About some of the food growing in the garden & more flowers

First about some of the food growing in our garden. We had some strawberries to eat still in August – a bit different summer indeed, usually the strawberry season has ended well before the end of July in our garden. Peas, potatoes, carrots and onions all grow easily. The pea season is at its end now and we’ve been harvesting our potatoes, too, for some time now, but there are still many potatoes underground, that’s for sure.

Homegrown food is always just so delicious, and sweet… 🙂

love carrots

We’ve been harvesting our carrots, too. I took a pic yesterday evening when I was about to make soup.

growing onions

One of the most delicious things you can grow in your garden! This actually is the first time ever that we’re growing onions. – I wonder why we haven’t done it earlier! Here in Finland, in the north, we usually grow onions from onion sets, not from seeds. And onions indeed are easy to grow from sets.

blackcurrant

Come out, come out! This year we have more blackcurrant berries than ever before (-during the three previous summers that we’ve lived here). And it’s so nice! Our redcurrant bushes have been loaded with berries every summer, but our blackcurrant berries have been hiding somewhere. (?) 🙂

common poppy

More common poppy flowers. Other names for common poppy: corn poppy, field poppy, Flanders poppy, red poppy, corn rose.

common poppy

common poppy

common poppy

common poppy

fly honeysuckle berries

Our fly honeysuckle has berries now. Not edible, poisonous.

phlox paniculata, fall phlox

Phlox paniculata or fall phlox ‘early red’, in the middle of our garden. We planted it a bit over a week ago.

phlox paniculata, fall phlox

strawflower

And there is no summer without strawflower flowers… 🙂

-Leena

Hear the blackbird sing – spring-like days

On Monday the sun was shining delightfully, it was warm. On Tuesday it was cloudy. And it was already very windy when we were taking our regular walk in the forest trail in the evening. The darkness fell and it started to sleet heavily when we were in the forest. And we naturally couldn’t feel the wind that hard there in the shelter of the forest, but when we came out of the forest, by the lake Pyhäjärvi, the wind felt already so fierce that it was almost incredible. It was a blast! ;D And the wet snow flakes were so huge for a while… Yesterday and today the sun’s been shining again, but it has been windy.

The pictures here I took today in our garden.

March strawflower

I noticed on Monday that one strawflower flower still opens its petals on a sunny day! 🙂 And closes them in the evening. I took this pic at around 8.15am today. And at 10.00 the petals were opening…

After I had taken the pic above, I started to really listen to the singing of birds, they were singing everywhere… Suddenly I recognized the distinctive voice of the blackbird! It is an enchanting sound of spring here in Finland!

March

Hmm…

March

March strawflower

The strawflower flower opened by 12.30pm. How beautiful! 🙂

March

The snow’s been melting all the time now…

March

backyard pine tree

Under our biggest pine tree.

It’s 4 degrees Celsius in the shade, but they say that it feels like -2, and it does – the wind is cold. But in the sunshine, it’s wonderfully warm there…

-Leena

It is coming! – Spring is almost here…

It’s March… quite nice, almost incredible! Lately we’ve had snow and sunshine, grey days, temperatures below freezing and wet snow… everything. And we just may have been hit by the biggest snowfall for this winter earlier this week as well – here in southern Finland we sometimes have this too-much-snow-too-late-it-should-have-been-at-Christmas -thing… But yes, this week’s snow, too, has already been melting. No one’s stopping spring! 🙂

The first 13 pictures I took today, the last two are from last night.

March moss

Moss magic at the summer flower bed…

March moss

backyard pine trees

Backyard pine trees.

March clover flower

A clover flower…

March strawflower

A strawflower flower… power. 😉

March

March annual mallow flower

An annual mallow flower…

March annual mallow flower

…and another…

March annual mallow flowers

…a few more…

March annual mallow flower

Perhaps I should plant annual mallow seeds, too, in many places in the garden this spring – then there would be some lace all around the garden in wintertime, how nice would that be? 😀

double sun

Double sun… 😉

March orange

An Egyptian friend…

March potato field

At the potato field…

Even though the days may be warm, the nights can be a bit cold:

it will be warmer

“I adjusted the thermostat so that it will be a bit warmer in here… is that okay…?”

purr...

“Purr… nice! I’m telling you…”
Our radiator tiger. 🙂

-Leena

Snowy, snowy – a wintry month…

It’s already March next week! But, there’s still some time to enjoy snow and… ahem, some winter pics. 🙂

The first five pics I took yesterday.

February

It’s been a nice winter week. First we had one night of raining… WATER, but it didn’t melt all the snow, and after that night it started to snow, and now it’s been snowing with the temperatures being moderate and nice winter temperatures; between 0 and about -10 degrees Celsius, and some days the sun has been shining delightfully as well. And the sun is warming a bit, loving us…

But no, we haven’t had, like, heaps of snow this winter – we’ve just had freaking cold weather at times. So, in these pics here now is to be seen our snow record for this winter… Yeah well, it’s been snowing a bit today as well, but… you get the picture, I believe. 🙂

February coffee

Okay, still some time to take winter coffee pics…

February clarkias and coffee

The sturdy clarkia or godetia flowers, too, still standing. I’ll plant clarkia seeds this spring as well, but this time, in many places in the garden.

February

Blue sky, love…

February

The next two pics I took on the day before yesterday.

February

One of those snowfalls it was. And this was at 17:45 PM – a huge increase in the number of daylight hours: on the 16th of December I wrote that the sunset was at 15:12 PM here where I’m living, and the length of the day was 5 hours 31 minutes. Today the sun sets at 17:47 PM and the length of the day is 10 hours 5 minutes – twice the energy already! 🙂

February

And the rest of the pics are again from yesterday.

Taller than the trees...?

Taller than the trees…? 😉

February strawflowers

At the strawflowers again…

February field on a car ride

And this pic I took through a car window as we were travelling to Turku. This was at about 16:30 PM – not long ago it was completely dark at that hour! 🙂

-Leena

Waiting for spring…

…aren’t we all…? In my opinion, all the four seasons are amazing and phenomenal. I’m equally excited about them all! That’s how I feel. 🙂 They all come and go… Beautiful, different… power…!

The first four pics I took today.

January

We’ve had delightful sunny days! But at one point it was a bit too warm… here in the southern part of Finland it was warmer than in many parts in Spain – in wintertime, in the middle of the night! 😮 But we’ve had snow all the time now.

January

Some days water is dripping… some days birds are singing – spring really is drawing near!

January growing field

Dreaming of expanding our growing field again…

Okay, it was on January 2nd that I started planning it all… spring… garden… I didn’t do it on purpose on that day, so it was a bit funny to notice what I already was thinking about.

January strawflower

And the strawflowers are still there! Standing, and with their petals. They are so tough. I’ll plant strawflower seeds everywhere in our garden this year! 😀

ice lantern

An ice lantern again, a week ago was this. We’ve had four or five ice lanterns this winter, clear or pink as this, too, again was.

ice lantern

Ice light… And by now the daylight has increased wonderfully! 🙂

-Leena

Sunshine and snow

The first snow has fallen. Snow – it feels soft to the touch and under one’s feet, but also makes the whole atmosphere everywhere soft, and magical. 🙂

The first three pics I took yesterday.

garden bunny

A garden bunny – a happy bunny.

persimmon

And yet another wonderful thing about November; it’s the season of Spanish persimmons! Persimmons are one of my favourite fruits. They are so delicious, sweet, juicy, quite big… 🙂

strawflower

The strawflowers meet snow now! 😀 They have closed their rustling petals…

half moon

Last Sunday, late in the evening, by the lake Pyhäjärvi. The fairly red half moon and the moon glade were just beautiful…

Follow the spiders?

Still following the spiders…? Yes… I am… 😉

Follow the spiders?

cat paw print

A cat paw print… whether it’s summer or winter, our cats enjoy getting outside.

marigold, calendula

The last pot marigold or calendula flowers today… 🙂

-Leena

Dark & cold, cosy fires & lights, and creating dream home

The campfire owl here again… 🙂 We’ve had already many campfires in our garden this autumn, too, but I usually just relax and enjoy them without my camera or my phone, but on Friday, late in the evening, I had the inspiration for taking some pics, too. (A pic on my Instagram (owlnatureleena) as well.)

campfire

Campfires in the garden are a part of my, our, dream home…

campfire

So, we have lived in this house for almost two and a half years now. But I still had one part of my belongings in Turku – as I was going on and on here in my blog last summer. 🙂 But since the end of August it has been only this, our country home, for me… and I love it! But this has been quite far from my (or our) dream home; almost everything, every thing, is in the wrong place here inside our home, only like the bookshelf and drawers are in the right spots, there are many untidy and disorganized spots in our home, and partly, naturally, because I brought so many things and pieces of furniture from Turku as well, and so on, and so on… Creating our dream home here now is not about renovating (we have done that, too – more about it later, in some other blog posts, too) and creating our dream home is not, heaven forbid, about buying anything, oh dear… yes, maybe buying some new candles and even more houseplants, but nothing more now… Creating our dream home is now about organizing, tidying up and cleaning up our home – it’s “a bit” of chaos here now… and almost all of our large windows still are without curtains, just window blinds are there… But yes, the only way to start the project for me was, first emptying, then cleaning and organizing, our garage, which definitely is not a place for our car, but for other useful things. 😉

And when we had some room for big items in the garage after rearranging, we removed a big pile of long wooden boards from the middle of our kitchen – they were taking over one third of the floor space there, so we didn’t have a kitchen table and chairs there for a year and a half, or so. (We were renovating some ceilings and walls…)

I now have a tag creating dream home here in my blog, so I’ll be posting, with pics, too, about the project here and there…

morning coffee satsuma

Morning coffee yesterday. And a satsuma! It’s the season of Spanish satsumas again! So juicy and delicious, and cheap. 🙂

oak tree

Under the oak tree…

strawflower

The strawflowers again! 😀 And they are still opening and closing their rustling petals, with the days and nights…

by candlelight

Yesterday evening, now this was in my dream kitchen. 😉 – Finally the big pile of long wooden boards is out and the kitchen table and the chairs are there! And the table and the chairs are the ones I had already in Turku. 🙂 I’ve been dreaming of candlelights in the dark evenings in the kitchen… warm and cosy… And the light of the warm oven can be seen in the pic, too – I was waiting for home-made thin and crisp barley breads to become ready.

lantern

Living candlelights in lanterns outside in the dark… and this lantern can also be seen from the kitchen window when sitting at the table. 🙂

campfire

One more pic of the Friday evening’s campfire to end this blog post… and to celebrate the dark and cold, bewitching evenings and nights! 😉

-Leena