SelfSufficiant Gardenventure in eastern Germany

Mandy Onderwater

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Ooh hate that. It's the kind of weather where you can never feel quite warm enough.

I would love to send you some of our heat! We're set to get a heatwave. On Monday they estimate 37 degrees Celcius in the nearest town, which usually means we are set to get temperatures in the early 40's. Not looking forward to that 😰
 

Lunai

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Good day everyone!

Today I just went real quick through the garden taking some pics of what's blooming right now at the end if winter. Have a look:

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Lunai

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Today not an update from my garden but another favorite pastime and hobby of mine: knitting.

I've had a giant project running that cost me 2-4hr daily from sept-nov last year, and another 4h straight the day before before yesterday 😅

A dreamcatcher, but in XXXXXXL 🤣🙈🤣
Have a look at it, the black box underneath is a standard-sized printer 🖨. The dreamcatcher something short over 1,20m in diameter and around 3,80m perimeter 😍😳😍
It's so big... it almost didn't fit in our compact car...🤣🙈🤣🙈🙈🙈
Tomorrow I'll add some pics of it hanging with its tassles on the final wall.
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Mandy Onderwater

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Oh my - it's beautiful!

I'm trying to learn how to crochet, but I haven't had the time to sit down and really learn it properly. I've found that knitting often does leave prettier end results though.
It looks like your dreamcatcher was well worth the effort :D
 

Lunai

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Mega update incoming!

Hello everyone 👋😁

As I was utterly buisy these last few weeks, and the weather was quite qeird too (snow -5, next day +5 sunshine snow melting, next day windy and rainy... everything possible mixed up including Rainstorms...🙄🫣) I haven't had time to properly update the stuff going on at the garden.

It's march so we're slowly but surely going into spring (northern hemisphere) 🌱🌿🌹🌼 horray! But frost still can happen so we can't plant everything... (last frost date is mid may) But there is still stuff that actually can get started or rather needs to get started:

I've purchased a bunch of flowers that vary in growth hight to start the new bed around the pond where the bridge will go.
these are just the last flowers that went in. There are already a bunch of flower bulbs in ground such as Sparaxis (more in the foreground), and diferent types of allium (at the back of the bed).
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There is also a new garden center around the corner 😃😍🥰 3 problems with that:
I don't have enough money.....
...don't have enough space...
...transport vehicle is too small...
The flowers/bushes/trees are soooo pretty there. I really would like to buy more from there but....😅🫣
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these are roses btw. from front to back where the next tree is located
very beautiful magnolia :heart:😍😍 The flowerbuds ae as big as my whole hand (around 20 cm in lenght)
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and rows after rows of fruit trees, here the sweet cherry types we plan on planting:
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problem no.3: transport vehicle too small 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Our own apricot tree has started blooming a week ago despite my heavy pruning last autumn. They are so pretty😍😍😍
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Our banana experiment thrives on my citchen windoesill:
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The sweetpotatoes in preparation to beeing planted outside are doing fine as well. Since our climate is much colder we need to start the vine indoor, then multiply it via cuttings about two weeks before planting it outside to get any results at all. that's also more of a side experiment.
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Inbetween we did a quick trip across germany to my soul sister and godmother of my daughter and also visited her/my horses:
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These are pics of some of the Tomato and Peperoni seedlings. Doing fine on the windowsill, but next year I'll need a good quality growing light... no funds this year, will have to work like that😅🤷‍♀️
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And finally we had last sunday a garden date where everyone helped: planting potatoes 🥳🤩🥳
We planted 3 different types:
Queen Anne is an early cropping, semiy hardboiling variety. If all goes well we schould get the harvest around June.
Paroli is a mid-long cropping also semi-hardboiling variety. Should be ready around August-September.
Laura is a lso a mid-long cropping, semi-hardboiling variety and should be ready August-September.

Queen Anne found it's place next to 2 rows of onios but I'll plant a row of beans in between before the potatoes start to show themselfes:
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Paroli is planted in the next bed along the fence, neighbouring gooseberrys, red and white currants and Oregano:
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Laura is planted in the biggest bed. We already had it last year and it really was delicious! alongside the fenceline you may be able to spot the red/white/black currant cuttings
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All together: Laura (left), Paroli (upper mid to right), Queen Anne bottom right. As spring moves on I will plant marrigold, nasturtium, beans an peas in between the Potatoes where there's space to get a healthy mixed culture and deter some pests from eating our 'tatoes 😁
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And lastly we tilled the last part of the supposed to be veggie beds. My fiancè helped because even with the help of machinery it's still exhausting like nothing to keep holding onto that vibrating machine😅🫣 and even if I did just half of it, I still have sore muscles.
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Lunai

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A roughly Plan of our (planned) veggie garden. The stuff with the (*) is what's planned in that spot. We'll wait and see if it happens that way or another 😅🤣😁 somewhere in-between I need to also put my pumpkins an cucumbers... 🤔😅😁
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SamfromWA

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Looks good Lunai, so much happening. Maybe they could bring the horse out to pull a small plough for the next potato planting.
 

Lunai

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Looks good Lunai, so much happening. Maybe they could bring the horse out to pull a small plough for the next potato planting.
naaaa 🤣 that won't happen. not enough space in our garden even for a small plough and my soul sister lives 500km away. too much effort for too little outcome😅😂
 

Mandy Onderwater

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Love that you've got a plan going on! I tend to improvise a lot - not always successfully though. Looks exciting!

Assuming tom's means tomatoes, be aware that tomatoes and potatoes don't necessarily go well together; this because they attract similar pests, making it a hotspot. As a cherry on the bad top, they also attract similar diseases, which can cause issue.

In saying all that, I know spacing is a good thing, and perhaps that has already been taken into account. I've never (successfully) grown potatoes, so I can only guess.
 

Lunai

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that's exactly why there`s so many beans and peas 😅 They do great with both. And I'll probably put in some other veggies just to create a healthy mixed culture 😅😁
 
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