Summer of 1998

In a pile of old newspapers waiting to be burned, I found an old notebook. On the first page it said "The Garden, 1998". I'd found a garden journal! I was excited, it was a chance to learn more about what had grown in the garden and what it may have looked like. So let's travel back in time to 1998, when I was turning 13 years old.

Mother's Day (2nd Sunday in May)

Black salsify sowed in the raised bed. Covered partially with garden fabric. Raked leaves on paths around it. 

Assorted herbs planted around the rose. Put out name tags. Covered with fabric.

Timo and Rosamunda potatoes of choice.

(Date unknown)

Sowed Timo potatoes in rows by hand, 5 kg.

Black salsify didn't take. Parsnip sowed instead with flowers on the edges. Added compost. Ant infestation under path planks.

Only one out of three rhubarb plants had survived the winter, dead plants replaced. Fertilised with ample chicken manure. Ants in rhubarb patch, too.

Sowed carrot seeds mixed with potato meal. Two rows with 30 cm distance. Covered with newspaper against weeds.

Removed fabric from herb garden. Recognisable seedlings coming up.

Turned over the fallow ground, raked in some peas.

Cabbage patch: added ashes and removed roots.

6th of June

Sowed Rosamunda potatoes, 5 kg.

Cabbage patch: added horse manure.

Planted beans and red beets in raised rows, ground temperature 15 degrees celsius.

Herb garden: Harvested some dill. Cut down all of the chives.

13th of June

Cabbage patch: Planted summer cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.

Herb garden: Chives practically gone. Some lettuce and dill to harvest.

Potatoes: Timo seedlings pushed down and soil added.

Rhubarb: Attacked by ants.

29th of June

Herb garden: Harvested lettuce and parsley. Sowed more dill in place of turmeric that didn't take.

Potatoes: More soil added to both Timo and Rosamunda.

Raised bed: Still, nothing has grown. Some life in the parsley seedlings. Hacked up the weeds and sowed cucumber and red beets.

Compost: Dug out 60 cm and filled with branches.

4th of July

Herb garden: The dill is overgrown. Lettuce, parsley and dill is all harvested. The marjoram hasn't germinated.

Raised bed: Cucumber and beets haven't sprouted yet. Parsnip is gone.

Compost: Filled up with grass clippings.

Garden: Planted a conical spruce tree and birthday lilies.

Rhubarb: Grown pretty well. Weeded patch.

Cabbage patch: Planted 10 seedlings from reserve in place of disappeared ones.

Beets have sprouted. Thinned out and watered. Some beans have come up as well.

Carrots sprouted unevenly, too much and too little in places. Thinned out.

Fallow ground germinated nicely.

Compost: Turned and disposed of some pillow feathers.

Potatoes: Rosamunda hilled for the second time.

18th of July

Fallow: Cut down flowering peas with scythe.

Herb garden: Some nice blossoms, cornflower.

Roses: Yellow roses are finished flowering. Deadheaded.

Cabbage patch: Planted six more plants from the reserve. Watered with nettle ferment.

Potatoes: Started eating early Timo potatoes.

Strawberry patch: Harvested almost four liters of strawberries.

Compost: Added so much grass that you can't see the branches anymore.

Carrots thinned out and soil added. Sowed some dill in carrot bed.

Also hilled the beets. Added ashes to beans. Accidentally pulled one out but replanted it. Sowed mallow with the beans.

Raised bed: Cucumbers have germinated. Added soil and watered with nettle ferment. Sowed turmeric.

Rhubarb: Harvested almost a kilogram, practically everything. Mulched and watered with nettle ferment.

28th of July

Cabbage patch: Planted a cabbage plant from the reserve. Tilled, watered with nettle ferment and put on fabric.

The fallow: Started tilling in the pea plants, but thought it might be too early.

Carrots were large enough to not thin out any more.

22th of August

Cabbage patch: Planted the last 3 plants from the reserve. Tilled away the weeds and harvested. Broccoli was tender in spite of flowers. Plants are flimsy and the harvest insignificant.

The fallow: Tilled with hay fork.

Potatoes: Have eaten all the Timo potatoes. They were medium size but not large. Tilled the soil.

Compost: Covered the hay with sand.

2nd of September

Cabbage patch: Cabbages planted too shallow as keeps falling over. Seems like they have little to no roots. Perhaps two leaves could be underground when planted. Hilled the soil and dug a moat for watering. Watered with watered-down nettle water because the rain had filled the bucket. Some broccoli to harvest.

Nettle ferment: Added a barrel of nettles into the bath tub.

Compost: Covered with 15 cm of soil.

Potatoes: Rosamunda have reached full size.

10th of September

Cabbage patch: Watered with nettle ferment and harvested an insignificant amount of broccoli. Must not have fertilised enough.

Nettle ferment: Nettle ferment is all out in the bath tub, waiting for rain.

Harvested some small carrots, growing too close together

Potatoes: Rosamunda are fullgrown and the foliage is dying.

The beets are too small for some unexplained reason.

Herb garden: The flowers are only now at their peak. Used lettuce, cumin, parsley and dill. Didn't grow all that big.

Strawberry patch is cleaned out. Watered with nettle ferment.

Rhubarb is cleared out and watered. Too woody to eat.

Raised bed: Cleared and watered the cucumber with nettle ferment. The cucumbers are blossoming and the borage will soon follow. Used two parsnips in a soup.

Garden: The spruce is lush.

2nd of October

Raised bed: The cucumber plant had frozen at the blossoming stage. The borage was blooming.

Potatoes: Harvested all the Rosamunda potatoes and divided into four bags for us and the kids.

The fallow: Added horse manure.

Beans: All is harvested.

18th of October

Potatoes: tilled the soil of the potato beds.

Raised bed: Added some horse manure.

Carrots: Pulled up and put in a soup.

Beets: Eaten up with some leftover potatoes.

Cabbage patch: All harvested. Added chicken manure.

Hope you enjoyed this little garden story 😊 For me, reading about how the garden has been used made it come alive - even if it was 25 years ago. I've never had a garden, but I'm looking forward to learning by trial and error. 

You can still clearly make out where the vegetable garden has been, and I'm thinking about using it for the same purpose. My thought is that the soil might be good if it's been cultivated for so many years, and it's the sunniest spot on the land. 

I was wondering a bit why it hasn't been overgrown by trees when so much of the garden has. But on my last visit I saw the reason: Landscaping fabric was peeking out from under the vegetation. Removing the fabric will be next years problem, because this fall I'll be occupied with thinning out the trees on the property. The trees will also need to be processed, and the vegetable garden is the only clearing big enough for storing them, temporarily. So the vegetable garden will have to wait until next spring. 

In the next post, I'll have an update on the fireplace, until then!