Eyjafjallajoekull@#$*&%

Or however you say it... has finally gotten to me.
Back in April during the infamous "Ash Cloud period", I couldn't be bothered by it. In fact it was actually nice, it was probably the first time in my life that I was able to look up to a perfectly cloudless sky and see no signs that an air plane had been there. And on the first Sunday of all the air space cancellations I could go outside and hear nothing- thanks to both zero air traffic, and very minimal road traffic. It was actually a real lesson in how much air pollution we are exposed to without even realizing it.

Now for my beef... us residing here in Belgium have only been treated to 3 days of decent spring weather ever since the month of May began. I would even hazard a guess to say that we had warmer days last November, and early March than the last 2.5 weeks. But this is not really a rant about cold weather - it's more a rant about how the cold weather has been delaying my garden. So at the start of the month when I was preparing to relocate all of my wonderful seedlings and young plants - the weather turned, which kept them under house arrest. Many of the plants were nearly pot bound, or had grown just too plain big for their pots. But just in time for the tomato plants to go out we have resumed to our regularly scheduled weather forecast * huge sigh of relief * 

So the garden is still behind schedule but here's some shots that I took this morning.

Even though it still looks like quite an empty plot - our onions and peas are up in full force, some radishes are popping up and some are ready for harvesting, while the carrots, cabbage, and beets are slowly starting to show their presence. Just recently planted are some swiss chard plants, celery, artichokes, beans, cauliflower, tomato plants and even some sun flowers.

Our onions are growing like crazy, and our patio herb garden is providing us with some tasty additions to our dinners (thyme, rosemary, mint, spring onions, parsley, cilantro, and dill).

             

 Unaffected by the cooler days were our trash can spuds (which you just keep piling on more dirt, or grass clippings to keep em growing and producing as many spuds as possible) and our wonderful pear trees which we planted last autumn.

Our Empty Plot

It's Crocus Vakantie (Crocus Vacation) in Belgium! 

 So in anticipation of milder temperatures and more day light, I thought i'd reveal some of our plans for spring.  Not only do we have a blank canvas to contend with up in the attic, we also have a big blank back garden (for the most part). Last summer we did make a dent by adding in a small garden shed, a place for all the cyclists to wash their beloved bicycles, and put in some clothes lines. 

We (Belle mostly) did enjoy having the vast space, especially since our last place had a tiny garden. We spent many hours chasing Belle around, and playing games of "Bellie in the Middle" (our take on monkey in the middle), but we feel that it's time for our garden to start working for us. 

Our mission is to dig for victory, get rid of as much of that boring lawn as possible, have a bountiful harvest (however possible that is for first time gardeners - our tiny gardens in the past don't count), create a rotation plan for our garden, and do it all organically. 

With that it mind we did get a bit of a head start this past autumn. We spent a good afternoon digging up a large plot just behind the garden shed, enlightened it a bit with some pages of the world press, and gave it a good covering of compost and earth. So here's hoping that the plot will be left well nourished after the harshish winter that we've had here. 

In the meantime while our compost and newspapers were working their magic we've been studying up on information and more importantly inspiration. Been reading a great blog You Grow Girl and picked up two great books The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food, Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces (great read, even for our not so small space!). Oh and just picked up a pair of pink gardening gloves, so far have only gotten to use them to carry up the wood floor planks. 

And because i'm a little impatient to get my hands dirty, I have already began to sow some seeds inside; more for experimental purposes than anything really. So far i've sowed some tomato, aubergine, pea, and  some radish seeds. All but the aubergine seeds have begun to make their presence know - here's a look...

Well that's it for now! Next time: Drywall - Lets Get 'er done!

Cheers
Holly