The last garden update has been over a month ago and due to the sunshine and the high temperatures the garden almost exploded while I was on holiday. Karsten was doing his best watering the plants and weeding the paths and has to do just a little more until the baby is born. Whenever I am in the garden, I can’t resist to do a little work here and there as well, but I am normaly regretting it a few hours later.

The garden two weeks ago when I came back

…and today after getting rid of all withered flowers

Since we know that the postdoc in Zurich is not going to be funded, we are not sure whether or not we’ll be able to stay here next year. Which means that I feel a bit melancholic every time I work in the garden…if I’d know for certain that we’ll have another garden season I would already do some planning for next year (change the strawberry bed, for instance, or plant some spring flowers), but like this both Karsten and myself are hestitant to plan.

Also, it doesn’t seem to be a good year for our vegetables. First the mangetouts didn’t grow well, and now the courgette and the pumpkins are rather a dissappointment. So far, we only have two pumpkins (while our friends have so many that I can’t actually count them).

While we didn’t know what to do with all the courgettes last year, we now have to wait several days until we can harvest the next one

This year’s experiment: melons (one)

white and red cabbage….though not very breast-feeding-compatible…

So far, our most promising (and only) pumpkin….

But the flowers are doing well and I am really enjoying some flower boquets on our table from time to time. The marguerites are huge and even the lavender which didn’t flower for two years when growing on the balcony seems to be happy now that it’s in the garden.

And since we can’t resist: at least some winter planning (leek, broccoli, curly cale and that sort of thing…)