Garden Journal June ~ Summer is loading!

May started cool this year. Normally may can be already a hot month in Greece.
The clouds and rain make beautiful skies, amazing to see.

The 2nd half of May it started to be above 23 degrees here, but still with a lot of rains, thunders and wind.

So much cooler than the previous years. For me and the garden perfect! We are enjoying the sunny moments, but also the clouds keeps us active working in the garden, without passing out from the heat. And the rain gives me 1 job lesser to do and contains a lot of nutrients for the garden.
My cat is always keeping an eye - if the works is done proper, hahaha my crazy cat.

May is the perfect month to start harvesting flowers and herbs, which I use for tea.

I have some wild chamomile growing between my grass field in the garden, lucky as I am!

Also this beautiful flower, we call it ‘Molocha’ here in Greece. Translated to English (hope I am well with this translation) is chrysanthemum.
A part I dry to mix it in my tea blend.

Another part I do in olive oil, to use it as a body oil. It heals the skin from sunburns, but also it nurtures my skin after a shower. I use it summer and winter after my shower at night. More about that in another post.

I used to have many skin problems in the past, infections, irritations or acne, this all disappeared after 1 year living here in Greece.

I do this also with calendula and other herbs, more in another post.

Good food, natural products, lesser stress has shown in my skin. Often people who know me from before, are amazed what a difference they see in the quality of my skin. And also me, I feel finally happy in my own body! I am very proud on me, for the choice I made.

Quitting my job, moving to Greece, building my garden, living back 2 basics, close to the sea, with more sunny days and eating my own home grown foods. It is a blessing!

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Not everything goes always well in the garden, my Almonds, peach and plumb tree a facing problems with fungi.
And I don’t want to use chemical products, because many herbs and veggies are growing under it and it would be harmful for the soil, plants and then also for me.
So I am making natural treatments, hoping for the trees to get strong, against the fungi or parasite.

here you see the strange curly leaves, comes from a fungi

here you see the blue small insects (don't know the name) down from the young leaves

I am making a stinky, dirty smelling soup from nettles. Collecting them and put them with water in a barrel and close it for 2 weeks. Then I give the juice to the roots of the tree. It smells like hell for 24hours, but it is full with nutrients where plants, trees and the soil benefits from.

It's good we can not smell what is inside this barrel, hihi

So many harvests from the garden, @BabettePlace. So thankful for all what is growing and I like to do my shopping every meal from the garden. I didn’t see a supermarket for a long time!

my breakfast from the garden, eggs from the neighborhood chickies!

A part of the beetroots is starting to flower and making seeds, I always leave some of them to flower, in order to harvest seeds in a view weeks. In this way I don’t have to buy new seeds over and over again and getting closer to a sustainable way of living, with lesser money.

The rest I harvest. That means a lot of beetroots all in one.

I love to eat beetroots as a salad. I cook the beetroots and also the leaves I cook short. After I let them cool down a little and take of the skin of the beet root.
A part of the cooked beetroots I give to my dog Sunny, she is crazy to eat them.

Also I like to put them in jars and make them sweet and sour. Perfect way to preserve them for during the summer and winter when I don’t have beetroots from the garden. More about that when

Beside you can also ferment them and make kvass, a beetroot juice full with nutrients. Here you find the you tube video how to make that. (not mine, credits to the one who made that video)

The arugula of last winter has finished with the flowers, that turned into seeds. So I harvest them, hang it to dry, so later I can take easier the seeds.

Of course I have planted new ones, because a salad without arugula is not so nice, I love the taste. I sow them in a shady place in order to have it growing slow and not start to flower quick!

Last time I wrote that the broccoli will be finished soon, but I am surprised, I am still harvesting broccoli out of this great master plant! It keeps on producing new shoots. So I leave it growing and see how long I can harvest broccoli.

[Broccoli harvest]
For today some carrots, broccoli and beetroots to eat

The garlic leaves were turning yellow, so time to take them out of the soil. An amazing harvest, enough to eat the whole year from. In October I will plant new ones!

Last weekend I harvested the first kohlrabi, still many to come! Together with the carrots, radish and parsley, some lemon juice, olive oil salt and fresh onions, a lovely salad from the garden!

Every day in the noon I start to get hungry from some sweets! And how wonderful it is to have them growing in the garden, sweet treats; strawberries!

2nd strawberry field

My Kiwi is flowering, such nice flowers. I have 1 male and 2 female plants, I hope for a good harvest in the wintertime!

What is new for me is making marmalade from roses! In my friend’s yard there is a special kind of rose growing, here in Greece people are making marmalade from it.

My friends have explained to me how to make it, so I harvested the flowers, and turned them into a nice sweet treat, Rose – marmalade. It is such a nice color and very nice taste.
A sweet treat in a jar!

And of course! So many flowers are blooming now, the garden is full with purple and pink flowers.

Also the first sunflower is blooming!! So lovely.

Beside all the flowers in the garden, there are so many ‘wild’ flowers blooming everywhere. During my walks I am enjoying all the wild plants and flowers, it is amazing the colors all together. I am glad here we have so many wild growing, now all is perfectly cut. But this part of Greece, nature is her wildest form, is so lovely, especially in the spring.

Enough to do here @BabetterPlace. We are never bored at all!

Stunning skies, great garden, fantastic life!
Back 2 basics, made me richer than ever!

The garden is my supermarket and my paradise, here a video of the garden;

Things I cannot harvest yet, like potatoes and onions I like to trade from others, in this way we benefit all. Also like to trade my veggies for fish and eggs from locals here, back to the old days.

Probably I have forgetting things to write about, but there is so much growing now, to much to write all in one blog. I have enjoyed writing about it and should write more often blogs.

I hope it inspires others to grow their own food, it is really a blessing. Hard work, but so worth it!

Look what a lovely tree I have in the garden, I have no idea what is the name of it, was a gift years ago. So lovely and so many bees like it.

Welcome Sunny June!

Soon we start with the harvest of the mulberry tree
We are enjoying the heat and the cool sea!

Kisses from BabetterPlace