A short tour - Rowing Canal

Dear Family & Friends

Let me take you to the city where we go for sleep over as we all can't go very far these days with travel restrictions. Just 5-10 minutes walk from our apartment is this 18 kilometers oval circuit man-made rowing canal. People go for power walk or cycling in this pedestrian area. If exercise activities is too tiring, you can just sit in the bench and practice ''people watching''!! 

See the hanging breach? It's made of heavy concrete?!! but just for people. In winter, they drain all the water out and gather the fishes within. In Spring, river water is allowed in once again. In summer, there's a rowing school and rowing competition events.  

That's our minute outing for today. Smile and keep happy at all possible time...If there's difficulty in life, just keep practicing till it gets better! Have a great day!

Yours

The Victorious Gardening

Dear Family & Friends

In the photo is a patch of hollyhock flowers. Beautiful isn't it? We planted them - but it's not our garden. It's the street pathway of our neighbor across us. 

There were just ugly weeds growing there before and the owner keeps spraying chemicals to tame it every year. We hate hate chemical spray because it's very bad for us and our environment!! 

So, one day, I dug up spare hollyhocks from my garden and planted it in his patch. He was surprised to discover what we did and I told him to leave them alone. He didn't argue...after all, we saved him some work, money and probably his health too!! 

Passersby all enjoy the yearly flower display and the old weeds got no room to grow there anymore!! Victorious gardening!! Hope you enjoyed the almost self maintaining flower patch too!

Yours

Mentors are valued people

Dear Family & Friends

If you come across a mentoring friend - value them for they are rare these days. In the photo is our bee mentor friend in his bee farm. He shares with us precious knowledge on beekeeping...it's a long process of learning but the benefit is taking root.

We are now ready for bee expansion as the bee families we got last year has ''doubled'' in size! Time to split them for more bee colonies! We can expect more organic honey from our happy bees and we might even try bee pollen production too. 

To be a beekeeper is a grand responsibility. I dream to be a beekeeper, but I don't have the physical strength. So, my role remains secondary: to just grow and maintain an organic garden as a support to our buzzing friends. 

Happy days to you all!!

Yours

Asparagus dream

Dear Family & Friends

They say for a family of 4, I need to grow 25 asparagus. I just can't make myself buy those shriveled, very tiny piece of asparagus roots sold in the shop for 4 euros each! With patience I waited instead. Then one day, a lady in our village gave us a sack full of it for FREE!  My dream of growing asparagus in our garden came to pass. Thankful!

Upon receiving the clumps of freshly dug roots, we made a 50 cm deep trench to bury them. With a matured roots and we could expect to harvest asparagus by next year. Otherwise, it will take 3 years.

It's important to put compost upon planting the asparagus roots to get a healthy start. After all, this perennial plant will grow for 20-30 years, giving us fresh asparagus spears every spring time to enjoy.

With patience we can always reap our reward. A challenge of which we should all aim for in life.

Have a great day.

Yours

The green gets greener

Dear Family & Friends

The green are definitely getting greener in our garden at this time. Let me show you: I'm not sure exactly what this plant is, but it is some form of succulent plant. It withstood our cold winter, so I plant to grow them as ground cover in parts of the garden. 

Let's check on the cherry tree...after the pretty blossoms all fell onto the ground, we can see that the bees have done a good job of pollination. We can now see young green fruits. As they grow bigger in the weeks to come, they'll turn red and juicy. YAY! Can't wait!

It's just so lovely to see the different tones of greens of various plants, and the texture and shapes never fails to ''wow'' us with their unique beauty.

We find plants popping up in places by itself...nature have ways to seed and grow themselves to surprise us. I usually let everything grow in our garden, including weeds as it's impossible for me to keep pulling them up....afterall, I find everything beautiful.

Let's all grow a garden and have great fun!

Yours

Perennial Borders Around my garden

Dear Family & Friends 

I tend to outline my garden beds with a border. I have recycled old roof tile as borders but they tend to house slugs and snails. Another more natural way is to make use of living borders.

In this vegetable area, I have several beds where I used chives to line as borders for the length of the beds. It also holds the soil from spilling into the pathway, besides, it's edible and beautiful too that comes year after year. Since my pathway between two beds are narrow, when in full bloom, my path disappears...and it is important to prune them to keep neat and to gain mulch resource!

Another perennial living border I used around paved space in the garden is the lavender plants. It marks the area well all year round and the fragrance and beautiful flowers are added bonus. It is also a bee friendly plant!

For a narrow paved pathway, I lined perennial grape hyacinth low growing bulbs as a border feature. It's absolutely stunning when in bloom and this plant multiplies so fast that I can divided them to accentuate and establish more pathway borders! With a living border that's bee friendly plants...it's great for the overall garden ecology.

Just some of the living border ideas we used in our garden that would possibly inspire you too. Happy gardening.

Yours

Seedlings are sprouting

Dear Family & Friends

With April showers, our garden seems to be getting greener. Despite the fact that it confuses me whether it's really time to go all out with my sowing outdoor.

I did a lot of seed sowing indoors some weeks ago, and they sprouted and growing well under a more protective and warmer atmosphere.

Watching seeds sprouting never fails to mesmerizes me. I swear some of them grows as I sit watching them on those few minutes of wondering. Seeds just needs a bit of moist soil to do the magic. 

As you can see, I just use recycled toilet rolls and handmade newspaper rolled pots to contain them till they are big enough to get transplanted in my garden beds. Recycling is a great way to help our ecology too!

Life is good in our garden. It's a happy place. Wishing you happy gardening too.

Yours

Fruit trees are blooming once again

Dear Family & Friends

It's fascinating to see fruit trees waking up. One after another they form buds on their branches and out comes the floral blooms.

Since we have several fruit tree varieties in the garden, we see how they follow each other in waking up. The very first one that blooms out is the almond nut tree, and of course the first one to green up too!

Tree blossoms attract a lot of bees that if we stand underneath a tree, it seems to vibrate with a deafening sound - I find it all very interesting and one very pleasant noise. 

In just a couple of weeks, flower petals starts dropping, sending a lot of confetti. Another joyful time that one should be out in the garden to enjoy it all.

We can't deny that time is visually showing us how it goes...it seem to go quicker as we grow older. Thus, it is important to be reminded how previous time is and can't waste it on foolish matters. Just my thoughts.

Wishing all good things today.

Yours

Time to keep on sowing

Dear Family & Friends

You can call me the mad gardener, for I really won't mind it. Day and night my mind is preoccupied with garden task and it's addictive. It's really the season to start sowing and to keep on - in order to get a garden filled with everything you want. Must always try!

My mantra is to fill every space as dense as I could, so comes summer season, it will be cooler, filled with colors and lesser need of watering chore as plants can shield fast water evaporation. It's really a long term outlook plan.

Right now, the sunshine is just so pleasant to do all gardening chore - pure joy. Comes night fall, the body starts to complain - but once you fall asleep, you can't feel the aches anymore. By next day, it's time to start all over again:)

Life is fun - maybe sometimes we term it funny! I would still recommend outdoor gardening work - no matter what. Hope you have a great day too!

Yours

The pickled-minded spring weather

Dear Family & Friends

Spring is definitely here but it's still so pickled minded: One minute we have very warm sunny day, then a foggy day with it's cold temperature.

The season is definitely testing the patience of a gardener. I decided I'm not playing the game and started my direct seed sowing everywhere I can!

But the game is still on: This week we experienced, fog, sunshine, strong wind, rain and snow all in a day!! All I could hope my impatient garden works done a week ago will be spared.

No regrets. I still love 'spring season' for with it...it brings a lot of new hope. Fresh new green leaves, blossoms, bees buzzing, birds singing - it's all telling us that life is good as always. Let's do gardening and check it out. 

Have a great day!

Yours

Refresh and enjoy

Dear Family  Friends 

Joy seems to reflect in our homecooked food. What not to have: a very simple easy to prepare crepe made with a smile - it seems to taste more delicious this way!

A new season brings in freshness to our surrounding environment. Wild ducks are out testing the fresh cool water. Watching them simply refreshes our day too.

Cool fresh air and sunshine is definitely a nice treat for us. It's all for free, and the only responsibility we need to return is to take care and respect our environment.

Let's not forget that life is good. Check it out...go take a look at your natural surroundings and you'll notice how blessed you really are! 

Stay blessed.

Yours

New season...freedom

Dear Family & Friends

It was one crazy time when most part of the world got restricted rules that busy cities turned eerie and quiet as shops were forced to close. Pandemic was the term.

Yet, our nature was never dictated...it remained the same and retained a mind of it's own. The sun continues to shine and constantly revealing a beautiful blue sky. The river runs through the city as always, gushing it's waters flown in from the mountains. The sight and sound is wonderful.

Now is a new season! Here in Bulgaria...the imposed restrictions have been lifted: Businesses are given the rights to trade once again. Restaurants are opened and people are happy to be set free.

Although I really prefer my quiet village life better...but I do appreciate that city people and affected businesses are set free to live a life once again.

Wonderful to have a new season...a new day! Wishing you all a victorious day!

Yours

Garden would be boring without caterpillars

 Dear Family & Friends

Without them, garden life would be boring. They are very much a part of the cog in the wheel of life - caterpillars!! This caterpillar will become a white butterfly. They tend to eat my kale/cabbages plants where they lay their eggs in big numbers.

Fortunately the plants seem to be able to revive after being attacked. The more leaves are eaten, the more leaves they produces. Thus, we have to learn to share some of our favorite food too...for more will come forth - that's God's principle! 

I pick half eaten/munched leafy greens to cook for our delicious meal...My beautiful daughter would say: ''Mummy, you're serving us some left-over dinners again?!''  Then, she smiles because it was all very delicious. BTW, caterpillars was not part of our meal!

Hope you're putting a bright big beautiful smile on your face today...and stay happy always.

Yours

A new season is unfolding

 Dear Family & Friends

Spring is not far away when flowering bulbs starts popping up. First one to come out in our garden is always the 'snow drop'. These white flowers hang upside down...a very welcome food source for the bees at this time.

Let me show you up close as to how 'snow drop' flower looks like if I flip them upright. Very simple yet very pretty - Don't you think so? As soon as the flowers wither, I'll dig up a portion of the clump, to  multiply by transplant them everywhere I can.

Working in my garden, I get to appreciate and understand that everything in life is just for a season. Should our day be easy or hard, it's all for a season only. 

Let's make today a beautiful day. 

Yours

The only leafy green we have these days

Dear Family & Friends

Let me show you my tough winter veggie - the 'Kale'. This is the only fresh leafy greens I could gather from the garden during winter season. They survive freezing temperature: deep frost or even covered by snow...they will droop a bit, making them look like palm trees, but will perk up once sun shines on them.

 

Before snow was forecasted, I quickly gathered an armful for kitchen's use. Glad I did - for at present our garden is still covered in snow...and it'll be a few days before I can harvest again. 

Thankful that we can still get free food from the garden to enjoy despite of the very cold season.  Most of all, this leafy green gets even more sweet and delicious during winter! This is God's goodness.  

There's always goodness around you. Every new day brings with it great hope. Stay safe, stay sane and never let the day go without enjoying it.

Yours