Around the house

Two years ago we dreamed of having a small garden to grow our own produce, and today we have an allotment garden which we enjoy for two seasons already and a garden around our new house. At first, we were not sure if we should give up the allotment or not because we knew that it would be difficult to manage two gardens, but we decided to keep it as we love our community there and don't want to lose it.

We have started the house renovation and it is our main focus at the moment. I have managed to prepare the allotment for winter, but we haven't done any work at our house garden yet. We will be lucky if we'll start in a year. The former owners of our house were an older couple and couldn't grow vegetables anymore, so they planted dozens of ornamental plants. Currently, it looks like a jungle, and I have found some cute plants today that I would like to show you.

It is always a challenge to walk around the garden as the trees were treated a couple of years ago for the last time and their branches are in the way. One day all of these will be removed and we will create a meadow which will be the home to all kind of insects.

On the left you can see a tiny part of our house too 😊

Bushes, shrubs and trees are everywhere...

The garden is about 600 sqm, but you can't really see it because of all the plants. I can't wait when we remove them and it will all open up...

We have a couple of roses that I loved this summer. Now, we have some rosehip which I can't harvest because I don't know if they used some chemicals to treat them or not.

There are still so many tiny flowers, but I had to look for them as they are covered by other plants...

This is a green cover which is easy to grow and it comes back every time...

These are probably my favourite plants. They are tall and fluffy, and I'm planning to leave them here over winter to see what will happen next year. If I like them I'll keep them, if not they will be replaced.

In a corner behind our garage I found this tiny hydrangea. I guess it was pink in colour, but I'll be sure next year. What I can see already is that the old lady tried her best to make the garden look pretty. It was their circumstances which caused that they couldn't take care of it properly, but I imagine it was beautiful when she was still full of strength.

I have seen such ornamental plants before, but I had no idea that their blooms were so pretty. I guess that this plant can stay...

I have always wanted to have snapdragons in my garden! This one doesn't look at its best, but what else would I expect towards the end of November?

I hate to see that we have ivy too. We have it in our allotment and I'm trying to get rid of it, but it always comes back. Let's see how my fight will go here...

When I saw all these plants in summer I thought that I will remove them all because there are just way too many. However, now I see them flower and I'm not so sure if I can get rid of them...

I will need to do some research to find out the names of all these plants. I wish that houses came with instruction about how to take care of their gardens 😊

Another shrub that we have in our allotment as well. It's called golden euonymus. It's an evergreen shrub, and it's a great way to add some colour to your garden.

And now to our herbs...

We have large bushes of various herbs. One of them is sage. I'm not sure about this variety, but it tastes great with pasta. It's not as bitter as other varieties, and you only need a few leaves to create a delicious meal.

This is what I mean when I say large bushes. What am I supposed to do with so much sage? I guess I will have to remove most of it and will keep only a small part.

Like we didn't have enough rosemary from our allotment already...

I've learned recently that it's great for hair growth, so I might finally start using it.

Oregano dries out at the end of the season, and I like to harvest it at this stage as I don't need to dry it myself...

I have only learned this year that hazelnut catkins are edible. I haven't tried them yet, but heard that they don't taste so good, so I might as well let them on the tree. They produce large amount of pollen, so we're lucky that we're not allergic.

And I have also found the very last hazelnuts! Honestly, our hazelnut tree seems to be sick and didn't produce lots of hazelnuts this year, so we might cut it down next year as it will grow back easily and it will hopefully help.

As you can see I didn't harvest lavender this year. I still might collect them for massage pillows for Christmas!

I love chives so much and we have tons of them in our garden. I couldn't be more excited.

It's not all without problems...

We don't go to the back of the garden often because as you can see there are large trees and it's not easy to walk around them, so we didn't notice that a part of our fence fell over (we can't see this part of the garden from the house). I have no idea when it happened, but I have only found out today. We wanted to buy a new fence anyway, but we didn't expect that we will have to do it so quickly.

There is so much work to be done in the garden, and I can't wait when it's finished, and we sit down on our terrace and watch how we managed to turn our garden dream into reality...

See you next time...