Oh Deer!

I came home pretty much at dusk today, and barely 10 minutes after I had walked through the door, my husband and I were telling each other about our day when he stopped mid-sentence and pointed outside. To our surprise and delight, a young deer was standing in our backyard, eating from the ground under the bird feeder! We tried to take pictures, but it's quite difficult at this time of the day. Those are the best ones I could get.

Right under the bird feeder

SO cute!

It stayed there a long time and eventually walked to the apple tree (small tree in the middle of the first picture). We sometimes throw apples or pieces of apple out there. I guess the deer must have enjoyed finding fruit in this cold snowy weather. 

After a little while, it walked back to where it was at first and layed down to rest! It was soooo cute! When we looked again about half an hour later, it was laying under the apple tree... and then some time later, it had gone. 

We've seen birds, squirrels, mice and similar, as well as a marten, hares and hedgehogs on our lot before, but it's the first time we see a deer! I'm going to throw more apples out there, that's for sure!

Mother Nature's mood swings

I wish I was just about to share pictures of the progress with the new greenhouse, but apparently, the few comfortable sunny days we had last week were just a tease. Mother Nature decided to share her mood swings with us and paint everything white again for a little while. Temperatures dropped again just under freezing point, and our greenhouse project came to a temporary halt.

Winter is back

So that was a little bit disappointing and surprising. I do not remember ever seeing snow in March in Denmark! Oh well, I've waited this long to have my greenhouse, I'm sure I can wait a couple more weeks. ;)

In the meantime, nothing is stopping me from starting the season indoors by the windows. A few weeks ago, I sowed cape gooseberry and 3 kinds of chili peppers They need to be sowed early as they take a long time to get to maturity. Some of the chili sprouted about a week ago and are growing nicely. I'm always so excited to see the young plants in the early season!

Chili "apache" 10/03/2013

This weekend, I sowed a few kinds of tomato and 5 kinds of herbs: Green and red basil, thyme, oregano and parsley. According to the little packets, they can all be sowed at this time of the year. I just hope the seeds I had leftover from last year were still usable and will sprout. I am not 100% sure that they were kept in the best conditions. I guess I will know soon enough. If nothing comes up, I'll have learned something!

herb tray

For sowing my things, I use mostly small plastic pots that I've kept over time when buying small plants or whatnot. I place them into plastic trays that are recycled from the kitchen. Ground meat plastic packs, for exemple, make perfect trays, as long as they are very well cleaned. I'm also always very interested by any transparent packaging. My herbs are sowed into empty grape packs. I find them perfect, as they already have small openings both on the bottom and top, and I can close them to create mini greenhouses! I've used them last year and found that I got good results. They are placed into the bottom part of a mini greenhouse, which transparent top broke last year.

Next time I go into a sowing round, though, I will probably use paper pots made of newspaper, since I now have used all my plastic ones. However, I'm still trying to figure out where I will place them, as I am also running out of windowsill space! Oh well, it's part of the charm of very early Spring. :)

Bitter Sweet

Well, I never had such a difficult decision to take in the garden, but after getting opinions from a lot of family members and friends, (Thank you!!)  the location for the greenhouse was decided, and a tree I really liked had to come down. But it is all for a good cause. The extra enjoyment we will get from placing the greenhouse exactly on that spot will all be worth it. To help me move on from seeing my tree come down, I took some cuttings, dipped them into rooting medium and put them in soil in the hope that I will be able to grow a new tree. :)

Bye bye tree

"Only" the stump to remove now. There's no going back

So the tree is gone, but on a very happy note, my greenhouse arrived today!!! I never had anything so big delivered to my door before. It was very impressive to see such a big truck turn onto our little blind street and park in front of our house. Then the whole side and roof of the trailer rolled open! With spot lights inside, it looked like a concert stage! Then a big hydrolic lift / arm / crane controlled by the delivery man picked up the huge heavy packs and carefully put them down on our lawn. It was an experience in itself to see it all happen!

Wooohooo!!! It's here!

The whole trailer opens up!

Impressive!

My greenhouse-to-be!!! 

Yayyy! Let the fun begin!

Opinion Needed

 Hello to each of you who take the time to read my blog, and thank you! :)

Today, I have a favour to ask of you. I need your opinion regarding the location of our new greenhouse. Note that its dimensions are 309 cm in width, 457 in length and 201 in height at the lowest point, and 272 cm in height at the highest point. It is a fairly big one!

As shown 2 entries ago, the first location idea would be by the first terrace, close to the house, easy access, full sun and where we would always see it from our dining room. It involves, among other things, removing a couple of shrubs, which we were going to remove anyway (growing into the house and such issues). It also involves opening up the terrace (removing the fence) and eventually adding tiles to make the greenhouse and terrace work as a whole. However, my husband is a little afraid it would come to look quite cluttered. However, it would be close to the garden area and very easy to just step in the greenhouse to water some plants or sit with a cup of tea in the early season.

First location idea

The greenhouse would be right in front of the photograph there, with the door facing the terrace as soon on the plan above

Idea of how it would be placed. The fence would be gone. The proportions may be off

The second location would be by the second terrace, away from the house, still easy access and pretty much full sun. I like the idea as the greenhouse would be more out of the way and we wouldn't have to look at it in the winter when it doesn't actually look that good and that charming! However, it involves removing a plum tree that I really like, and I admit it hurts a bit to think about it. Then again, it pains me every time we have to cut down a tree. :(  But I admit the location would actually be ideal for a greenhouse, and as you can see on the drawing, this tree is actually placed very close to the edge of our garden. Perhaps it would need to be removed at some point anyway.

Second location idea

The greenhouse would go pretty much where that tree is. Our actual house is to my left on this picture

Again, proportions may be off, and of course the tree would be gone

What would you do? Is it silly to avoid a location just because of a tree? Should I get over it and just be happy about getting that greenhouse up? 

Thank you in advance for your input. Both my husband and I need this little help in taking the right decision, and we are curious to hear what you think about it. :)

Spring Signs

Despite being very busy with school work these days, I managed to take a round in the garden to see if anything is going on. I was so happy to see that some things are starting to grow again. So it has started! Spring is trying to get through, and it is about to win!

Chives has started to grow, as well as parsley.

chives (I can't get the picture to rotate!)

Fresh parsley

Parsley just starting

I was very surprised to find out that my rhubarb is still alive and starting to peak. It was in a pot last year, all summer (and then all winter!). I neglected to put it in ground, as I never really came to a decision as to where it would be the happiest. I thought I had lost the plant, but nope! It's still there, and this year, it will come in ground as soon as possible! (Oops, forgot to take a picture of that one!)

Another nice surprise was garlic! Last year, I read that garlic can grow again if you plant the top back in soil after cutting it. So I tried that. I put some garlic tops in pots on the terrace and honestly forgot about them during winter. But today, I noticed they are growing! It worked!

Garlic growing from "recycled" garlic tops!

It is so fun to start seeing some life in the garden again. It only gets better and better from now on. Mmmmm, my taste buds are already looking forward to all the delicious fresh herbs and vegetables!

Big Project!!

Last year, my husband and I started planning a big project for the garden, but unfortunately had to set it all aside for a while. A few weeks ago, we put the project back on the table and after much researching and shopping around, I am extremely happy and excited to announce that we will soon be putting up a greenhouse in our garden!!! I've dreamed about one since a good while before we moved to Denmark, and I can't believe it will finally happen! We placed the order a few days ago, and in less than 2 weeks from now, it should be delivered at our door. Needless to say, I can't WAIT to prepare the place, put it all together and finally be able to use my new greenhouse!

Last time we went to the greenhouse showroom, I came back with my first related accessories.

A sowing/replanting tray, a PH reader and a couple of seed envelopes

Here's a rough drawing of our lot and an idea of where we want to place the greenhouse.

The plan is to remove everything that is to the left of "terrace 1", to open the way. There are bushes and plants that need to be removed or moved. There's also a fence on that side of the terrace that needs to come down. When that is all done, we will start preparing the actual spot for the greenhouse itself. We need to remove grass and dig and a few steps that I won't explain now. This location is very sunny, so it should be very good for the purpose. :)

Eventually, we will also patch the old garden patch and sow grass again, and make a new garden area next to the house. It's brighter than one might imagine as there's sun on that spot many hours a day in the warm season. I'm hoping that both the greenhouse and our house will offer extra protection on windy days. I think this year, we'll make it a garden patch, but eventually, the idea is to have high beds in stead. But we'll come back to that at a later time.

At some point in the future, we would like to redo the paving on both terraces. When that happens, we will make the terrace go all the way to the greenhouse door, and a little bit on the side of the house, so it will all be part of one big area. That, too, is a thing of the future. But if we can just get the greenhouse up this year, that will already be a big accomplishment (and expense, I must say).

I will share and explain every step of the process on here. So stay tuned! :)

Happy Early Spring!

An Inuksuk in my garden

What exactly IS an inuksuk?

An inuksuk (plural inuksuit) is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America.

The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or to mark a food cache.Despite the predominant English spelling as inukshuk, both the Government of Nunavut and the Government of Canada through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada are promoting the Inuit-preferred spelling inuksuk.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuksuk 

"The mysterious stone figures known as inuksuit can be found throughout the circumpolar world. Inukshuk, the singular of inuksuit, means "in the likeness of a human" in the Inuit language. They are monuments made of unworked stones that are used by the Inuit for communication and survival. The traditional meaning of the inukshuk is "Someone was here" or "You are on the right path."

source: http://www.inukshukgallery.com/inukshuk.html

The Inuksuk is not directly in our culture in the southern part of Canada, but it certainly is in the culture of the northern part of my homeland, and in my family, well, we like them! My dad has this tradition of building a little inuksuk wherever he goes on vacation. It's his "marque de passage"... a fun "I was here" note. I remember he made a small one the very first time he and my mother were in Denmark. It stood on the windowsill of the summerhouse where we stayed. I wonder how many new visitors it greeted.

When my parents and grandmother visited us in Denmark in July 2012, my grandma built a small inuksuk out of some of the stones that were covering a part of our lot. Even after my family were gone back home and for the remaining of the summer, this little 15 cm high mark of their visit stood on the side of our driveway, looking out for visitors and passer-by's.

At Fall, when my husband and I decided to get the stones removed and sow grass in stead, little inuksuk was in danger, standing right by the edge of the stone covered area. So I carefully picked it up and placed it safely in the shed, making sure it didn't loose any part of its fragile construction. It stood there all winter and today, I finally brought it inside and glued it together, to immortalize this little token of my grandmother's visit to my adoptive country.

Inuksuk built by Grandma - summer 2012

My biggest inspiration and drive for having a vegetable garden are the memories I have of my grandparents' garden when I was a child. It was always so beautiful and successful. Among other things, I remember the freshly picked carrots we got when we visited. My grandma or grandpa would dig them up, wash them with the hose and we'd play outside munching on the fresh root. My grandpa has been watching over us from above for a few years now (love you grandpa xox), but I feel so extremely lucky that my grandmother was able to visit us in Denmark and see where we live and even see my very first garden. She gave me tips, too! She lives in Canada so she can't be here all the time to guide me in the garden, but I want her inuksuk to stand and watch as I (hopefully) learn and gain gardening experience, year after year... Someday, I want a vegetable garden like the one my grandparents had back in the days. :)