Learning to garden

Hey there!

Our garden project 2018

March

June

This year we started our garden project. We built a raised bed from old pallets, filled it with lots of twigs, old leaves and compost soil. At the same time we planted various seeds in small pots filled with soil to then work with the young seedlings later on in our raised bed.
Over the time our flat's window-sills were packed with tiny tomato, carrot, cucumber and bean plants as well as herbs and sunflowers.

Tomato seedlings

Lettuce and Herbs

Zucchini

We went plant shopping at the farmer's market more and more often. Eventually we had planted zucchini, rhubarb, lettuce, strawberry, black and red currant and raspberry plants in our garden that we had bought from the market.

Sunflowers, Beans, and Red Currant

A few plants didn't work out that well. For example our carrots didn't grow much larger than thumb-size and a few of our lettuces were eaten by snails during the nights..

However some plants really surprised us. We had never expected to harvest the crazy amount of cucumber and zucchini. At times we had 8 cucumbers per week and the zucchini is still producing fruits in late october..

Zucchini

Tomatoes

Over the course of the year we have learned so much about soil, plant growth, care for plants, types of plants, the work of insects such as bees, how plants blossom, how to harvest, how to arrange a veggie patch etc. etc.
We watched gardening shows by Monty Don, a famous speaker of horticulture from the UK, read lots of books about gardening and talked to my parents, both biologists, who taught us about their parents' ways of gardening when they were little.

Bumblebee on a sunflower

Cucumber

Lavender

Beans

Sadly the year is slowly coming to a close and the gardening season is almost over. We have already made many plans for the next year concerning our raised bed and growing veggies and fruit, e.g. we'd like to grow aubergines, pumpkin and more different tomatoes. We will also try to improve our planting calendar so that we're not late with planting winter veggies as we were this year. We would have loved to plant kale, but only had space in our raised bed from late September onwards, which would have been to late to grow kale from seeds.
Also we're currently building a cold frame for our raised bed and a few bits and pieces for indoor gardening as well.

Sage, Mint, Carrots and Cucumber in the background

Basil

I hope you enjoyed the photos. Maybe you can make space in your own flat, your own room, your balcony or even in your garden if you have one to start growing your own produce as well. Maybe start of with herbs or easy plants like radishes. It's definitely a lot of fun and it can take your mind off other things or thoughts that burdening you.

So start planting!

Steph

Impressions of Menorca No. 3

Hey there!

Here's the last part of my Menorca series. Read part 2 here to find out what happened beforehand.

So we eventually arrived in Cala Blanca (western part of Menorca) where our apartment was situated and where we would be staying for 5 days.

In the western part of Menorca you'll find the city Ciudadela, which used to be the capital of Menorca until Maó became the capital in the 18th century.

We preferred staying near Ciudadela, as we liked the architecture and restaurants in Ciudadela a little more.

The harbour of Ciudadela

We visited the lighthouse at the Cap d'Artrutx (10 km south of Ciutadella), a few beaches on the southern coast of Menorca (Cala Son Xoriguer, Cala en Turqueta, Cala Macarellata), Ciudadela itself and Cala Santandria near Cala Blanca.

On our way to the lighthouse

Cap d'Artrutx

We really loved Cala Macarellata and Ciudadela. You can only access Cala Macarellata, if you hike there from Cala en Turqueta (around half an hour) or from Cala Macarella, but it is definitely worth it!

Cala Macarellata

Also I'd like to recommend a tapas bar in Ciudadela. It's called "Bar Hogar del Pollo" and it's located here: Carrer Sant Pere, 11, 07760 Ciudadela de Menorca (near the Placa Nova). The food was amazing and the waitress very friendly.

Our return to Maó on the last day (again by bike) was definitely less stressful, as we took the recommended bike route through the inland of Menorca.

Almost in Maó

In Maó we got to experience the Flower Festival, the whole town was decorated, there was a parade through Maó and lots of people were celebrating.

We rounded our holiday off with a delicious pizza.

I hope you liked the photos and you get to visit beautiful Menorca soon.

Steph

Impressions of Menorca No. 2

Hey there!

We thought it was time for a challenge, so we planned on travelling across the island in one day, spending a few days in the western part of Menorca (near Ciutadella) and eventually cycling back to the capital Maó one day prior to our departure.

Rocky Road

What a plan!

https://goo.gl/Q2gwGj

But this... this was our return route. On the way to Ciutadella we biked along the southern coast. 

We started our journey at 10 am - we thought if we headed off this early, we would have a few hours of the day left to explore the surroundings of our accomodation in Cala Blanca (we were wrong!).

One of the bikes and our baggage

From Maó we headed to Cala en Porter. First we cycled on the motorway, next to friendly car drivers, who always left sufficient space for us to ride our bikes. After a while we turned off the motorway and onto a narrow rural road leading us downward through the hills past orchards and eventually onto a more challenging stoney path. From the first cove onwards we only travelled along the sea. Which was extremely beautiful and impressive, however it was also extremely challenging and energy/time-consuming.

We passed numerous gates made of olive wood, lots of flowers, some orchards and magnificent coves and beaches.

The Bay of Son Bou

Along the way we once lost a few belongings (luckily a friendly kindergarten group picked them up and gave them to us in the neighbouring bay) and had to constantly motivate ourselves to keep on cycling. By the way - we had never done a mountain bike tour before, so we were absolute beginners travelling with mountain bikes. At times it was very steep, as you can see in the photo.

We only travelled with small backpacks and a camera - to save the extra fee on the plane and because we wouldn't have been able to do such a tour with a suitcase anyway - which is another point for the disadvantages of excess baggage.

When we arrived at Son Bou, we had to push our bikes through sand, as we were too lazy to take a detour inland, which made us very tired. But the view definitely made up for the tiredness.

After the sandy part, we cycled a while through the colder forest. It was great to move forward in the shade, since we had been in the blazing sun for more than 6 hours.
Also we thought it was beautiful to see so many different faces of Menorca. We had seen a rocky landscape, agricultural areas, dunes, beaches and forests when we finished the tour.

At one point we got lost.

This is the last photo we took at 6.38 pm. After that all we wanted was to arrive at Cala Blanca, where we would be staying for the next few days.

We had been cycling through the forest for a while and our GPS track told us to keep cycling. We ended up at a lonely beach; no road or civilisation in sight. Our "trustful" track meant to lead us to a path that started a few feet up the cliff line - impossible to reach for us, especially with our MTBs.

That was the breaking point. 

I thought for a few seconds I would most likely die there, since we didn't have any signal, battery nor a few drops of water. (Have you seen the film Into the Wild? If not, watch it and you'll understand.)

However we kept on trying; back up the hill where we came from and through the forest again; somehow westward.

Miraculously we eventually arrived in Cala Galdana (not our final destination) at 9 or 10 pm. The sun had already set, we were hungry and wondered where we could sleep. 

We couldn't possibly keep on cycling, as we didn't have lights attached to our bikes and our energy level was close to zero as well.

The only solution was to be picked up by a taxi. We were really lucky in the end, because our driver knew how to demount bikes making it easy to fit them in the boot of the car. 

At 11 pm we arrived at our accomodation, drank lots of water and fell onto the most comfortable bed on earth.

More to come!

Steph (still owning the travel bug, despite this adventurous day)