Finland 100 years old tomorrow, a few December pictures…

Tomorrow, on the 6th of December, is the Independence Day and our Finland, our Suomi is 100 years old. Congratulations Finland and thank you! – Onnea Suomi ja kiitos! 🙂

December full moon, supermoon

The December full moon, the supermoon on Sunday. Not a perfect picture, but kind of fascinating. The moon was so bright, magical. It lit up our garden. It was so nice that the sky wasn’t all clouds.

The second part of November was a bit more grey, rainy, dark… the fifth season… But we had a bit of sunshine as well. And some snow, too, for the second time this season, but the snow, of course, melted away again after two days.

viola & pearls

Sunshine, viola and her pearls, frozen water droplets, in the garden yesterday. This is a strong plant! It still has several flowers like this one in the picture. Never before have we had fresh flowers in the garden in December…

December viola

Today again, some snow on viola… It started to snow a bit last night and it has snowed a bit today, they say that it will snow some more tonight and they say that tomorrow we should have some sunshine again, too, but after that… water again, as one might guess… But the most important thing is that we have snow now. 🙂

December hawthorn berries

Hawthorn berries.

December strawberry patch

And our strawberry patch.

-Leena

About some of the food growing in the garden & more flowers

First about some of the food growing in our garden. We had some strawberries to eat still in August – a bit different summer indeed, usually the strawberry season has ended well before the end of July in our garden. Peas, potatoes, carrots and onions all grow easily. The pea season is at its end now and we’ve been harvesting our potatoes, too, for some time now, but there are still many potatoes underground, that’s for sure.

Homegrown food is always just so delicious, and sweet… 🙂

love carrots

We’ve been harvesting our carrots, too. I took a pic yesterday evening when I was about to make soup.

growing onions

One of the most delicious things you can grow in your garden! This actually is the first time ever that we’re growing onions. – I wonder why we haven’t done it earlier! Here in Finland, in the north, we usually grow onions from onion sets, not from seeds. And onions indeed are easy to grow from sets.

blackcurrant

Come out, come out! This year we have more blackcurrant berries than ever before (-during the three previous summers that we’ve lived here). And it’s so nice! Our redcurrant bushes have been loaded with berries every summer, but our blackcurrant berries have been hiding somewhere. (?) 🙂

common poppy

More common poppy flowers. Other names for common poppy: corn poppy, field poppy, Flanders poppy, red poppy, corn rose.

common poppy

common poppy

common poppy

common poppy

fly honeysuckle berries

Our fly honeysuckle has berries now. Not edible, poisonous.

phlox paniculata, fall phlox

Phlox paniculata or fall phlox ‘early red’, in the middle of our garden. We planted it a bit over a week ago.

phlox paniculata, fall phlox

strawflower

And there is no summer without strawflower flowers… 🙂

-Leena

More summer, bats again, the longest day of the year 2017…

So today is the longest day of the year 2017. Here where I’m living, the sun rose at 3.52 AM, and the sun sets at 23.13 PM – the length of the day is 19 hours 20 minutes.

The bats have now been here for the fourth time. Or, we have seen them here four times now, in the woods next to our garden and flying close above our heads in the garden. Nice and delightful! 🙂 They were here on Sunday again. They always come just before twelve o’clock at night. On that night we also saw a whole rainbow here, although it hadn’t even rained. It was the first whole rainbow that we’ve seen from our garden.

The black woodpeckers have also been frequent visitors in the woods next to our garden. One really notices when they come – they have the loud and long flight call “klee-yee” when they enter the woods.

lake Pyhäjärvi

By the lake Pyhäjärvi here in our home village on Saturday. I was standing on a dock as I took this pic.

lilac

Lilac and the big Norway maple beside our driveway once more.

lilac

lilac

White lilac flowers in the garden as well. We have loads of purple or lilac lilac flowers in big bushes, but only a few white in a small bush. I must say that the purple truly is my favourite lilac anyway… But these white flowers are charming, too, and it wouldn’t be the same without these adding up to it in our garden.

lilac

red campion, red catchfly

A few more of red campion or red catchfly flowers in the garden.

river Pyhäjoki

We found this lovely spot by the river Pyhäjoki in the municipality of Säkylä on Sunday.

river Eurajoki

Welcome to the countryside! 🙂 With this pic, too, and on Sunday as well. By the river Eurajoki in the municipality of Eura.

oregano & sage

Oregano and sage. These two green friends are a bit different in the way that we, who usually grow herbs and everything from seeds, have bought them fully-grown – at half the price at the local grocery store. These are grown in Finland, which we naturally really appreciate. And these aren’t the usual herb pots that you can buy at the grocery stores in wintertime, these are for summer gardening outside… hmm, just to be specific, not that it should make much of a difference…(?) 🙂 But yeah, these for the garden actually are bigger, sturdier… And we have re-potted these, for better growth.

lettuce

Grow some lettuce, lettuce wants to grow for you! 🙂

strawberry

By our strawberry field today. There are surprisingly many strawberry flowers and strawberries growing already.

mountain cornflower, perennial cornflower

The first fully opened centaurea montana or mountain cornflower or perennial cornflower or mountain bluet flower in the garden today.

park lilac, Hungarian lilac

And our park lilacs or Hungarian lilacs have started to open their flowers now as well. There seem to be many more flowers in the bushes now than a year ago.

-Leena

Coffee along with some strawberries, raspberries… and peony poppies

Today’s morning coffee pic with some strawberries and raspberries.

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Wonderful time of the year is this… We get lots of berries (hmmm, or them fruits… but let’s not get into that berry-fruit terminology right now… :p ), enough for two people to enjoy many berries every day – raw from the bushes – we’re not preserving them, just eating them when they are fresh, sweet and juicy and healthiest. And oh, the scent! And yes, I’m still dreaming of planting more strawberries – their season goes too fast in Finland every summer…

The next five pics I took between Saturday and today. Peony poppies. These are my ‘wild’ poppies that are already blooming, completely unattended – they have grown from the seeds of the poppies I had last summer – we threw them around randomly in our garden. And some of the poppies now blooming have also grown as a surprise to us – beside the flower bed in which I planted poppies last summer. The poppies are growing through stones and thick soil, I didn’t expect that…

poppy

I love peony poppies, too. 😉 They also have a charming and distinctive scent.

poppy

Someone else, too, was enjoying themselves. 🙂

poppy

poppy

I also, of course, planted peony poppy seeds this summer, but the plants of those are still growing…

poppy

You can feel that you are in Hawaii, if you just put your mind to it:

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Headstrong. Focus.

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Well, you just can! – You can lie on a Hawaii textile… like our furry princess in the pics I took yesterday… Or you can plant your own garden, your dreams and reality, outdoors and indoors, and you’ll have the world around you all the time… 🙂

-Leena