It is never ending...

The battle against weeds, that is.

Presently my allotment is yellow. Blasted dandelions..

The soil is hard clay, so pulling them out with all their roots intact is hard work.

Now what?

I have a bucket full of weeds I can't throw in the compost heap as most of the weeds on my allotment are those nasty ones that only need a teeny bit of root to come back to life.

Enter black garbage bag.

Stick those pesky weeds in there, leave in full sun all summer and come spring again, you have killed their will to live and they can be added to the compost heap. Luckily I can have mine behind the storage chest, so it's not visible.

Oh yes, much better!

There will always be some for bees.

If you don't feel like digging up those dandelions, you can actually use the leaves and any other grass cuttings to benefit your veggies.  I cut all these up along with some grass. Just make sure you don't get any grass that's gone to seed or those dandelion puffs.

 Chop, chop, chop.

In no time at all, you'll have a bucketful of green bits.

Use it to mulch your plants!

Water first, then add the cuttings (about 2 inches/10 cm high) and they will help retain moisture as well as nourish the plant. Once it goes brownish in about two weeks, you can add more. It'll be time to cut those weeds again anyway.

It's so nice when I get help, today Niina watered my herbs and strawberries.

My niece and nephew also visited for a while.

Why are they running?

Because on a hot day, not only plants get watered!

In fact I see a lot of watering ahead as we are having a very dry May.

Now click onward on our blog circle to see what Christine is up to!

Be happy

-be happy-

There is nothing better than brand new asphalt, chalks and a bunch of kids eager to make pretty pictures and leave happy sentiments for all the park users.

Days like these make up for all those drizzly December ones.

-smile, you are wonderful-

-have a great playtime-

Sometimes...

..you have to test your sanity by baking something special.

It went so far that I had to math to finish the cake as my pans were a different size than the ones in the recipe..

But I saw this recipe a year ago and decided it would be the perfect 50th birthday present to my closest colleague of nearly ten years.

I cannot tell you how nerve wrecking it was to cut the first piece to see if it had worked out.

But hurray! There it was, the Norwegian flag all decked out in cake.

It was a red (and blue) velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and it was absolutely delicious.

Sven was super pleased too.

April

The month started with a weekend of baby sitting the littles (as my niece and nephew go by at our house).

Also some quality mother-daughter drag show time!

We even got to meet Ben De La Creme.

Flowers to brighten ordinary Tuesdays.

Visiting the spring garden expo.

Waving BA-BYE to my dad's old place that sold.

Cheers for that and not having to set foot in that place again... (there was a fair amount of packing up and throwing stuff out done).

Busy buzzing bumblebees and ice cream at the park.

Absolutely crazy weather and pretty little wild flowers.

Sure signs of spring.

Prince songs were listened to.

Starfish and Coffee was in my head for days.

There was that one day our Club space was rented out to a ad agency...

But hey, strawberries... right?

Pretty in pink

 At the beginning of every summer I start thinking of which unvisited corners of my city I want to go photograph.

On Mother's Day we went to the eastern side to see the Roihuvuori Cherry Park.

I've been meaning to go so many years, this year I started tracking when the blooms would be best.

We opted to go in the evening as I'm sure it had been blanketed with picnicking people on such a beautiful day. At golden hour, it was filled with photographers :)

It's like cotton candy splashed with golden light.

Hello sunshine

Sunshine. Warmth. A four day weekend.

Equals planting time!

That forecast looks great doesn't it?

(the right side is in Fahrenheit for you Celsius challenged).

Gathered my (still growing) collection of seeds and began planning.

This was my reference from last year, just so I could keep crop rotation in mind.

I have numbered my beds and printed out these grids (square foot gardening) to make it a bit easier. These bits of paper travel with me while I plant. And then when I have changed my mind a few times and corrected them (For example I planted my bed 3 seeds in bed 2..face palm), I'll transfer the info into my notebook.

Some of the strawberries I transplanted last summer didn't come up, so I bought some pretty babies.

That seed tape was so worth the trouble making it!

The nights are still cool so most are covered with gauze. The carrots stay covered until midsummer to avoid pesky carrot pests.

I wish I had ordered more straw last summer...

I won't have more until the 20th, so I could only get one potato tower up.

You can see the construction in this photo from last year.

This year I'm mixing three colors: Blue Kongo, Mozart (red) and Sieglinde (yellow) or Siikli as  it's known in Finland.

At home I have tomatoes, leeks and broccoli waiting to be weathered before bringing them out.

Also zinnias, cosmos, antirrhinum and rudbeckia.

Those three big pots house dahlias and gypsophila.

Next week's agenda: get that tomato greenhouse built.

That was my request for a Mother's Day gift :)

I wouldn't mind a few rain showers either...

How are things in Courtney's garden in Texas?