As mentioned in my spring update, this is the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and for better or worse, a time to appreciate the garden if you have one.
I am thankful that I do, especially after I was provided with some extra motivation for seeking out new career opportunities and plenty of extra time to do, well, something… That something has resulted in an ambitious to-do list for garden work. Early casualties was the willow tree back in May, which had a fungus infection and looked to be slowly dying (in the post-mortem it looked OK though) and one of the espaliered apple trees which had very low yield (plan is to replace with some pear trees), but the list also contains garden path cleanup, repairs and replacements, flower bed renovations; even a play house for the kids is planned. I am not going to share the list though – as any plan, it is unlikely to survive contact with the enemy reality).
Key events in the garden
- Jun 13: Picked elderberry flowers for first batch of syrup (-> this recipe (Danish))
- Jun 23: Finished cleaning the garden paths.
Before
Backyard garden path before cleaning
After
Backyard garden path after cleaning - Jun 24: Finally reined in the raspberries. This task has been on its way for many years, but I didn’t find the brain space to construct a proper scaffold. Now I finally did it, with five poles and 3 meters of coated metal wire. While the planning phase may have lasted 8 years, the execution took 10 minutes 🙂
Simple scaffolding for raspberry bushes
- Jun 30?: First cucumbers harvested in the green house.
- Jul 10: Gooseberry picking day. Just 3848 g after cleaning. Much less than the 9130 g harvested last year, but that was expected after a thorough pruning.
- Jul 25: First home-grown tomatoes picked and eaten. The tomato harvest still has some promise, whereas chilies aren’t doing well this year
- August 8-9: Rebuild garden path to house
The garden path before rebuild 
The rebuilt garden path
Featured image
A cleaned-up garden path. I build those myself about ten years ago and the looked great when they were brand new. Then, every spring they look at little more worn down, as time inevitably passes, but it is always great how a few hours of work can make them look almost new.