Gardening at 63° North
 

So far this summer has been quite abnormal here. We had record high temps in May followed with cool beginning of June and now a real heat wave. Hot weather is relative so for us hot is when temperature goes over 80°F or 26°C.

I have a 10'x12' greenhouse, small raised beds made from pallet collars and container garden on or city yard.

First harvest from my garden was container grown potatoes. Now finally tomatoes are starting to ripen and cucumbers are growing too.

First ripe tomato from container outdoors was Ola Polka and in the greenhouse Frutica. Seeds for both varieties were sent to me by some nice people here in Tomatoville :)


Sari

We have wild strawberries popping up on many places on our yard. I have planted some of those to container, which had nothing growing in it. I wish you could smell the aroma on these. These tiny morsels have much more concentrated taste than the garden strawberries. These are similar to alpine strawberries, but these make runners and spread rapidly with those

hello, I am interested in your northern garden and i agree that the scent of wild strawberries is like perfume.
unfortunately i am unable to view your photos. wondering if others can see them
KarenO

Thanks Karen! For some reason I can not get the photos embedded with the text. Only way I can get them to show correctly is in this separate Attached Images frame.

I have been able to embed the photos from my photo gallery, but not as attachment in a post.

Sari

[QUOTE=svalli;708028]Thanks Karen! For some reason I can not get the photos embedded with the text. Only way I can get them to show correctly is in this separate Attached Images frame.

I have been able to embed the photos from my photo gallery, but not as attachment in a post.

Sari[/QUOTE]

Hello, for some reason I could not see them initially but now I can.
Those strawberries sure are tempting. Great pics!
KarenO

I have been testing how to take and publish 360° panoramas with my phone. I do not know if this will be visible to other people, but here is a [URL="https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMCk_rMLXPSEbe1kwwoC5ghQ1Gp0l0iY3yX9QIVxGFJqnhVKJMjSkHIu1_Edhq54Q/photo/AF1QipNN6w7z_3k3bO-YE7a-XsG9T1i_GN08FPyVJ2NI?key=MlF1TVM3MFItN2R2ZHNpLXV0YWhwbHRQOHhBc3BR"]link [/URL]to an inside view of my greenhouse.

Sari

When I was a kid, if the season was right, I would walk home from Junior High School (about a mile and one half), and pick wild strawberries in a couple of places that I still think only I had found. Sari is right in that I felt the flavor was much more intense. My mom would make me some jelly from them. I gathered strawberries, dewberries, and some blackberries like this.

Sari, I am always amazed at how you (at your latitude) can get anything that delicate to grow even inside an artificial environment.

[B][SIZE=3][FONT=Garamond]I love the panorama picture(s), svalli![/FONT][/SIZE][/B]

Just like standing there! (Except I can't smell the tomatoes) :lol:

Really enjoyed the panorama view of your greenhouse!

Lovely greenhouse jungle with tomato and pepper jewels! :) We just found a few ripe wild strawberries in the last couple of days. The really wild ones here are tiny - not even the size of a pea. :surprised: And we have medium sized ones as well that are crazy tasty.
I always thought strawberries were the best kind of weed to have. Just pull out other things, and let them stay and feed the birds and (of course!) larger animals. :roll:

The wild strawberries can grow in really dry places and then the berries are tiny and sometimes quite hard. I found that, if I watered them the berries are bigger and still have that intense flavor, but just sweeter. I have picked them and put into jar with sugar and vodka or some other strong tasteless alcohol and kept in the cupboard for a year before filtering the liquid. It makes nice liquor, but looses some of the aroma. I think that those berries are best when eaten fresh.

This is not garden related, but here is an other panoramic shot. It is a 180° shot of [URL="https://photos.app.goo.gl/MpCCeg7W9ffvUJ8S6"]Lake Lappajärvi[/URL] taken at our summer cottage in Kärnä Island. This lake is an old meteorite impact crater and it is the largest lake in our area.

Sari

Just lovely! Reminds me of the Canadian Shield lakes that we enjoy fishing. In fact, our annual fishing/blueberry picking trip is in just a week. :cute:

Lovely panorama of the lake. :yes:
You could be right that these are the same strawberries but some got more water than others. :lol: We really need some rain. Since I started making raised beds for garlic, a lot of strawberry plants are growing around the beds and getting some runoff I guess... they are larger for sure.

I have steeped red hollyhocks in vodka, and the taste is a bit like strawberries.. very nice. :)

Well, kudos to you Sari! Growing tomatoes and other plants in a not so friendly enviroment (I mean for farming) must be very difficult. My mother in law, who lives in Eastern Finland, has built a similar green house, only a bit smaller than yours, and she says it's helped her a lot. Another big help I guess is the warm summer you're enjoying this year (probably the warmest of the last decade...). I heard yesterday they had 30° c there.
Regarding wild strawberries, I totally love them! My son, who's spending the summer in Finland with his granparents told me this year it was full of them. He had never seen so many.
For some reason I can't see the panoramic picture. But I'm sure it looks great!