Greenhouse

One of the problems with living in Sweden is the proximity to the North Pole. This cause the winters to be long and cold and which in turns makes growing plants a bit tricky. To help extend the growing season a bit we decided to build a greenhouse. It will definitely help at the end of the season - we had many almost ripe tomatoes at the end of last summer that needed only a few more days, but the frost got too them and we lost a large part of the harvest. Carina is also quite eager to start planting seeds in the greenhouse and replanting the more mature plans - at the beginning of the growth season. Lastly, there have been a few losses due to the wildlife, that may be prevented to some extend.

The greenhouse we built.

Our house came with a old smithy from the 1600's on which a garage was build (probably around the 1950's). Onto this a chicken coop was build (between 2010 and 2015). We decided convert the chicken coop into the greenhouse.

The chicken coop.

I thought that the main work would be to cover the structure in glass or hard plastic. However, during a visit by Carina's parents her Dad mentioned that we should use soft greenhouse plastic. We went online and found that this is an excellent option. We could order it online (here) and it was not too expensive for enough to cover the whole structure (although we calculated wrong and had to order more a second time ).

The main work thus became clearing out the trees and stumps that were in the chicken coop and building a floor. Unfortunately we did not take any photos of how it looked before we removed the plants from the coop. I can however mention that we had to start by using a bow saw to remove the newly sprouted shoots from the stump and the rest from the roof. Then we needed to cut away a few wires from the roof to remove the bit that grew into the wire-mesh. This was followed by taking the weed-eater with a blade attachment into the space to remove the rest of the undergrowth. Carina spent several hours after that removing the rest of the plant material and leveling the floor a bit. We were left with a floor sloping up to the garage and only 4 big stumps. To prevent the weeds from sprouting immediately we poured some salt onto the floor.

The floor - level-ish and most of the plant material removed.

Adding some salt.

We drove through our town one day looking for pallets. We found a few as well as several packing crates that we took home. I spent one afternoon sawing the boards from the packing crates.

Pallets found in town.

Crates sawed into boards..

We placed the pallets on the floor trying for a reasonably level surface.

The floor in making

We used the boards from the packing crates as floorboards. Everything was nailed together and the floor turned out reasonably well.

Flooring done.

A chicken coop with a wooden floor.

The next step was to add the plastic covering. We started with the roof since it was the most awkward shaped and the largest section (note we overlapped all the pieces from the top downwards - thus even starting with the roof the wall sections are tucked in under the overhanging bits and water should not flow inwards). Another problem was that we were not able to reach the garage wall at the top of the roof - the reason being that we decided to leave the wire mesh in place. A ladder could not be placed on the inside and the mesh and roof in general is not strong enough to carry my weight. We therefore stapled the one section of the plastic to a wooden beam that we attached to the wall (we could at least reach the sides of the beam while standing on ladders).

Cutting the sheet of plastic - for the roof. 

To ensure that the plastic did not rip on the wire mesh we covered all the edges with silver tape. Once the roof was dragged into place we added a few staples all round to keep it there while cutting the next sections.

All the sharp edges covered in silver tape.

Seems like it fits!

The rest of the covering was quite easy. We just needed to cut the piece to size, fold it under the previous section and staple it to the wood.

We covered the stapled sections with clear packing tape to help reduce the stress on the plastic and seal the overlapping sections.

Covering the front - the excess was removed after stapled to the bottom.

Covering the sides. 

We decided to add a window. I added a wooden beam where the bottom plastic section needed to attach. The top section was only stapled on top part and a wooden broom handle was stapled to the bottom. The sheet can be rolled up to open the window and is kept open/closed by small hooks. I added some overlapping plastic for the window sheet to fold into on the sides which makes it seal quite nicely.

Working on the window panel.

Double seal when window is closed.

Rolled up. - open window-

The final piece to cover was the door.

The last step in this project was to move all the plants. We have a lot of tomatoes a few chilies and miscellaneous other plants.

Carina and Donkie moving plants into the greenhouse.

More plants.

I hope that the greenhouse works well. There are a few things that may make it a bit sub-optimal. For example it faces east. This means that it gets a lot of sun in the morning and nothing at all in the afternoon. Ideally I would have liked it to face south if it could not be freestanding - but this is the structure that we had... I also hope that the wood used for the flooring does not decay too easily in the warm humid environment. This is something that we will deal with if it becomes a problem. Lastly, I am slightly worried about snow on the roof in the winter. The wire-mesh will support the plastic sheeting but I think we may need to remove some snow if it becomes to heavy for the whole structure.

Other than that I am happy. More important, Carina is happy. Now we can look forward to more produce from our own backyard.

Current view inside - next season it may be too small...

R&C

Moving the garden indoors.

Carina has been working hard to grow a few consumables during the short Swedish summer. Here she is in action tending to the herbs and vegetables.

Carina in the garden!

At the same time we have been working on converting the chicken coop built onto the garage (by the previous owners) into a greenhouse. This whole event will be documented in a future post.

Chicken coop being turrned into greenhouse.

R&C

Vår trädgård (Our Garden)

Last year, December, we moved into our new house. This is our first proper house (our other homes being apartments). With the house came our first garden. We had very little experience with gardening (except from the odd weeding job in our parents' gardens when we were kids). 

During Swedish winter, everything is covered in snow and there is not much to do in the form of gardening. Thus for the first few months after moving in, we did not do much outside. With the start of spring, however, our garden exploded with a vigor that caught us off guard. Most plant life here have to finish their life cycle in a couple of months, thus when spring starts, everything grows like crazy (weeds included). Most of our spring and summer weekends and some of the evenings after work (in midsummer the sun sets around 11 in the evening), were spent in trying to tame our garden. 

We had some success, see photos below, but we also gave up on some unruly parts, to be attempted again next year. Something we noticed that is very different between Sweden and SA gardening is; in SA the gardens are meticulously maintained all through the year, while in Sweden it is much of a one season attempt. Since everything dies during the winter, each spring is a completely new start. So for things that didn't work out well this year, you have a new chance with next year. Below are some of our successes and projects that we will re-try next year.

We altered our porch a bit, taking down some of the railing, oiling it and building steps (see below). The yellow flowers in the back are blooming now and looks very nice. I don't know what they are called but they are extremely hardy, they die during the winter and these grew from under a pile of dead plant material. There was another bush of these in front of the porch that we had to clear to make place for the stairs - we are still fighting to get rid of some of them though.

Some flowers and a hollyhock we got from our neighbor, Inga-Lil, that we planted in pots on the porch

In the window inside is a small tangerine tree, one of the few plants left from our apartment days. On the lawn, in the distance, a mouse murder is taking place -- the culprit, a serial mouse murderer called Donkie

Three tomato plants I planted on the porch after a batch of spring flowers finished

Dahlias I got from Inga-Lil

The porch steps that Ronnie built and scars where we fought the yellow flower plants and are now trying to regrow grass. There is still some of the yellow plant left but we decided to continue the battle next year. In the back are two vinbär (currant) shrubs. 

A röda vinbär (red currant) and small vita vinbär (white current - a variant of the red current that is a bit sweeter). Interestingly, vinbär translates directly to "wine berry". These berries tastes a bit like I'd imagine undomesticated grapes would taste like and the leaves also looks like grape leaves. I assume they are related in some way.

The vegetable garden from the kitchen door on the porch

A small greenhouse Ronnie and his sister, Cindy, built for me (see details of their visit here)

Some tomato and pepper plants and a bush of herbs (resulting from "seed bombs" that Cindy gave to us)

Lettuce and broccoli in seed boxes - this is working quite well

Cauliflower and nasturtiums - the cauliflower is struggling a bit (something is eating the leaves)

The rest of the garden: Strawberries, carrots, corn, tomatoes, peas, pumpkins and more seed bombs!

Rhubarb, this is the third crop for this season. I already harvested two crops resulting in many rhubarb pies, jams, compotes, smoothies and a whole freezer rack full of frozen rhubarb. 

Rhubarb pie

The herb garden that got a bit out of hand. Will start a better organised one from scratch next year....

Our garden shed - an old smithy dating from the 1700's. Next to the smithy is a flower bed with some nice flowers but, invaded by weeds. Another project for next year...

The inside of the smithy/garden shed

One of our two young prune trees. We tried our hand at pruning four young fruit trees (two prune and two apple trees) and one mature apple tree. Overall it seems to have worked nicely with the mature apple tree and 3 out of the 4 young trees blooming and bearing fruit. This small prune tree suffered a heavy aphid infestation - we will fight harder against these pests next year 

A few apples

Different variety of apple

The mature apple tree in front of the house

Some more nasturtiums and a pattypan in pots at the entrance

Ronnie cut open a path in the bushes with our new trimmer to access the raspberry patch (this was necessary since most of the bushes consists of nettles...)

The raspberry patch

Raspberries in incubation :)

This year was a crash course in gardening for us. Next year we will be ready when spring arrives, to apply the acquired knowledge of one season of Swedish gardening :)

C&R

Why we need a chainsaw...

Where we live there it often seem are in the middle of a wind corridor. We often have quite strong gusts mostly in one direction. Looking at the landscape it there are not a lot of trees, buildings or other obstacles from where the wind comes.

In the beginning of June we had some serious wind and not surprising there was some damage in the area. We were lucky that only a branch form one of our trees broke but our neighbors had a whole tree blown onto a small shed. The branch from our tree fell into a bushy area breaking several shrubs. We needed to remove this and below is a video of the process. It took around an hour (the video is compressed to 5 minutes), and we had no motorized assistance. I feel that a chainsaw will be quite handy in these circumstances. There are also 3 dead trees in that we will remove at some stage and I am not sure that my ax skills are up well enough developed. We are thus considering getting a small chainsaw.



With all this wind around our house we at some stage start to measure it (as scientist we cannot help collecting). I also have several  ideas on how to harness this constant resource and will post some of the projects a bit later.

R&C