Repotting time:)
Since I couldn't do it yesterday, I'm finally repotting today! Did most of the plants in my room, with the exception of two that are rooting, my succulents and my orchids. They've been growing well, and I ended up with three extra plants after dividing them! Ended up giving them to mom, since I don't have that much space in my room. I've been procastinating on repotting them for a while, and I'm glad it's finally done.
Picture time! Before and after included:)
Garden beginnings- demolition time!
Well, I was going to repot my houseplants today, but I got the chance to go to my garden and I just had to take it:) Ended up pulling out most of the rotted planks and putting them on a pile to be burnt, along with cleaning up some of the stones used to hold down the netting and plant covers. The planks were hiding deep in the grass, which is so tall it comes over my shoulders! I wanted to do more, but was caught by rain. (ᴗ_ ᴗ。) Of course, as always, I had my loyal helper with me! I never go to the garden without her. She got tired by jumping trough the tall grass and is sleeping on the floor now because it's colder:)
Garden beginnings- introductions!
Where to start... Well, this is a garden that was used by my family for decades, before our grandma started downsizing her own fields and offered us one with access to running water. With the summer droughts, it was a no brainer- next year, we simply stopped using the old garden in lieu of the new one, and that's how this one came to be abandoned. And with me being an agronomy student and wanting more hands-on experience, especially with starting from zero, I decided to take it upon myself to try and fix it up.
As for the garden itself, it has it's pros and cons. It's in the middle of a flat, smallish valley, so the incline is not a problem. The frost could be, since the valley is always about half a degree lower in temperature, but with global warming (yaay...) there hasn't been much of it. One side of the plot has more shade than the other, which gets full suun, so I can grow plants with different needs. The soil is not the best, since it's on the heavier side, but it also isn't too depleted of nutrients, thanks to us being good with crop rotation and fertilising when we were still using it. Although, blackberry bushes also think so, and have enroached on one corner of the field. It's also still under some of the effect of the mediterranean sea, which means mild winters (usual lowest yearly temperatures being about -1°C). The worst things are the aforementioned droughts, spring showers (that come just as your cherries start to flower and the random (super cold) days at the end of march/beginning of april. There is an old bathtub that catches rainwater, but no roofing to catch more or anything like that. There are also two 1000l water cubes to be filled.
The garden has some fruit trees, namely two big cherry trees, one small one and a sour cherry treee, along with some others (apples, pears) that should honestly just be chopped down and disposed of, as they're half dead after the years of neglect. There's also a big walnut tree with no walnuts, but I like him so he's staying. I would like to plant some more, but I'm a bit concerned about pests, since there are other (not ours) walnut trees nearby that do get the walnut husk flies. There's also remains of a herb garden I used to have, with mint (not invasive here), sage and gooseberries. There are also rotten remains of short raised beds that were used to grow tomatoes, which will have to be removed for me to be able to mow the grass and run the plow over the thing. Basically, I have to:
-get rid of the planks
-mow
-start planting on the viable part
-destroy the enroaching blackberries while leaving some
-plant more.
Then, depending on my funds and time, I'd like to do some vanity/not the most neccessary projects, like:
-building a fence
-taking down the bad trees
-planting more berry bushes, trees and herbs
-make it so we can catch more rain water
-small hut
-pottery firing place and more:)
Imortelle project- garden maintenance
Did some weeding with the squad! It was nice, but even after showering, there's still imortelle smell on me xD
This picture is just one of the multiple lil fields we took care of. Imortelle is not super picky about its growing place, but it must have lots of sun and be quite dry. As such, it was much easier to just make more smaller fields, as our terrain is a bit hilly and it doesn't like being in the bottom parts, because the rain drains downwards and stays there longer.
We also got to eat cherries!
Imortelle project- introduction
Imortelle, curry plant or Helichrysum Italicum, is a perrinial species of aromatic plant, found in the Mediterranean. It has four subspecies, of which we're focusing on the Helichrysum Italicum italicum. Having already done genetic and chemical testing of the plants, our project aims to develop a hand/body lotion that would help the elderly in retirement homes with their skin problems. As a student of agronomy, I'm helping with tending the fields, doing morphology/genetic tests in the laboratory, harvesting and distilling the plants...
The project has lessons that are open to the public, and as such, my first job was to present the research of imortelle genetics. The plant is very genetically diverse, and it's genome is not as studied as ones of similar plants; that, along with it being very sought-after lately and susceptible to crossbreeding between subspecies means, that buying a "certified" plant or seed is not actually guaranteed to get you a plant of the right subspecies, much less one with the right chemotype. It has also been discovered that most of the chemicals the plants produce are determined by their genes and not the external conditions. There's more stuff, but I don't want to get too into it and make this unreadable for normal people':)