so I ended up plugging in an old radiator and sitting them on top of that for a couple of days. Now the Moneymaker are all through but no sign of Shirley so I'll probably give up on them and buy plants (as usual). I just have to remember to buy my plants early: last year I left it way too late.
The aubergines, peppers, herbs (except the parsley) and salad are all through. I also repotted the artichokes that I retrieved from the root cellar. I needed huge pots as the roots are quite substantial and I didn't want to cut them down to size. I have a rough plan for the rest. Will start sowing the winter squash and the brassicas soon, but most of the root veg will be sown direct in situ. The parsley will be planted out in the vegetable garden in May.
The Little Gem lettuce will go into a raised bed in the cooler end of the polytunnel (as soon as the weather warms up) I will keep the watercress indoors: the water needs to be changed regularly and the shoots need to be cut and used to keep the plants growing. If successful I might try growing some outdoors, in one of the springs or streams in Pojo but they would have to be protected from the wildlife! I have also planted some Microleaf Radish Sangria - radishes that are grown for the shoots and eaten on salads or in sandwiches (a bit like cress). These are grown on kitchen paper on a tray and can be cut after 7-14 days. Presumably they taste like radishes: slightly peppery. I retrieved my globe artichokes from the root cellar where I had been storing them in shoe boxes filled with dry peat. They are already sprouting so I will pot them up (indoors) and nurture them until it is warm enough to put them outside. Great they survived the winter. (I grew these from seed last year).
In the garden the garlic has come through and the first few sorrel leaves have appeared. I looked under the mulch for asparagus but none in sight yet. The new raspberries have been decimated by the rabbits. They also finished off all the brussels sprouts (I don't mind so much). Peter spent some time fixing the frame of the polytunnel which has suffered during storms this winter. We are now considering building a wind buffer on the southern end of the tunnel. It's amazing that even WITHOUT the plastic, the frame still catches the wind enough to lift the whole structure off its foundations. The shipping container is in good shape and nice and dry inside. We used it for storing all the bee and honey equipment during the winter. I wasn't going to bother sowing tomatoes but then I remembered that last year I really struggled to find decent plants. My fault entirely since I left it too late to go shopping. We'll see how these do, I can always buy some plants later if these don't germinate. Moneymaker. 150-200 cm vine tomato for the greenhouse. Planted 32 seeds in plastic pots, two per pot + seed compost. Shirley F1. Another greenhouse tomato or similar dimensions to Moneymaker but should crop earlier. Planted 6 seeds, planted singly in plastic pots + seed compost |
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