Starting seeds

For the last two years, I have grown the fast majority of my vegetables from seeds started in the garden. Most by directly planting them in the beds, the more sensitive ones in pots and flats to be transplanted later. Tomatoes have been the major exception; I bought a couple of plants last year and got some more from my brother-in-law.

Last year the results were quite a bit better than in 2009, mainly due to a rather warm April and beginning of May. The year before, there was still snow until the mid of April and soil temperatures remained cold. To play it save, and have some guaranteed produce in the first summer months (when longing for fresh vegetables is the strongest after a long cold winter) I am strongly considering starting seeds from a number of different vegetables in side this year in pots.

Since we are rather limited in space, living in a small appartment and have two boys with an abundance of destructive energy it will have to be a limited operation for now. I am considering getting four or maybe five trays maximum. I envision putting two in our living room close to one of our big windows (and maybe I can sneak in a third...). The others would go on our south-east facing balcony which gets quite a bit of sun, and where they will be protected from the worst cold. If there's cold spells, I could either move the balcony flats inside overnight, or use some protective covering.

It is still too early to get started, at least unless I want to have half a forest in our living room. We're quite a bit away from possible last frost dates, but it is never to early to starting thinking and planning. So, I am gearing up for a quick trip to the gardening center to get some seed starting trays and seed starting soil (which is actually not really soil). I strongly doubt I will be able to resist the urge to buy some more seeds while at the gardening center; like I need any more....

Nice harvest

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time this week to visit the garden. Either the weather was too bad, or our schedule too tight. I will probably have time to go later this afternoon, and for a more substantial period tomorrow.

Regardless, I already had a good gardening day today -- I visited the used books section at the thrift shop on the other side of the road and scored four books.

The first one is a 45 year old book on the growing of strawberries; the book isn't too big but enough to have information from beginner level to experts. Lets hope the knowledge will help me to boost next years strawberry harvest!!

The second one I found is about pruning fruit trees. I have still quite a bit to learn in that department, so it is a very useful find. It has a surprisingly large section about the different tools to be used for pruning so I guess I'll have some

more things to add to my Christmas list. I will also still

need to find some literature about the pruning of soft fruit bushes, though that seems to be a little more trivial then the trees.

The third book I scored is one with 88 tips for the

vegetable gardener, lots of illustrations and schemes. It also seems to

go nicely into the different diseases and afflictions of and the potential remedies or ways to prevent those.

The nicest book I found is one which is titled "Old Garden Knowledge Newly Discovered" (that's a rough translation). It seems to be a collection of small facts and tips; one that astonished me a bit is the recommendation to bury some sweet water fish under tomato plants. I am sure there will be lots of these little facts. Even if I won't use them, it will probably be an interesting and amusing read.

As an afterthought, they are, evidently, all in German. It will take me a while to read through them -- and I seem often to get stuck in getting which particular fruit/vegetable they talk about.

Weather issues

Weather has been rather weird here the last couple of months, and is seldom in accordance with the predictions. For one, we had snow until late in March which prevented planting of many early harvest crops.

We experienced a first drought period with warm weather in the end of May and beginning of June, which gave many plants severe growth delays, though I guess we were lucky there was quite a bit of moisture left in the ground for some plants with deeper reaching roots to survive. Last week it was unseasonably cold; this week warmer weather was predicted but instead a rain front has arrived.

Regardless, we have been lucky enough to harvest quite a few fruits and vegetables so far. Salads are of course a main crop and grace our dinner table virtually every night. Peas and green manche-touts have been served several times now. Last week I picked the first courgette with more to follow this week if the weather permits.

It turned out we had quite a few rhubarb plants, so we have eaten it in several different forms, and there's quite a few jars with rhubarb marmalade and strawberry/rhubarb marmalade waiting in the cellar for times when fresh fruit is less abundant. The strawberry bed we inherited was actually quite a mess, so we transplanted about 90 plants in April;we got some hands full of berries from them, but tried to pinch out most of the berries to get them settled properly hoping for a nice harvest next year. The remaining plants in the old bed gave us around 5 pounds, which I guess we can't complain about. The bed has now been cleaned out, and another 50 plants have been transplanted (current rain should do them good!!).

Our red currant bush did quite well. I had never seen one before that had been grafted, but apparently it works quite well. The berries mostly ended up in a mixed berry marmalade which also include josta-berries, strawberries and raspberries. We are currently waiting for the Logan and blackberries to ripen, which shouldn't take too much longer, depending on the weather.

Our cherry tree bloomed wonderfully in early spring, and many cherries appeared. Unfortunately, the bird population of Zurich seems to have had quite some nice parties among ours, and those of the neighboring gardens, so we ended up with just a couple of handfuls. Our plum tree didn't even bloom, so there's nothing there. They are Reine Claude's, a variety that's hardly available on the market, but supposed to have a great taste. We can only hope for next year....

Our small apple tree did quite well, though I removed about two thirds of the budding apples not too challenge the tree too much. With a bit of luck it should be able to give lots of apples in a couple of years, even though it is not ideally placed.

Last, but not least on the fruit front are the grapes. I am utterly inexperienced with them, and had thought I had pruned them rather rigorously this winter. It seems I have to be even more merciless because they are putting shoots in every direction imaginable, but there's relatively few grapes....

I'll try to post some photos next time around.

Did add one single photo.