Green week

Last year I played along. This year I am in the game again. Green week is hosted by Shining egg, like last year. My green week last year was the loneliest weeks in my whole life. Not only this, it was one of the most grievous ever. There was nobody I could talk to and I was alone at home, resting. I hope that this year my green week is a happy one.I posted the first "green" photo yesterday, by pure coincidence. The afternoon was a bit green, I could say, because I pulled out the box with the vegetable and flower seeds. It was time to check what was still missing and time to order the last seeds from the Thompson & Morgan catalog. It is time to sow some of the seeds that need lots of time to germinate.

We dig up the beds in April but this year I will do this on a small patch of land already in March. I wish to have some spinach and some fresh salad sooner than in May, that's why. I wonder what kind of season it will be this year... What I am sure about is that there will be no tomatoes on my beds this year.

Green week 1

I like the idea of 'green week' hosted by shining egg, although I joined in a bit late. I love green color. Perhaps even more now, when everything is so dull and grey outside. The tiniest green leaf makes me happy when I see it these days.

While wandering through the woods on Sunday, I took this photo:It is called tevje in Slovenian (in all Slovenian words j is read like y in a word yet) and Hacquetia epipactis in Latin. It is quite common in our woods but I read in one of my garden magazines, that it is usually grown in the gardens in the UK and that it is very precious plant for the gardeners there. It is always like this - the grass is always greener at the neighbor's garden. We want plants in our gardens which are not common for our environment. We always strive for different and new plants. Sometimes we are not aware that we are doing bad to the plants which grow around us - the natives become extinct at some point when newcomers overgrow them.

To tell the truth, I like new plants in my garden. I still have to order my seeds from Thompson&Morgan but I am glad somehow that in our garden shops there are still many seeds which don't have F1 written beside their name. Which means they are not hybrids. Which means that they are still good old unchanged seeds. I hope that I will be luckier this year with my seedlings because cats use my flower beds for lying on them. This year I will put fence around the flower beds until the little plants grow bigger. At least I hope so. I will let you know once in May and post some photos of my beauties...

A day off

Yesterday I took a day off work, mostly because I had an appointment at my doctor. I still have 7 free days to use up from the last year, so 6 more to go until the end of June. I am not really fond of visiting doctors but once in a while I just have to. A few years ago when I had kidney infection I went to the doctor after about 10 years. And they couldn't find my files! "They are probably in the archives", I was told. They were not found up to this day. Funny, how they just put the files away like if you perished or something.
I went to the library after that and in just a few hours read one more of Arto Paasilinna: Isoisää etsimässä (Finnish name of the book, I haven't found an English translation). The story is about travels of a man named Avgust who is following his grandfather over the Europe and spends unforgettable time with him. Perhaps another reminder for me to go out and play, to live my life fully and not just keep reading tons of books... Though, I am reading another one of Paul Theroux about his travels to South America. Rather depressing but I keep hoping that he will describe some more cheerful events going south. I still wish to go to Peru one day but I think I will wait that one of my colleagues who married a Peruvian girl in 2006 will move to Lima once in the next five years. At least he says so. Everything is so much cheaper in Peru that he decided to live there. It is amazing when you hear that you can build 30 houses in Peru with the money you spent here for just a very small one. Beside I know I will have to spend loads of money to finish it in the next few years. My kitchen is still halfway finished, I have bulbs for lights, I have only two chairs and and old table that I borrowed from my parents, I have no couch but only two armchairs, there is only one closet in my whole house... but funnily enough I take a good care of my books that found a neat place on Ikea's Billy shelves... My balconies have no fences, I have no blinds on the windows (obviously I will have to take care of this first as the sun is too strong and it gets too hot in the house) and the list goes on and on. First I will have to get rid of some old stuff I brought along from my ex-home. I haven't used those things for 5 years now, so I suppose I don't need them. Plans, plans...

So, a day slowly passed yesterday. I went for another walk but didn't take my camera with me. The landscape will be more or less the same for another month when the first green leaves will emerge on the trees. It is colder where I live than in the city center, I saw crocus blooming yesterday not far from where I work. Mine at home have shown some leaves by now and it will take at least another 14 days before they start to show some flowers. Can't wait. I thought of sowing some tagetes but forgot about it completely. I will try to do this today. I sow and plant by seed calendar by Maria Thun. I got used to this and my grandmom says that it works. I believe her.On Monday I received two more Valentine's day cards - together I received 6 of them. There should be 10 coming to my address. It is tempting to take part in a swap but at the same time I see that people are not really serious about these things. When I go into a swap, I try to do the best I can. So, maybe no more swaps for some time now. What made me really happy when I opened my mailbox on Monday was this:
A postcard from Australia! Thanks V! You really made my day! I was so happy, so excited! It is really something else when you receive a piece of paper written by hand. We got used to typing. It is faster and you can write more but nothing beats the postcard or letter with a nice stamp on it, written by hand. I still smile when I remember receiving the postcard. Pure joy! And so beautiful!

Thompson & Morgan seed catalogue...

... has arrived! I know that I will spend hours just looking at the pictures and planning which flowers I will grow on my 50 square metres big (well, small) garden beside the house. As there is so much shadow in it, I have to reduce the selection of all the beauties I wish to have around the house. Besides, the seeds are not so cheap either. There is another problem I have in my garden - the lovely cats I feed. They love freshly dig up earth. (Sure, I would too if I was a cat. :)) That's why some of the seedlings never grow into the strong and beautiful flowers...