May started off with ice hail storms and ended with long sunny days. It’s quite a crazy month for weather. Often the nights are chilly but the long sunny days give sunburn if you’re outside. The plants need a lot of watering because new plants have only just gone in the soil and haven’t yet […]
All the leaves are turning brown and starting to fall, and the temperature is dropping. This month was a lot of activity in trying to get the property prepared for winter before the ground freezes and the persistent darkness comes. Beaver Dam Through the start of August a beaver began building a dam across the […]
This month was a lot of activity to try and close off summer projects, to develop the garden further, and to prepare for the coming winter. Summer Crop We got a good crop from the strawberry patch which was a relief as I’d let all the plants send runners everywhere to let them establish more […]
Digging work and gravel Down the side of the house we have had an awkward area to make useful. It was shady and slightly damp. Plants and grass didnt thrive, and there was seemingly always mosquitoes waiting for you. So I made a plan to put in a gravel area because the gravel perimeter has […]
About this time of year, everyone else is on holiday and the garden is happily growing. The weather is swapping between sun, light rain, and overcast so it’s sunny but a lot less extreme than other months. If you have the time needed you can achieve a lot in the garden. Garden Plan The garden […]
In northern Sweden, May is the big change from below zero overnight temperatures to full/blown summer. Here is what we got up to this month. New Fence Our main investment this month was a small traditional Swedish fence (gärdsgårder). The idea was to give a bit of a windbreak because the plants in this corner […]
This article is for people wondering what it is like growing vegetables in northern Sweden, compared to places like the UK. Specifically for location and climate, we’re a little south of Umeå and near the sea. We aren’t experts, we’re just having fun learning as we go. The Seasons Not much happens prior to April […]
This month we had family to visit and later we had a minidigger arrive to help us in the garden. We managed to get out and enjoy the summer a little. The main constraint to developing the house and garden remained time, budget, and slowly building up tools and contacts. Stugga Visit We went out […]
Our first summer with the big greenhouse, things started to get a bit out of control. The watering demands were eating up all the evenings after work and the plants were getting massive in the greenhouse. The problem became that the bigger plants, like the the Sweetcorn we had planted, were blocking the flow of […]
June gets really hot, and is the peak solar-producing month. It’s also quite brutal on the plants as they’ve been weeks without rain. Watering the plants in direct sunlight can cause damage if the leaves are wet so we hand-watered each evening. It takes a long time to water each end of the garden however. […]