So much has happened since I returned from the hiking trip with my husband’s family. Let’s make some elderflower syrup while I catch up up a bit. We’d only been gone a few days but grass had taken over everywhere. Sunflowers urgently needed to go into the ground, so I prepared beds for them. I also made a whole lot of elderflower syrup.
A year ago, I adopted neglected land to restore and enjoy while we live in an apartment nearby. So much has happened since.
I restored the garden house–well, mostly. We cleaned up endless amounts of trash and cut free trees and paths. We also added a second plot. Even more has happened there. But let’s go back to the beginning.
Things take more time with a splint on one hand. And with only six days until my vacation, time was short. I made the best of the last days to stay on top of weeds, free up some strawberry plants, and get the last seedlings into the ground.
When I got a chance to harvest a lot of free rhubarb, I ignored both my injury and the vacation preparations to make a rhubarb BBQ sauce, some rhubarb syrup, and a sweet treat. While I share it all, I ramble on about the myth of the Tragedy of the Commons.
The garden is waking up. Spring is here. And I only have two weeks left until my hiking trip. We leave for a week at the end of May. This puts a deadline on a lot of my garden projects. I was also almost out of plastic trays. So, I decided to try soil blocking.
My potatoes had been ready to plant for a while, and I had to get the potato beds finished to plant them. The weather didn’t cooperate, so we dug Irish potato beds in the rain. The next day was a sunnier garden day with more bed-prep and potato planting. Potatoes rain or shine!
With my husband back at work, I set out to finish the greenhouse alone. I had to get it done before the wind got too strong–and didn’t like the time pressure at all. The next day, with more time pressure, I put up the rain collection system.
It’s time to tackle that indoor list. Our living room has been an absolute mess, so I’m building a storage bench for the hallway. I also deal with about 50 eggs from the garden neighbor, and use the egg cartons for my potatoes.
Spring is still playing tug-o-war with the remnants of winter here. But the occasional warmer days have me preparing for warmer days to come soon. I clean up our balcony, drive off more trash from the overgrown plot, and make very simple grilled-cheese sandwiches.
With the outside world still wet and gray, I get a lot done indoors while dreaming about garden work. As I’d been craving some cheesecake, I decided to bake some from scratch–something that I hadn’t done in over a decade. It did not quite go as planned.