A Garden Update
Our grapes!
We had a couple of short work weeks in April, and luckily, the weather was lovely! So, we spent our long weekends out in the garden trying to make it a little more presentable. We planted several summer bulbs out the front. We also created a little shaded garden under the staircase outside. We planted ferns, bromeliads and Japanese Fatsia. It’s not finished yet. There’s plenty more space for more plants! There’s a little paved walkway between the house and the staircase leading to the back of the house, and now it’s much more inviting.
When we tidied up the flower bed borders for the bulbs, we ended up cutting back a bit of the grass. So we transplanted those cuttings to a patch on one side of the house in the hopes they will grow and spread. Right now, we have a grass-like weed growing there. It grows fast and it is super patchy, so it doesn’t look great when it’s long or when it’s mown. Here’s hoping our ‘hair transplant’ takes!
On the other side of the house, we’ve had loads of wild flowers, including three-cornered leek, which is completely edible! I added the roots and flowers to several salads and used the stems and leaves to make pesto. It’s absolutely amazing to have such a great, free source of nutrients growing in the garden like a weed! We decided to keep that area wild. It’s under our big trees - a fig and a walnut, and it feels like a little woodland. I love it.
I sowed some dwarf morning glory seeds and pansies, and the tiny shoots started to appear just after a few days. It is so thrilling! It’s been a few weeks since, and the dwarf morning glory has taken off. We have come to the realisation that maybe it’s not necessary to sow the entire packet of seeds. 😅 We didn’t expect so many of them to take! At the moment, we have approximately 120 dwarf morning glory plants growing. 🙈 Hilarious!
Up on the balcony railing, we have hanging baskets with strawberries, green onions and a variety of mint. They are doing SO WELL. I love green onions, but it is incredibly hard to find them here. I knew from last year that in April-May, you could find them, roots and all, at the market. So we made sure to go and buy a bunch to repot at home, and it has worked beautifully! Last year they didn’t take at the apartment, but this year they get sun all afternoon and evening. I’ve also paired them with the mint, and they seem to like it - they are thriving! My only regret is not buying the whole basket of spring onions for 10 euros when the lady offered it. What was I thinking, rejecting that offer!? I won’t make the same mistake next year.
The grapes are coming in beautifully! It’s a really pretty site and so exciting. Our neighbours advised us to go around and remove any lower branches that didn’t have flowers so the plant could reserve its energy for the fruiting branches. So we did that as well.
Next steps
I need to do something at the back of the house. It’s a massive, mostly windowless wall, and it looks drab. I’m picturing a mix-and-match display of ornamental pots filled with flowers, herbs and maybe some cacti and succulents. What it really needs is a massive trellis with climbing flowering plants. I know exactly what I want, but we do hope to add external insulation on the house in the next couple of years… So, would it be a waste to build the trellis and grow the plants now? I don’t know…
We’re also hoping to put in two veggie garden beds towards the back of the house. I’m thinking tomatoes, lettuce, garlic and chives for starters. We have a lot to learn about gardening! We’ll see how it goes.
We had to prune back our walnut away from some electrical wires, so we have ended up with quite a bit of firewood. We’re thinking of maybe making the garden beds semi-raised. This might be a dumb idea, but we have so much wood and even more cardboard, so we thought of digging a massive trench, filling it with the wood and cardboard and then putting the soil back in over that. So, it will be slightly raised… does that sound pointless? The wood will decompose and add to the soil nutrients, but the soil quality seems pretty good as it is… On the other hand, the raised garden bed might be better for our backs, and maybe they’ll be a little bit more protected from the dogs… I don’t know… it could be a lot of work for very little return. Any thoughts or advice? Please send them my way!
And finally, we’ve applied for a licence to drill a borehole so we can water our future lawn. We want to cover the entire middle ‘field’ at the back with grass. It used to be a corn field, but we won’t be cultivating any massive amounts of vegetables, so a lawn seems far more useful and practical for us. But we need to water it! And preferably cheaply, hence the borehole. So that’s in the works, too.
That’s all for now! Unfortunately, I don’t feel comfortable showing the front yard for privacy reasons. But I’ll try to get photos and videos of some of the garden to share on Instagram stories. Stay tuned for live updates over there!
I have plans for the next blog post, too, so hopefully I’ll see you back here very soon.
Take care!
