Tag Archives: gardening

Home

Inheriting Plants

1 Comment

Going to my FIL’s house to go through my MIL’s things has not been the highlight of the summer, but my FIL would rather purge everything now. It’s helping him heal and we need to organize her things some time anyway, but that doesn’t make it easier.

My MIL was always the gardener and my FIL let us know he planned to get  rid of everything because he is not interested in plants, cannot keep up with the watering, and is pretty sure he would kill everything. We tried to organize a transport van in June to pick everything up, but the reservation was messed up, so we planned to do it after Luxembourg in what had to be the hottest week of the summer.

While the boys loaded the van, I stayed in the hot house and finished going through clothing, makeup, and jewelry. Below you see my sweaty face… just imagine trying on clothing in a house without AC in the high 90s. Melting!! While clothes are easy for the boys to let go, it made me sad to go through them. They all still smell like her. I can see why my FIL doesn’t want them around anymore. I saved a bunch of her scarves and now I have a lot of clothes to go through at home.

Also pinned up in the office on her wardrobe was a photo of my family from Christmas 2012. With family being so important to my MIL, she made it a priority to write down all of their names so she could learn all the names of my siblings and their spouses. It was just another sign of how much this woman truly loved and valued her family, whether it was in Switzerland, Brazil, or the US.

Back outside, the transport van didn’t have AC either and the fans were kind of broken. I was really just dreaming about jumping in lake Zurich, but we managed to transport this huge lot of plants home.The hard part was then moving them from the van to the flat, up the lift, and out onto the balcony. Kay was sweating bucket loads by the time we finished.Almost this whole line of plants were my MIL’s. She had so many! And they are gorgeous.It feels great to fill up the balcony with some pots finally, but I’m sad about the way in which we came about all the plants.

I can’t help wanting to show my MIL how the plants look here. She loved looking through my garden and seeing what I did differently. I hope I can keep her plants for awhile without doing them harm. They are so different than what I plant myself!

Home

Garden Envy

1 Comment

Often in the train I look out and admire the many vegetable gardens that can be seen along the tracks. Recently I had some garden envy when I saw the setup below:It’s a work of art! Look at all of those beautiful types of plants organized and sectioned off from one another. Each type of plant has the tools it needs like stakes to grow strong and produce fruit or vegetables.

Vegetable gardening is tough and while I am still a complete newbie, I have learned a lot and love to keep on learning more each year as I try out different things. But when i see a garden like this, I am so impressed by all of the knowledge and planning that went in to get it to this stage. This person knows what they are doing!

Tell me I’m not the only one jealous of other people’s veggie gardens. I would love to have this in my someday backyard!

Home

April Garden

1 Comment

Happy Swiss labor day everyone!

I’m excited that my cilantro seeds are actually sprouting! Last year I tried to start them in a pot outside, but I think that I did not keep them moist enough, so they dried out and sort of burned in the sun. Oops.

But not this year! Look at them!

I don’t think the sage likes having the tree bark around it. Whenever I use this bark in pots, it seems to kill whatever plant is there. It must be messing with the Ph or acidity levels too much. But I don’t know enough about horticulture to know why exactly.

Oregano is looking good.

As is the starter cilantro plant.

I planted my starter parsley in the same box as our bamboo and it seems like it is competing with the bamboo. The bamboo in there has not gone totally crazy, so I thought there should still be room for some other things to flourish, but it might be too difficult for the parsley.

Rosemary doing fine in a pot on top of the bamboo box.

Not sure I put enough soil on the basil, it’s kinda flopping already. I’m a little too lazy to re-pot it though this late.

The thyme probably needs moved out of the sun and rain.

The lavender is going nuts in its little corner of its box, next to the clematis, which looks like it’s also doing all right after being planted last summer.

I think these are my tomato seeds sprouting.

…and these should be my… lettuce? I forget which pot this photo is from. 🙂

So, that’s about where things are at this point. Kay’s been walking around the balcony pulling weeds because he gets nervous that they will destroy the roof of the flat below our balcony.

I’ve also been rearranging garden furniture, but I’m not quite happy with it. I always seem to try a new setup each year. We’ll see what I settle on for 2015.

How is your garden doing?

Home

Planting Time

1 Comment

It’s that time of year!

We haven’t been away on holiday yet, but most of our weekends in 2015 have been spent traveling or busy with other things, so it was a struggle to get some plants in the ground before April was over.

I really wanted to go to a gardening center, but that involves organizing a car rental, so I decided to go ahead and try some more seeds this year in addition to my usual starter plants. I bought a lot more varieties than last year!

I’ve got seeds for tomatoes, Swiss chard, cucumbers, peas, carrots, peppers, and a few types of lettuce. I am also using some more yellow squash and cilantro seeds from last year.

I haven’t planted all the seeds yet because I need more pots and soil. Some are OK to plant in May outdoors, so I think I will wait until then. I also planted already the starter plants for basil, parsley, sage, oregano, rosemary, cilantro, thyme and a cherry tomato plant.

Also coming back from last year is the lavender, mint, chives and even one of the parsley plants seems like it is perking up a little.

What are you planting this year?