Uge 14 Forår!/Week 14 Spring!

Så er det ved at være tid at komme i haven igen. Vissent plantemateriale er fjernet, frø er bestilt, og planer lagt.
Gad vide hvornår det er sikkert at gå i gang? Godt nok har vi haft mildt vejr dette forår, men ikke uden et par snigangreb fra frosten. Nå, i hvertfald kan de første frø sås, dem der helst skal sås tidligt om foråret.

Jeg skal også have planlagt overdækningen af terrassen, så der kan blive noget skygge i haven. Det bliver en pergola-agtig ting, måske endda med mulighed for at have en hængekøje eller hængekøje-stol hængende :D.

Her er et par billeder af de første skud:
Purpursolhat vover sig frem (picture1):

Rabarberen trives (picture2);
Bærbuskene begynder så småt at springe ud (picture3):
Og forårsblomsterne blomstrer (picture4 and 5):


In English:
Time to start up in the garden again. Old plantmaterial has been removed, seeds have been ordered and plans made.
I wonder when it is safe to sow the seeds. We have had a mild winter and a mild spring, but not without a few attacks from the back from the frost. Well, anyway the first seeds can be sown, the ones that must be sown early in the spring.

I must also plan the covering of the terrazzo, so I can get some shadow in the garden. It will be a pergola type over covering, maybe even with the possibility of hanging a hammock there :)

A few shots of the first shots....:
Picture1: Echinecea pupurea dares to take a look above the ground
Picture2: The rhubarb is thriving
Picture3: The berry bushes has started to shoot.
Picture4 and 5: And the spring flowers bloom.

Uge 6, Mild vinter og forårsplaner/Week 6, Mild winter and spring plans

Nå, så er det så småt ved at være tid til at tænke på havebrug igen. Til at overveje hvilke planter, der skal plantes og hvilke ændringer der skal laves - og slå græsset...mærkeligt mildt vejr vi har denne vinter.
I lørdags sneede det. Jeg skyndte mig at tage billeder af det inden det smeltede igen. Måske er det det eneste sne, vi får i år. Billederne er fra mine forældres have, jeg var ovre til en af mine lillesøstres fødselsdag.

In English:
So, now it is time to start thinking about gardening again. To think about which plants to grow, and which changes to make...and since we have unusually mild weather, I also have to move the lawn *chok*.
This Saturday it snowed. I hurried to take a few pictures of it, before it melted again. Maybe it will be the only snow we get this year. Wierd!!! The pictures is from my parents' garden, I was over for one of my little sisters' birthday.

Plant hardiness and climate in Denmark

Danmark er zone 7-8 (nogle steder 6,5). Resten ved I, vi bor her jo :). Tjek også nedenstående skema. (Jeg har fået det af en bekendt, hvis der er et copyright på det, så lad mig det venligst vide).

In English:

The short description, plant hardiness:
Denmark: 7-8. Plant hardiness map, Europe
However lots of western wind most of the year must be taken into consideration. So the actual (micro) climate zones are like this (4 mildest, 1 harshest):
My island, Fyn (Eng. Funen) is usually zone 8 (micro zone 3-4) . It is the round island in the middle.

Denmark is situated just at the northernmost tip of temperate climate, so plants that can survive some frost, will survive mild winters but not our colder winters, and may not make seeds.

The extended nerdy description, climate profile:
In the ‘Köppen Climate Classification System’ I believe Denmark is Cfb.
We have coastal climate though, which means that summers don’t get as warm as in a continental climate (and the winters not as cold).

Our climate is sort of an ‘in-between’-climate. Many types of weather and climates meet here:

• Denmark lies on the border between ‘moist continental climate’, ‘Atlantic climate’ and ‘boreal forest climate’. The vegetation in DK is a mixture of the provinces.
• Denmark lies between northern temperate climate and sub arctic climate. The western part is slightly warmer (but also windier) than the eastern. And the southern part is warmer than both. Just warm enough that in the south zone 8 plants will usually survive the winter.
• We are situated where weather systems come to die:
  - At the end of (moist) weather systems from the North Sea west of us, moving east towards the Continent. That means that much of the precipitation falls in the west:
  Annual precipitation is over 900 mm in the southern part of mid-Jutland and less than 500 mm over and around The Great Belt. This reflects on the plant life. You find more steppe-plants around The Great Belt.
  - And at the end of weather systems from northeast to northwest, moving south. The Swedish and Norwegian mountains take the precipitation and we get a grey skyfilled with a heavy blanket of “empty” clouds. That ‘blanket’ keeps the temperature up during the winter, meaning higher probability that less hardy plants survive the winter.
• The precipitation is evenly distributed throughout the year, but since the evaporation is less in the winter half of the year, this is the most humid period.
• Oh, and one should remember the Gulf Stream, that also about ends here, and keeps the temperature of the water quite high (we are placed at about the same latitude as Alaska, but the gulf stream keeps us warm). Again: the west wouldn’t be zone 8 without it.

Denmark’s climate is quite unique. It somewhat resembles that of The Netherlands and The British Isles, but is special because it is a border area both climate and weather wise.

Do you get the idea?
With so many conflicting weather and climate patterns, our weather is constantly changing, and you never know how the weather is going to be tomorrow. The weather may also vary a lot from year to year:
Sometimes a meter of snow, sometimes not even frost.
Sometimes storms all autumn, sometimes Indian Summer until November.
And summer may be dry, wet, cold, warm….

The only thing that is sure, is that the winters are colder than the summers (usually….).

We love this weather, and miss the moderate temperatures and constant weather changes when abroad. Just shows that you can get used to anything…

Uge 41, Hil gødning/Week 41, Hail manure :D

Jeg har brugt hele eftermiddagen på at fordele 'delvist omsat husdyrgødning' (dvs. lort;) ) i min have.
Jeg kunne næsten se planterne smile.

(Jeg kan ikke tage billeder lige i øjeblikket, så har jeg lånt et billede af planter med gødning fra Havenyt.dk. Det er i øvrigt en rigtig god og meget omfattende side. Tag og besøg den.)

Da jeg har valgt at dyrke min have økologisk bruger jeg naturgødning, ikke kunstgødning.
Det er bl.a. fordi:

Fordele ved naturgødning (i forhold til kunstgødning):

• Tilfører alle næringsstoffer, ikke bare nogle få udvalgte, og betyder dermed at man ikke bare tilgodeser planternes behov for bestemte næringsstoffer, men også de levende organismer i jorden.
• Forbedrer ikke bare vækst, men medfører at planterne får større modstandkraft (kunstgødning kan faktisk nedsætte den).
• Den er langsomvirkende, langtidsvirkende, alsidig og jordforbedrende
• Billigere og mindre energikrævende at producere (kommer helt af sig selv....og anses ofte for et spildprodukt ;) Det koster ganske vist energi at samle, opbevare, transportere og udbringe naturgødning, men det er ubetydeligheder i forhold til kunstgødningerne.
• Naturgødning er skånsomt overfor naturen, hvor produktion af kunstgødning er en stærkt forurenende proces og der vil næsten altid være tungmetalrester i den.
  
  Og sidst men ikke mindst: Brugen af naturgødning omdanner affald til ressourcer. Herligt!
  
  Ulemper:
• Lugter ved opbevaring og fordeling (men jeg er altså ikke så sart, at jeg ikke kan klare en enkelt eftermiddags stank af komøg...).

In English:

I have spent the afternoon spreading 'partially composted manure from domestic animals' (a.k.a. shit;) ).
I could almost see the plants smile...
(I can't take pictures at the moment. The picture is from the most visited Danish site on gardening, a huge site on organic gardening).

Because I have chosed to grow my garden organic (as is the custom with many gardens in Denmark, maybe even the majority), I use manure, not fertilizer.
I do it because:

Advantages (in relation to artificial fertilizer):

• Adds all nutrients, not just at few selected, and therefore means that you not only consider the needs of the plants for particular nutrients, but also those of the living organisms and microorganisms in the soil.
• Both improve the growth of the plants and means that they get better at resisting diseases and bugs (fertilizer can actually make the plants weaker in that respect).
• Works slowly, for a long time, is versatile and improve the quality of the soil.
• Cheaper and requires less energy to produce (it appears all by itself...and is even considered a waste product ;). It does require energy to collect, contain, transport and deliver the manure, but the energy needed in all, is only a fraction of that of fertilizer.
• Manure is gentle on nature, whereas the production of fertilizer is a very polluting proces and there will almost always be remnants of heavy metals in it.

And last but not least: Using manure means that waste is transformed into a ressource. Nice!

Disadvantages:

• Smells (but I'm not so fastidious (look, I have learned a fancy new word;) ) that I can't stand being in the smell of done for a single afternoon, especially not considering all the advantages).

Anmeldelse af/Review of Urtegartneriet

Jeg har i øvrigt købt planterne, jeg nævnte i forrige post, i Urtegartneriet.

Positivt:

• De har en del planter, jeg ikke har kunnet finde andre steder, f.eks. farvevaiden.
• Jeg bestilte onsdag og havde frøene fredag, glimrende.
• Der er en grundig såvejledning på pakkerne.
• Det er meget interessant og grundig information om de enkelte planter på hjemmesiden.

Negativt:

• Man kan ikke betale online, så der medfølger i stedet et girokort. Jeg hader girokort! Det er så svært at komme hele vejen omkring banken/postkontoret, og så skal man oven i købet betale et gebyr for det... (klynke, klynke ;) ).
• Konvolutten, regningen, frøposerne lugtede alt sammen kvalmt af gammel sur cigaretrøg. Da jeg har læst Lenes anmeldelse af Urtegartneriet, ved jeg hvorfor. Undrer mig egentlig lidt, at de ikke er opmærksomme på det, når det nu er så økologisk og biodynamisk alt sammen.

Men stadigvæk, bortset fra cigaretstanken, er jeg tilfreds med dem. Og hvem ved, måske virker tobakken konserverende....:)

In English:

By the way, the plants I mentioned in the latter post, I have bought at Urtegartneriet ("the herb nursery").

Pros:

• They have many plants, that I haven't been able to find elsewhere (in Denmark), e.g. the woad.
• I ordered the plants on Wednesday and they arrived Friday, fine.
• The seed packages have thorough sowing information om them
• On the homepage there are a lot of interesting and in-depth information about a lot of the plant that they sell.

Cons:

• You can't pay online, so the seeds come with a Giro inpayment form. I hate those. I forget them, I can't be bothered to to detour all the way to the bank/post office and you even have to pay extra for all that trouble (whining, I know....).
• The envelope, the bill and the seed packages all smelled disgustingly of old cigarettesmoke. Since the company is organic and biodynamic and everything, I'm kind of surprised that they don't care about this - and it gives a bad first impression when you open the envelope!

But apart from the cigaret stench I'm quite satisfied with them, and who knows maybe the tobacco is a preservative.... (after all it is an insecticide ;).

De første spæde skridt/The first tiny steps

Nu er det på tide at gå i gang med at lave den have, jeg gerne vil have: En have der afspejler min interesse for fortiden, for gode velsmagende (og hjemme-økologiske:) produkter og for bevarelse af arts-diversitet...og jeg har kun 200 kvm ;).

Foreløbig er der omkring 40 planter, jeg gerne vil have. De fleste skal først sås/plantes til foråret, så der er god tid til at lægge store planer.

Havestatus:
- Vejret er fantastisk: Solrigt, ikke særlig meget vind og temperaturer over 10 grader midt på dagen. Planterne ser stadig fine og august-agtige ud, kun hostaen er begyndt at visne ned.
- Temperaturen er dog faldet en del, så ukrudtet er holdt op med at gro som...ukrudt.
- Alle bærbuskene fik rigtig mange flotte bær, og hindbærbusken bærer stadig.
- Dræbersneglene er vist alle døde, men jeg gruer for foråret :(
- Alt, der skulle klippes (ned), er blevet klippet, og det meste af det fjernet (tak for hjælpen alle sammen!). Et par rødder skal dog lige graves op, måske i morgen....?

Jeg skal have sået de frø, der kan/skal sås nu:
I "skal"-gruppen finder vi:

• Kvan, som skal have kuldepåvirkning, så den skal sås nu. Frøene er desuden mest spiredygtige indtil 3 måneder efter at de er modne (sensommer).
  De er blevet sået på en sydøstvendte jordforhøjning, der vist var en kompostbunke engang. Kvan kan godt lige næringsrig jord, og smager bedst, hvis den er i let skygge en del af dagen.
• Prikbladet perikon , som kan sås tidligt forår eller efterår. Den kan være lang tid om at spire, så jeg sår den allerede nu.

I "kan"-gruppen, som jeg sår nu, er:

• Vintersar
  En krydderurt jeg længe gerne har ville prøve at smage.
• Farvevaid
  Den eneste hjemmehørende plante i Nordeuropa, der kunne bruges til at farve blå med. Den hører selvfølgelig til i en historisk farveplantehave.
• Malurt
  Den berømte, den berygtede indgrediens i absinth. Men den er også god til andre ting, f.eks. som mølurt (det er faktisk det dens navn betyder). Jeg er nysgerrig, så den må jeg også have i min have.

De kan alle tre sås nu, fordi de ikke er specielt følsomme overfor frost. Jeg burde dog nok have plantet dem lidt tidligere på efteråret, så de havde lidt længere tid til at samle kræfter til vinteren. Hvis de overlever, kommer de hurtigere i vækst end resten, som bliver sået i april-maj.

Desuden er min have blevet beriget med en brombærbusk, 3 små humlestiklinger, rabarber, vinrabarber og purpursolhat...og inden længe skulle der også komme et par ribsbuske og et par hyldebuske.

In English:
Time to get started making the garden I want: A garden that reflects my interest in the past, my preference for good, delicious (and home grown “organic”) produce, and my interest in the preservation of biodiversity …and I have only got 200 square meters!

I have already come up with 40 plants that I want in my garden. Most are to be sown in the spring, so I have plenty of time to make plans.

Garden Status:
- Very nice weather: Sunny, little wind and temperatures above 10 C in the middle of the day. The plants look all "August", except for the hosta that has begun to wither.
- The temperature has dropped quite a lot the last few weeks, so the weeds have stopped growing like…weeds.
- All the berry bushes has many and beautifull berries, the raspberry bushes still have berries.
- I think the Spanish slugs have all died now, but I dread spring :(
- All that had to be cut back, has been cut back, and most of it removed. A few roots has too be dug up, probably tomorrow...?

I'm going to sow the seeds, that can/must be sown now:
In the group of must-be-sown-now are:

• Angelica archangelica.
  It needs a cold period to germinate, so now is the time to sow it. Also the seeds are most likely to germinate, if they are sown not later than 3 months after having matured (late summer).
  I have sown it on the rise, that was probably a compost pit at some point. Angelica likes fertile soil. The rise is in the south-east corner of my allotment, angelica tastes better if it has grown in partially shade a part of the day.
• Hypericum perforatum.
  It can be sown early in the spring or autumn. It can take a long time to germinate, so I will sow it already now.

In group of the can-be-sown-now are:

• Winter savory (Satureja montana).
  A herb that I am looking forward to finally taste.
• Woad (isatis tinctoria).
  The only plant belonging to Northern Europe, that could be used to dye blue with. It of course belongs in a historical dyer’s garden.
• Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium).
  The famous, the infamous ingredient in absinth. But is also good for a variety of other things, e.g. against clothes moths (it’s Danish name malurt actually means “moth-herb”). I’m curious about the plant, so I need that one in my garden too.

All three can be sown now, because they are not particularly frost tender. I should probably have sown them a bit earlier, so they had a longer period to gather strength for winter, but I think they will be ok. If they survive, they will grow faster and bigger than ones sown in april-may (which I will do if they don’t survive).

My garden has already been enriched with a brambleberry bush, two species of rhubarb and a species of Echinacea…and soon a few cuttings of red currant (Ribes rubrum) and two species of elderberry will join them.

Haven ved overtagelsen/The garden as it was

I juni købte jeg mig en kolonihave. Hen over sommeren lod jeg den være som den var (udover lugning og hækklipning) for at se hvad der var i jorden og hvordan jordbunds-, læ og solforhold var.

Huset skal der gøres en del arbejde på. Det ser pænt ud udefra, men havde dårligt gulv og utætte vægge. Gulvet er klaret. Jeg og Håndværkeren (dvs. min far) summer stadig over hvordan væggene skal laves.
Den petroleumsblå farve skal snart forsvinde....(Picture1):

En lille overkommelig græplæne, som dog nok må se sig selv decimeret. Intet er så unyttigt som en græsplæne, og jeg har rigtig mange andre ting at bruge min lille plet jord til.
Noget af den får dog lov til at blive, man skal jo have et sted at ligge med en god bog og en hvedeøl en solrig dag. (Picture2):
Der er hvad der skal være i en kolonihave: Flagstang og drivhus og masser af blomster...mange af dem må dog nok forsvinde, der skal være plads til farveplanter, bærbuske og krydderurter i stedet. (Picture3)
Se så, her kommer der til at gro bærbuske i massevis. Væk med salaten, dræbersneglene tager alligevel det hele (picture4):

Det var så haven som den var.

In English:

This June I bought myself an allotment garden. I let it grow without making alterations, to see what was in the soil, and I got to know the soil, the wind and sun conditions.

Picture1: The house looks nice from the outside, but the floor was very bad (has been fixed) and the walls aren't watertight. I and The Craftsman (my father) are making plans...
The teal colour will thankfully soon be gone.

Picture2: A nice little lawn, that will probably have to see itself be decimated, as I have plenty of more useful things to use my soil for. However some of it will be allowed to stay, one needs a place to lie on a sunny day with a good book and a weissbeer.

Picture3: An allotment garden containing what every allotment garden contains: flagpole, greenhouse and plenty of flowers. Some of the flowers will have to go, to make space for herbs, dyeplants and berrybushes

Picture4: Here berry bushes will grow abundantly. No more salad, Arion lusitanicus (affectionately called 'killer snails' in Denmark) take it all anyway.

That is the garden, as it was.