Saana's journey to homesteading

Hello everyone and greetings from Finland!

You have no idea how exited I am to have found this community.. All these resources and you the great and likeminded people! This is my first post here on Permies.com after like a month of lurking, and I'm going to make it a long one. So, without a further a due...

Saana's journey to homesteading

Lets start with the basics: where did our journey start?

In the spring of 2021 we (hubby and me with a newborn) bought a small property from the forests of Southern Savonia, Finland (zone 5). The property consists of:

Roughly 1,5 hectares (about 3,7 acres) of land all slightly sloping to south of which 0,5ha (1,2 acres) is a field/pasture that I will mostly be focusing here on Permies

A shelter for sheep

A chicken coop attached to a old barn with a collapsed run that is waaay too small.

A root cellar that needs a bit of work (the doors are currently letting in cold air)

Some berry bushes (blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, raspberry and aronia. Plus the three honeyberrie bushes I planted this summer, if they survive the winter)

A good house mostly heated with wood, 60m^2 garage, a hay barn

What's the grand plan?

To be as self sufficient as possible

Make the field into a beautiful food producing.. I guess a forest?

Apple, pear and plum trees. I really want to try to grow some apple trees from a seed.

Berries

Hugelkultur.. Probably a few hugelkulturs.

Keyhole gardens.

30m^2 (323 square feet) polycarbonate greenhouse. I would like some kind of heating in it to get a longer growing season. I think I read about someone having a Rocket Mass Heater in a greenhouse... Hmm..

Sheep for wool to process and make crafts to sell and get some moneys from them.

Chickens for eggs and meat

Honeybees

To build a barbeque all out of wood. No, it will not be treated with anything and it will not burn to ground. It will be magnificent.

I'm already planting by the moon so lets spray some raw milk and stuff to the field too, why not! I like things a bit purple.

Where are we at now?

The first summer we spent mostly renovating the house. Last spring and summer I got some great things done.

I dug up an old very weedy strawberry area. The black plastics were all grown in to the ground and there were a lot of weeds. A lot.
What a great workout. Took me several weeks as I was only working a hour or so a day with a shovel while the baby was sleeping.
I brought in several bags of soil, added some organic fertilizer and planted potatoes. Got a great harvest, we are still eating our crop and there even might be enough for seed potatoes for the coming summer.

Started way too many plants inside way too early so that the plan of getting huge amounts of tomatoes turned into basicly not getting tomatoes at all. All those sad plants just died inside.

Totally failed with garlic as the weeds took over.

Planted the three honeyberry plants. Fingers crossed they survive the winter!

     Then I found about permaculture and no-till and...

Built two small hugelkultur beds right in front of our house. (2m x 1m x 1m)
Currently at least the other one is an apartment for a mouse of prolly a few of them. I have no idea what that will mean when the summer comes and I start planting things. Lets not worry about things we cannot do anything about!

Built a small leaf compost. Oh if I had known about this forum earlier, I wouldn't have dumped in layers of old sheep bedding. I just learned about leaf mold and it sounds so great. I don't know what will come out of my leaf compost thingy, I probably have to ask hubby to pee on it. We'll see when the spring comes and the snow melts.

Planted garlic and sowed some carrot and parsnip seeds where the potatoes were, hopefully not too early.

Hubby wanted to till a small section of the field for planting potatoes in the spring so the neighbour came in with a tractor and did that.

Tried to overwinter jalapeno plants but then came the spider mites. The plants flew out of the door.

Successful year, I'd say. I'm happy. Lots and lots of learning!

Plan for the upcoming year of 2023:

To contain myself from starting way too many seedlings inside way too early. I have learned my lesson.

Plant the hugelkultur beds. The plan was to plant the other one with tomatoes, chamomil, basil and marigolds and the other one probably with strawberries and asparagus (and?).

Wonder around the field/pasture and see what is growing in it.

Make plans for water retention for the field. Trying to figure out a rough plan about placement of the hugelkultures, keyhole gardens, trees and compost area.

Try to figure out where to build up the greenhouse and make plans for the heating. The actual building (foundation, heating system and the assembly of the greenhouse) will probably happen in 2024.

Clean up the old chicken coop and make it ready for a flock, extend the run. I'm not sure if the residents will arrive in 2023 or not but I would like to get it ready.

Move some of the raspberries and clear a bit of the current raspberry plant mess.

Fix the root cellar to function better. Currently we are burning candles under clay pots to keep it from freezing.

To get leaves from the town in the fall. I need leaf mold. I NEED IT. Our only maple already has the fungal disease that makes the leaves turn into colorful dalmatians so just bring all the leaves. (Please do tell me if this is a bad idea)

To enjoy running after a toddler exploring the world.

Okay, I think that was all. Ha, not really. But for now. Did I already say I'm exited? Yay.

In the next post I will be adding a drone picture of our place and talk a bit about the history and the current situation of the field, that will probably happen tomorrow. Now it is time for me to go to sleep.

Thanks for reading!

Oh and if I'm posting completely in the wrong section or something.. Umm.. Staff?

Hi Saana,

Welcome to Permies.

What a detailed first post Saana! Looking forward to seeing more of your journey. Welcome to Permies :)

This is a very reasonable place for your post.  It is about homesteading after all.  I also took the liberty of adding it to Introductions as well.

First of all, John and Cam, thank you, such a warm welcome! While lurking around in Permies I was so heartwarmed when every time someone new came there was at least one person welcoming them here. Such a great community!

Back to my Journey reporting.. Yep, it's not tomorrow after the previous post. I am currently (actually have been for a while now) been trying to learn two things:

1. Do not promise to do something in a certain time frame unless I really have to.
2. Just do things the moment the stuff pops in your head even though things are a bit more difficult with a toddler.

I was going to do the post the day after the previous post but then I had the master idea of "oooooh I could take pictures of the field!".
Yeah, didn't do that and suddenly it was too dark. Oh winter and the 3:30PM sunset.
Here came the evening after that and while browsing around Permies I found out that I have a level in my phone. "Oh how cool would it be to measure the slope!"
Yes, there is a lot of snow out there. "But hey it will be still level to the slope right?"
Thankfully there came the fresh snow and sunking my phone in it would've been stupid so I didn't go around measuring the degrees of my slope.

Yes, I'm hilarious.

I did try to take photos but failed in the "trying to show the slope" part so lets do that some other time okay?

But I do have the drone pic!



Okay I failed horribly trying to upload the pic so here's an edit.

So the field you can see in the left. It's all sloping nicely to south (the house is basicly facing solar south), the lowest part that is divided by the row of trees with the small woods and stuff has been as a pasture for the previous owners sheep. The whole field is fenced but I don't know if the sheep spent much time in the upper open part.

In the 1950's or something like that this property was surrounded by fields from the west and south. They all had grown in to a forest and the last owner made the field field again somewhere in 2004 -> I think.
Oh it has been so nice to wonder around the woods, there are these old huge rock walls that were fencing a field back in the day and you can still see where there once were roads from the growth.

As you can see, the top left corner of the field is the dryiest part. It's the most level and highest part, the rest is a slope.
I'm figuring that the compost and leaf mold area will be in the top right corner of the field so that there's a good amount of shade.
I will make a nice pathway to the field from the top left corner of the house. Maybe make it so that the "main path" goest straigh through to almost to the other side of the field and is surrounded by fruit trees from both sides.

Okay so now I'm scared that my time to edit will run out so SUBMIT IT IS! I really don't have much more plans for it yet so yay for now.

Thanks for reading!

Looks beautiful!

Welcome, Saana

From your post, it sounds like you have a great journey ahead of you.

Please keep the forum informed as you transform your place.

Be sure to ask lots of questions and post lots of photos.

Be wishes for a great new year.

Its a great story, I hope to read more.

John C, Anne and John F, thank you all!

Anne Miller wrote:Be sure to ask lots of questions and post lots of photos.

It's good that you said this, as I have been a bit hesitant on asking questions and commenting in other threads.. So I'm going to ask about asking questions now!

As I have been diving deeper and deeper into Permies.com, I have run into great threads that are years and years old. Is it customary here to bump really old threads up and ask and continue the discussion in those or should I leave those threads alone? Maybe try and find a newer one with the same topic? Browse stuff sorted by recent? Just start a new thread so that I wont hijack threads of others?
I'm also thinking that before asking something I should do more searching so that I wont be asking the same stuff that has already been asked ten times before...

I'm still kind of in the process of "learning the house rules".


Well, now that the asking stupid questions part is done, back to documenting my journey:

More plans. There's actually two chicken coops integrated into the old barn we have. They have really small runs, and I'm thinking about doing one big run area for the chickens and maybe use the other coop as a housing for meat rabbits. Oh yes, I didn't mention that plan yet. It's still in the "I'm not sure about this" -zone but might happen at some point.

I made an awesome general layout drawing that is probably not even close to scale in Paint to show my plan:

I still have to find out how tall of a fence I would have to build for the area.
There's also not much vegetation in the area because the previous chickens that have lived there and partly probably because the area is quite shaded under the trees but the plan is to get leaves from the town and spread a thiiiiick thick layer as a mulch. That would bring entertainment and food to the chickens in the form of bugs and make the soil better as the leaves decompose, right?

Oh for the snows to melt and to get actual pictures and most of all.. Get to work!
Oh well, don't they say that well planned is halfway done. I also just started a plan for a first aid kit now that there's not much actual stuff to do outside other than showeling snow. For now I have written down cayenne pepper to stop bleeding and honey to heal wounds and burns!

Consider all threads to be alive …even if they are a decade old.   Yes, feel free to start a new thread. Questions about operations are best posted under The Tinkering forum.

Welcome Saana! Permies has some great threads full of useful chicken and coop info - hard to read with a toddler around but worth trying!
https://permies.com/f/59/chickens

From my experience, multiple smaller runs are more useful than a single large run. It allows you to get plants growing, and then move the chickens there to self-harvest. Chicken shit is high in nitrogen. They need a *lot* of carbon in their run to suck that up and stop it from poisoning the soil so that nothing grows. Chickens will peck at every bit of green they see, so without being able to move them elsewhere while you get some plants established for them, it's very  hard. I would also research what predators will be high risk in your area to make sure that your coop and run will be safe. We mostly use portable shelters for out chickens, but they only work on reasonably level areas with low grass - *everything* is a compromise! However, for moving chickens around in the sheep areas, there are designs that will likely work in your ecosystem in the non-snow season. We built *very* light - most portable structures are very heavy to move and people often give up on moving them for that reason. There's lots of info on permies about "paddock shift systems" and how they build soil and improve the land, but there is no "one right way" - just a collection of different ways that work in different ecosystems and integrate better or worse into different homestead situations.

Jay, thats a great point about having the small runs.

Hello Saana,
I missed this when you first posted it. How lovely to have a South facing slope - it should give you a bit more heat from the sun. My slope faces East, but we're pretty open to the South so not too bad really. I'm enjoying the longer days already, but really we find that nothing really grows outside much till the end of April, so getting an early start doesn't help much.
You should find the honeyberries are pretty hardy, although I guess it depends on their breeding. Mine flower really early, just as the bumblebees get started in March. The fruits set well, but I'm not convinced they ripen off. The birds seem to find them palatable before I do, so I usually miss most of the harvest. I'm hoping to propagate some more this year. If I can get a bigger harvest they will be good for jams.
The key for the top fruit (orchard trees) will be getting varieties that have an early ripening season. I have found that my apple on it's own roots has grown stronger than those on other rootstocks, even though I tried to get vigorous rootstocks. One way of getting cheaper trees is to get bare root crab apples and graft some good varieties onto them. Usually when people do winter pruning there are spare twigs that will make free trees for you! See if any of your neighbours have good fruiting trees perhaps.
I look forwards to hearing more on your progress as time goes on.

I MADE A PAIR OF PANTIES!

They ended up being an inch or so too low on the buttside but I MADE A PAIR OF PANTIES!

It's wonderful feeling you get when you accomplish something... I'm super tired and have been running really low on spoons lately so this was a big win. I was supposed to start making these a while back but then I ended up going through all the PEP BBs because the pantie making tutorial link was broken.. That project was really eye-opening. Made me realize I could do a lot. That I can do a lot.
I have no idea if the link has been fixed yet, I just cut up an existing pair of panties and winged it. After the first hassles with the sewing machine (why is this thing sewing backwards!?) solved themselves (nope, don't know why it did it or how it got fixed) the rest was kinda smooth. I do know what went wrong with the drawings so maybe the next pair will fit nicely.. If not, I do have many, many old t-shirts to practice on.

Feels great.

Because of the low spoons I'm dealing with I'm just going to reply in a short manner and get back to you later:

Jay, thank you! Many, many things for me to consider!

Nancy: Thank you for the message! The south facing slope does give us good heat in the summer.. I'm planning growing some tomatoes in front of the house, I'm just hoping it wont get too hot in there for them to fruit. We'll see.


I do have other things to write about but that will have to wait for more spoons. I just really wanted to post the pantie success here for me to remember.

Oh and if someone is wondering what the heck am I talking about spoons, the first "spoons" up there should be a link. Go read. It's really, really good stuff. The whole thread.

It is great when you finish something, well done!!! Especially when you're not really feeling up to anything (low on spoons). As long as you have the right photos you can claim your BB. I'm not sure which link was broken. here's the link to the BB bit which seems to have some video links.
If you're low on spoons, but have more time, then you may want to think about hand sewing. It takes longer, but you can snuggle up somewhere and do it while listening to a podcast or talking book. I find it quite therapeutic when I'm stressed as it doesn't require much brain power once you are started. This thread talks about good stitches to use for stretchy fabrice when hand sewing. The knickers shown there that I made still seem to be holding up by the way.
Hope the coming of spring makes you feel better. Virtual hugs!

Thank you for the virtual hugs, they do have an effect! I do think that the spring will do its thing and bring me up a bit with those sunspoons and stuff. I just sprinkled some ash on the hugelkultur beds I made last fall to assist on melting all the snow. I might need to take them apart and construct them again as there is no soil in between the wood.

While making the panties I skipped the taking pictures part as this was my first time sewing something in.. 15 years. I plan on making more of them and perfecting the pattern for my bum so there will be time for photos later!

Hand sewing could be really meditative! Maybe I will get to that next winter. For now I’ll try to get to know the sewing machine (ooh the strecth stiches were cool!) and plan on making many panties and matching aprons for our family of three. I have a tablecloth that was was too much for our dining corner (flowers in the wallpaper, chairs and the curtains are enough ) and I think that there’s enough fabric for all three of them. That will be some good practice!

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:It's wonderful feeling you get when you accomplish something... I'm super tired and have been running really low on spoons lately so this was a big win.

Congrats on your wins lately Saana, and I appreciate the nudge into the "spoons theory" thread. Seems like just what I needed to think on.

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:
Congrats on your wins lately Saana, and I appreciate the nudge into the "spoons theory" thread. Seems like just what I needed to think on.

Thank you Stephen and I’m glad you found the spoons.

That’s what happened with me and spoons theory too, I was almost out of them and not knowing that there was such thing, browsing Permies and then the spoons theory appeared and made things very much clearer to me.

Maybe the spoons have special almighty powers that make them appear to whomever might need the revelation.

I think it's time to make another entry for this diary of mine!

Spoon situation is getting better! We just had a few weeks of lovely warmth, the day temperatures were on +20 degrees celcius (68F)! The sun was shining and it was so nice to be outside and actually do stuff!
Today when I woke up there was snow in the ground. Not much, but still. Now the day temperatures are around +5 degrees celsius(41F). Oh well, it's still early. Not even May yet.

I got some Bocking 14! I have planted eight of the 20 root cuttings I have, and one crown. I'm super excited! I think I'm going to plant the rest tomorrow.

Tomorrow we also begin planting potatoes. Which reminds me of the super funny joke I almost forgot to tell you guys. Here it goes:

The whole winter I was wondering where I would get hay or straw to mulch.



Yup. That's my field. And a hay barn. I giggled for a day and then started raking.

Back to the potatoes. We have.. 15kg of bought seed potato, plus some potatoes from last years harvest. As I told in the first post, last fall the neighbour came with a tractor and tilled an area for us. I have now covered most of it with hay. Still some raking to do! It's actually good that not all of the area is yet covered with hay, so we can move the hay on top of the rows we have planted and move on to the area that opens up.

I finished one growing bed that previously was a tiny hugelkultur mound. I made a project thread about it: A hugel-ish growbed
One more of those to build, I do have all the slabs to build it on hand!

Tomato plants are doing good. They are on our kitchen counter on the window, I'm thinking that I should probably move them to the growtent. More controlled environment and more light.
This year I kept my cool and sowed 12 seeds. 11 of them sprouted. 11 plants in 1 litre pots fit the window. Everything happens for a reason.

I took down the collapsed chicken run. It was fun and made me happy. I also took down some roosts in the coop but decided I will need some protective gear before tackling the coop.. There's a lot of poop. A good mask and a throwaway protective suit, please! I'm going to take everything down, wall paneling and the floors. We are getting ready for the chickens to come next year. The current plan is that the coop will be their winter home and in the summer they are going to be living on the "low field", shifting paddocs with a small movable coop. I should research for perennial chicken fodder plants to plant this year.

I had two seeds from last years pumpkin saved, they both sprouted! Yay! This is the first time I have saved any seeds. No, that's a lie. I saved some seed from a tomato plant in 2018. It was really weird and super tasty tomato. I don't know where the seeds are. There is a chance that they are in my friends mothers carage. Fingers crossed. That was an awesome plant.

I also started thinking about letting the water flow from the garage roof to the garden on its own and here's the project thread for that one: Water from the garage roof to the garden
This is not the potato garden, this is the first garden area. I should probably name the gardens.. And make signs!

On Monday, the May Day, it is my 30th birthday. I will go to a tree nursery and buy the first two apple trees for our property! The nursery is about an hour drive away from us and they have... About 230 different varieties of apple trees. Yes, 230. Wanna guess if I had some trouble choosing what to buy..? They also have 40 different varieties of pear trees... And now that I think of it, I probably should get three trees. One for every 10 years on this planet. Yup.

What else... The house is a mess because I have been outside so much!


Thanks for reading and I hope you are having a good day!

All the potatoes are planted!

Exciting day tomorrow.. But I’m stressing over the placement of the trees. I’m worried that I will plant them in a spot where they start to bloom too early in the spring and then a frost destroys the blooms.

I was thinking about making a hugelkulture mound upslope from the trees, so that the mound would direct the frost past the trees but I don’t know if it’s enough or just plain making it worse by making the area downslope warm up earlier.. And then if we go to freezing temps.. Blossoms gone.
Maybe actually trapping frost on the trees would be wiser to delay the bloom?

I really don’t want to end up in a situation where in few years I find out that my apple trees are worthless because I planted them in a bad spot..

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Maybe actually trapping frost on the trees would be wiser to delay the bloom?

I've heard that where late frost is a concern, planting on a north slope is recommended. If you don't have any of those, what about building a really tall hugel and planting the trees  on the north side of it? I would make sure that the cold air can keep moving, so you'd need to think about the shape of that hugel and the slope of the land. Some frost/dry tolerant shrubs at the top could help with the height, but I'd want something like currants that root easily, because they may tip over as the hugel settles over time.

I realize you don't want to be in a situation where you loose the trees, or loose *all* the fruit in one year. However, if you plant several different varieties that bloom at different times, that will also help you hedge your bets. If you see bad weather coming, could you consider protecting just a couple of key trees, or a branch or three on each tree rather than seeing this as an "all or nothing" situation?

The nursery is not open today because it’s May Day! Doh!

Thank you Jay. I’m a bit more at ease now. Maybe it will all be fine.

I don’t have north slope or access to equipment to build a really tall hugel. We will get more trees than just these three and I think we are going to plant them on another kind of microclimate in the field.

Oh well.. If the tree placement completely fails I can graft some branches to the other trees and start making wooden spoons.

Today I took my morning coffee and took a stroll in the field.. I think I’m now certain of the placement of the first three apple trees, and the raspberry bushes I’m going to move from another place in our property. The greenhouse placement is getting clearer.

I also ended up thinking that I might need to build a 12 metre long hugelkultur. Yup. That’s metres. About 40 feet.

I also want to build the Possessed Bench of Broken Pictures and place it between two apple trees.


Oh yeah, still no apple trees. We went to the nursery, it was cold and rainy day.. Gates and doors were open but no one in sight. We called them, they just hung up without answering and we got a text saying they will call us back. We waited for a while and left. We were thinking that maybe some kind of emergency had happened and were hoping everything was okay with them..
30 minutes later the guy calls back.

”Oh I was having lunch and I guess the employee was having lunch too.”

…

No apology, nothing. Oh well. They don’t have competition anywhere near so maybe customer service is not a top priority..


We planted the last 11 comfrey root pieces to pots yesterday with the toddler. I hope they will grow nicely!
We also now have all the pieces sawed(is that a word?) for the other growing bed in front of our house.


Thanks for reading and I hope you are having a good day!

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:We also now have all the pieces sawed(is that a word?) for the other growing bed in front of our house.

Since you asked... I got curious and to no surprise: "The past participle “sawn” is mostly archaic except in British English. “Sawed-off” is the overwhelming favorite in American English, “sawn-off” the overwhelming favorite in British English. My dad was off-the-boat Brit, so my brain was saying sawn, but sawed didn't look wrong either since Canadians are exposed to a lot of American English!

What really matters is that the wood is ready for building the bed and hopefully the building will progress well!

Our comfrey is adoring the current weather so it's been on my list to chop and drop it all week. We've got a weird. spread out property due to rocks and trees that we didn't plant and I've looked in two spots for the tool I prefer to use for that task, at least two more spots to look, but it's moving from urgent to #1 priority after animals rather rapidly!

Oh yes Jay, sawn it is! I’m getting flashbacks of those lists of irregular verbs we had to memorize in elementary school English lessons!
Thanks for checking that one out!

I bet it’s marvelous to do a chop and drop on fully grown comfrey. I still have.. I guess 27 months until that can happen!


Today we moved some raspberry plants from a spot I’m planning to fill with comfrey. I hope they will be happy in their new spot!

Do you know the feeling when you are walking on your property and then suddenly you get a vision of ”oh yes, that’s where that thing is going to be!”?

I’m so happy and grateful about our place.. The blank canvas I’m able to fill. About being able to express my creativity. I love how the work makes me tired in a good way.


Today we ”reset” the old raspberry bush area. We already had moved most of the last years canes to other spots. Now we just cut everything that was left down. It was mostly older, dead canes. I piled them on a tarp and then walked and kicked on them to chop them smaller. Not quite woodchips, but better than nothing! I did consider asking hubby to drive over them with the Jeep.

I will plant a bunch of comfrey on the raspberry spot. We left the raspberry roots in the ground so they will grow some new canes, but I don’t mind. They are easy to control.
There were also patches of stinging nettle growing there. I plan on letting them grow there and harvesting them for a lovely fertilizer for other plants.

I love how our little toddler is always helping with everything. She has her birthday this week, we are getting her a small wheelbarrow of her own. I know she will love it!
Today when we were working on clearing the old raspberry bushes she suddenly started saying ”where rhubarb? where rhubarb?”. She wanted to give water to the rhubarb nearby. So we did.


I’m worrying a bit about the comfrey roots.. They are in pots currently but I wonder if I should move them once more and just stick them in the ground.. I feel it would be easier to control the moisture and they could just do their thing in peace.

I will end today with a picture of the comfrey pots in their planned placements. This is located by the first garden area. Some of them are going to be planted elsewhere, by the apple trees, I just wanted them all in the same place for now.

I wish you will have a nice week!

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Do you know the feeling when you are walking on your property and then suddenly you get a vision of ”oh yes, that’s where that thing is going to be!”?

I do indeed! I wonder if there is a name for it? I've got a worm bin and a washing line in my mental box of garden jigsaw bits at the moment looking for their home.
I often put plants in their pots where I'm thinking of planting them for a while before they go out and see whether I think they belong there. If you're sure of where the comfrey is going it will probably do better in the ground. As long as there is not too much grass competition they will soon establish and will put on better growth and need less watering. Remember though they can be a pain to get rid of - each bit of root can regrow!

Nancy Reading wrote: mental box of garden jigsaw bits

That is brilliant wording, so descriptive! I love it!

I often put plants in their pots where I'm thinking of planting them for a while before they go out and see whether I think they belong there.

Oh yes. I did this with the tree placing too, I stick some orange snow plowing guide marker sticks to the places I was planning the trees! It makes the visioning much more easier.

I think I’m going to keep looking at the pots there for a couple of days, and wait if better thoughts appear. Then in to the ground it is!

I didn’t have any success with comfrey I put in pots. The bottom was always wet and the top dry so I guess they all rotted away. All but one I planted in the ground came up no problem.

Hopefully either way you decide brings good results.

Thank you Joe for sharing your experience!

I’m definitely putting the roots on the ground as soon as I’m certain that I want them on those spots.. And when the moon happens to be in a better place for planting stuff.

The crown is alive! For a while it looked super sad and dying but not anymore, I officially now have one bocking 14 plant!

Hrrr. We have been enjoying the sun and warmth, but the new moon brought some rain (very much appreciated), winds and low temperatures, at least compared to what we had already. +10 degrees celcius at the moment. I had been forgetting that it was just the start of May, it has been so warm! How has your weather been, did it go a bit bonkers too?

Tomorrow the moon will be born again, the forecasts are promising the heat to come back and then I’m going to officially declare that the summer has begun. Planting time again!


First small flower starts have appeared in some of the tomato plants. I already started hardening them off a bit last week but then took a pause with it because of a visiting dog who has chosen adventuring as her career choice and to accompany that she also has skills in escape arts. Our fencing needs some work as she is a regular visitor..
I’m going to continue the hardening off process probably tomorrow and then plant the tomatoes outside next week. Most of them are going into pots, if not all of them. We’ll see.


My fall sown carrots and parsnips have emerged! For a while I was sure that they failed. There was a few days of freezing temps in the fall that scared me and I planted the seeds, but then the warmth came back. I was quite sure the seeds would germinate in the fall but nope! They are all under a row cover with the garlic (that probably would like to get rid of the blanket already) and when they grow a bit I will mulch the area with hay.

I also prepared an area for zucchini and pumpkin. I put down some sod dug up from elsewhere, some quite good looking compost and then some bagged soil on top. Covered it with hay. I hope the pumpkins will like it! I’m not yet sure what I will companion plant with them.. Ideas?


I have been feeling that I have neglected the first garden (with the garlic and carrots and the now built pumpkin bed) but then I just have to reming me that IT’S STILL MAY. Super early to the season. It will be magnificent. I know it.


I’m wondering what to do with a bunch of pine bark. Maybe paths in the first garden? I don’t know if that’s a good idea at all or just an invitation to some kind of bugs that will destroy everything. I’ll have to do some research on that, do tell if you have some insight on this matter!


I think that’s all for now. Time to wake up the toddler and go outside to enjoy the rain.


Thanks for reading!

Bryant RedHawk has a brilliant thread on woodchips.

https://permies.com/t/120453/Great-Wood-Chips

Kiitos Kaarina!

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:I also prepared an area for zucchini and pumpkin. I put down some sod dug up from elsewhere, some quite good looking compost and then some bagged soil on top. Covered it with hay. I hope the pumpkins will like it! I’m not yet sure what I will companion plant with them.. Ideas?

Beans and pumpkins go well, but you'd have to chose the most cold tolerant bean you could find - like Scarlet Runner beans - and you'd have to put some sticks in for them to climb.

We have cool nights even though we're technically in a warmer zone than you, but I find it's easier to start my beans in paper pots and then transplant when they've got some true leaves. The squash should help protect them at that point.

That said, beans are bunny and deer magnets, so beware!

Thank you Jay for the idea!

Beans could be fun.. I’ll have to see if there’s any good seed options in the shops in town. I do wonder if it’s too late for them already.. We’ll see.


Today I made a compost reset. We have a 200 litre insulated composter, I emptied it and washed it and now it’s ready for a new start.
I stopped all composting in the fall because.. Wellll.. I hit an invisible wall that wasn’t a even a wall. Now I finally got over it and I’m ready to start over.

We also have two small uninsulated composters left by the previous owner, and they were still halfway full of mostly still uncomposted stuff (also left by the previous owner, two years ago). I mixed my almost ready compost to those and added some coffee grounds too.

Now I will have to make the process of getting the food scraps from the kitchen to the composter somewhat smooth. I do have some ideas that I have gotten from where else but Permies! I hope this will work and no more invisible obstacles appear. Wish me luck!


I also prepared one container for tomatoes. I soaked some wood and put that in the bottom of the pot. I’m hoping it will keep the moisture levels more stable.

The moon is growing once again! Tomorrow I will plant some flowers and viney stuff. Cucumbers and green beans. I also have some cucamelon seeds, it’s probably too late to plant them for them to produce anything but I’m still going to put one seed in a pot!


Oh yeah, we got our summer weather back. Yesterday we were wearing long underwear and coats, today it was warm enough for summer dresses. So nice.


I hope you’re having a good day!