Blueberry bed

Some basics about American blueberries

• They need peat to grow and don't like regular garden soil so you need to change the soil where you want them to grow
• They like to be watered regularly
• You need more than one plant to get berries as they are not self-fertile.
• Blueberries grow on (at least) last year's wood
• They are pretty much liked by bunnies and bambies... which does not go together with the fact that blueberries don't grow on the growth of the current year. If you can, just keep away those nosy animals from the plants with a net or similar wintertime.

The blueberry bed
This is our newly furbished blueberry bed. I do expect it to give us blueberries in large amounts by one year or two. Right now, it is mostly one of the plants that make sure we do not go hungry... :O)

The construction
The construction was at the end the following: Dug about 10cm over the board. Dug also for the new blueberries more in depth (around 30cm). Also we dug for a future grape plant in the right corner.
The area was then covered with peat.
We installed an automatic watering system where a hose goes along the back of the bed and hoses are then drawn from there to each and every blueberry shrub. The main hose is without holes, but for each plant, there is a "hole" hose for water distribution.
This whole bed was then covered with wheed  fabric to avoid weed coming from the ground itself. This action payed out for this year. It might create issues later but that I do not care about now. Right now, it is indeed keeping weed to grow there. We finalized the construction by covering the fabric with bark.
As you see, it looks little "empty" right now, but I expect the plants to grow with the years.
The edges were a little of a problem: the original idea was to actually use concrete to define the edges clearly. I realized it would imply a great deal of work and cost to do so. So what we did at the end was to border the bed with bark only and have fabric under it. The automatic lawn mower should be able to go over the edges and cut all grass completely. Let us see how this works.

The Scheme
The blueberry plants we have now are:
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'North Country'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Northblue'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Darrow' 

This is the "map of blueberries".

Historical background
We started out with three blueberry plants quite a few years ago. We dug holes in the grass. This is how they looked in May 2007, when we first planted them.

May 2007

Fact is, the grass and weeds just grew into the plants and they were very hard to remove. To be honest, it was a real pain in the cakehole....
Blueberries are one of the best plants to have in the garden. They give good and healthy fruits (or so we hope... ;O) ). Even though you might think 3 blueberry plants give enough blueberries for the whole family, I personally wanted more. So I convinced Janne to purchase 2 more. But digging two more holes did not sound very attractive and the idea of skipping the grass between them seemed like a good idea. We were going to build a bed for the blueberries.
We actually hired a guy to do the digging. Quite a few stones had to be eliminated from the area.

May 2011

After a lot of discussions with the idiot we hired, and a lot of back and forth and tough work from our side, we managed to get up the bed as we intended it from the first beginning: with a lot of peat and over the grass level. This is the result after altering back and forth.

Vaccinum corymbosum 'North country'

Highly recommended plant of blueberries!!!! Sweet and large berries!

Latin: Vaccinum corymbosum 'North country' 

Swedish: Amerikansk blåbär 'North country'
English: American blueberries 'North country'
Purchased at Plantagen (I believe) a few years ago


Of the three blueberry plants we first purchased, this is the one that we highly recommend.
It gives very large amounts of blueberries. Very good ones: sweet and large (up to 2 cm). Here you can see a few, not completely ripe ones. When they are ripe, they are larger.

21/7-2011

Also this year, where the other two plants hardly gave results (especially Elisabeth), this one did not have any whatsoever issues. We are enjoying large amounts of blueberries.
2011-08-07: We have been picking good bunches of blueberries nearly every day for over a month now. Really incredible. Hard to understand where they all come from. And there are much more to come it seems.

26/7-2011

It is also the first plant to give blueberries, starting out in the beginning of July. According to the producer's description, it says "august-september". I do not see this to be true. Maybe we got the wrong "name tag"? :O)
It is also has a nice rounded shape that makes it rather decorative.
According to the producer, it should survive up to Swedish zone 5.

Planted in the blueberry bed.

Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'

Latin: Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'
Swedish: Amerikans blåbär 'Elisabeth'
English: American blueberries 'Elisabeth'
Purchased at Plantagen (I believe) a few years ago

2/7-2011

This is the latest of the three blueberry plants we purchased at the same time. When all other plants have no blueberries left, then this one starts producing a few, not very sweet but still tasty blueberries.
Though, this plant has never really grown to reasonable size and it has not either given a reasonable amount of blueberries. Summarizing, it has been the least productive of all blueberries.

My theory was, we probably got tired of digging and did a too little whole for it. Which might have caused the bad growth. Now we did a new peat bed, and if it had potential and my theory was correct, we'll notice the coming years. Otherwise, we'll have to be ok with the limited amounts of blueberries it gives.

Planted in the blueberry bed.

Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'

Latin: Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'
Swedish: Amerikans blåbär 'Goldtraube'
English: American blueberries 'Goldtraube'
Purchased at Plantagen (I believe) a few years ago

This blueberry was the one that has actually grown the most. At least in size.

26/7-2011 (sorry about the incredibly ugly tujas behind.... they are the neighbour's.... :O( )

In previous years, it has also given quite a few blueberries. It was the middle blueberry plant, starting to give blueberries somewhere end of July, beginning of August, if I remember it correctly. They are not as sweet as the ones from North country though.

This year we wanted to have more blueberries so we did a whole peat bed around the plant. So hopefully, it will grow more given the additional space for the roots and the fact that it will not have grass and weeds growing around (and into) it.

Producer's instructions
Water normally. Fertilize normally. Should be placed in a sunny position. It will reach a height and width of 1 meter. Tolerates Swedish zone 4

Pinus parviflora 'Schoons Bonsai'

Latin: Pinus parviflora 'Schoons bonsai'
Swedish: Silvertall 'Schoons bonsai'
English: White pine 'Schoons bonsai'

We purchased the pine as we were looking for a pine that could be "bonsai"-like. Given the name, it had very good potential. We planted it in the are that was to become the rockery.

17/5-2007

It never developed and it actually never looked very good. Mostly dry and with branches where you would prefer them not to be. This is as bad as it got really:

21/5-2011

This year we decided. Let us throw the little ugly guy away and purchase a brand new Japanese maple.
But again, none of us had the heart. During gardening 'refurbishing', some spot came up where we could 'dump' the tree temporarily until we collected the courage for throwing it away.
Since we moved it there, it seemed to enjoy the more moisty soil and has thrived (compared to before). Very likely it won't be thrown out any longer.

26/7-2011

I personally think, the rockery was simply too dry and maybe even too sunny. Maybe it will even grow better now? I might maybe even dare cutting it a little for a good result. Any suggestions on where to cut exactly?! :O)

Producer's instructions
Water normally. Fertilize normally. Requires a sunny location.
Will become 1,5 meters high and also 1,5 meters wide.
Tolerates Swedish zone 3

Ligustrum vulg. 'Atrovirens'

Latin: Ligustrum vulg. 'Atrovirens'
Swedish: Vintergrön liguster
English: Evergreen privet
Purchased after moving in (no dates available)

My idea was to have formed plants. In my imagination, I would cut these plants as mushrooms or balls. I wanted 3 mushrooms in different sizes. As I personally feel buxus stinks (litterally!), I decided evergreen privet would be the solution: evergreen and formable.
I wanted them in my Zen area. With stones. Calm.
I read somewhere that you can form balls easier and quicker by purchasing 3 plants and put them very next to each other and cut them into one ball.
We purchased the cheapest evergreen privets in a pack of ten. One more than needed as I wanted 3 mushrooms.
We planted them all anyways. Here you can see two of the future mashrooms...

To clarify reality: they might be called evergreen, but they do loose all their leaves during winter and the branches froze down all winters since we planted them. In Spring, it takes a while for them to come back to life. At least one of them has died completely. So the picture above represents pretty much the way they look in Spring.

30/12-2009

And if you need any proof that they are not winter green, here you are....
Their size is therefore pretty limited as they freeze back each winter.

Anyways, this is how they look now.

We have managed to put stones around two of them. The other one is on the "flower bed side". Note to myself: the area surrounding these shrubs is no good soil. It was the one that has always been there the last years without any improvement at all. Maybe not a good idea to plant stuff around there. Anyways one more thought might be to refine the distribution of stones around it as the black tissue below is very much visible as of now!

Azalea japonica 'Rosalind'

7/6-2009

We purchased this plant a few years ago. It was in flower when we purchased it and we were very much in love with the "strong" color it had. But the actual charmer were the leaves: rounded form with a green/yellow colour that turns into orange in Automn. It did not fit in in the rest of the garden, but we did not care. We purchased it anyway and put it next to the rhododendrons. It felt right to keep the plants that need peat in one locations.

Everything was fine, until the first really cold winter came in 2009-2010. Then it looked like it had died. It looked dry and hopeless in spring. After a few months, some few greenish leaves became visible and we realised, it had made it. Some branches gave a few flowers, too. The rest got flower mummies (rather cute, but I think they were actually sick or at least impested with undesired fungus. I do not know. We did though not have the heart to throw the poor plant away.
Winter 2010-2011 was as cold and the plant did not do so well either. In spring I removed all flower mummies and somewhat it seemed to get some of its greens back. A few flowers were there, too. Keep it or through it away?!

21/5-2011

Right now, we took it into consideration when "refurbishing" in the garden. But worst case scenario, we'll have to find a substitute for it. Not completely impossible either... :O)
On the other hand, we did not follow the instructions very carefully. E.g. we did not ever remove the faded flowers.

Producer's description
Soak plant in water before planting. Dig hole of twice the width and depth of the ball. Insert plant and fill up with soil. Water well after planting.
Care/cutting: To support flowering of the next year, carefully remove faded flowers.
Flowering time: May/June, pure pink with fine red blotches.
Growth/size: Upright growing, 80cm high and 120cm wide.
Position: Light shade, loose, humus-rich, moist, but well drained soil
Fertilization/nutrition: Use customary commercial fertilizers (few calcareous) in spring and summer.
Hardyness: Frost tolerant (Deb's note: not really true! It did take serious damage each cold winter)

Coconut pottery....

During our last vacation in Thailand, we realised that it was pretty common to see orchids hanging in trees (or anywhere else for that matter) in coconuts. The guys use "full scale coconuts", that is the whole thick skin. This makes me believe that if they do that, there must be a very good reason. Probably orchids like that.
As it is not as easy to get fetch of whole coconuts and the coconuts you find here do not either have the thick skin nor are of a "reasonable" size, I came up with the idea of doing coconut substitutes with clay.
After a head count of orchids at home, we came up with 4. It turned out later it was five and that we had misplaced one of them.... To make a long story short, I did 4 "coconuts":

Picture taken on 5/7-2011

This was basically the last project during Spring term 2011. I actually had to "tiptoe" into the workshop after hours and quickly glaze them (at the same time as I could fetch my strawberry pot... hehe...). Did not take longer than 10 minutes, I believe... And then it was not easy to get them out after the "baking"...  But yesterday, I managed. My teacher is really wonderful and helpful! Incredible lady....
I used "brown" clay and put a very thin layer of cream colored glaze with dots. That combination (with a thin layer) normally gives some kind of brownish result, which it indeed did this time, too. They are darker in reality than on the picture (probably because of the flash).
Each coconut has got three holes for hanging them up in the trees and are rounded in the bottom. Though it is still possible to make them stand whenever necessary. Me very happy. Orchids are now going on vacation in the garden!

I have actually used some orchid moss or whatever that is, some orchid compost and a green thread to fix the orchids in the pots. This is how they looked like at the end of the story after a whole lot of fixing and tricking about with the thread (very unconfortable behaviour by the way)

29/7-2011

Fortunately, I have a big tree that can carry them without issues (or so I hope). So the next step was to hang them up. Not easy to find a suitable place (the tree is definitively not really "well combed") but at the end they have been up since beginning of August.

23/8-2011

Rose Thérèse de Lisieux

This is according to me the most beautiful rose in the world. I saw in www.graines-baumaux.com a few years ago and wanted to purchase it but kind of "lagged" too long and then it was gone from the offering. Unfortunately, it did not come back for a few years. I have been looking for it everywhere but no luck. All of a sudden, it was back. But here again, lagging did not do any good and gone it was. This year was the time. All of a sudden, it was back so quick as hell, I ordered 3 rose plants of this specific kind.
At the beginning, mid March, I did not have any place to put them so I put them in a bucket each. They actually survived and some 1-2 weeks ago, buds became visible. Now, I am enjoying the flowers and there are many more to come.

Picture taken on 2/6-2011

5/7-2011: This is then how the flowers develop with time. Note how quick the rose size increased the last 4 days!

Picture taken on 5/6-2011

Also, now I have managed to plant 2 out of 3 plants in flower beds.
???: Plant one in the corner flower bed.
30/6-2011: Plant two in the ground in the hosta flower bed.
The third is also soon on its way! Happy! Hope they survive the winter. You never know with those French guys.... :O) If they do not survive the winter, I think I will put it in my routine to purchase new ones every year... ;O)

Orange lillies

Latin: Lilium (whatever)
Swedish: Orangea liljor
English: Orange lillies
(Sorry about the lack of specifics... purchased those at the supermarket and those guys are not very specific in general... Or was it really at Plantagen but I am getting senile?!?!)

These are indeed Janne's lilies as he got them at his birthday quite a few years ago.
We have no idea of what kind of plant it is, what it needs or anything else. But we do know that it gives wonderful flowers, unless those ugly rabbits get to them before.
We have never even tried to do something special with them. They just come back year after year. We moved them from one place to another. That did not seem to bother them at all. We did that in spring time some years ago if I recall it correctly.
Here is a full view of a flower.

It gives a whole lot of flowers and it seems to be getting bigger for each year.

We highly recommend them to anybody that likes orange flowers as they are not only cool but very healthy!

White chocolate fluff

This recipe has also been found in Bakglädje but for some strange reason (read "lazyness") I modified it somewhat :O),  but if you want to take the "pro" way, you can follow the link here. According to the source, you can decide what kind of chocolate to use. I went for the white chocolate one. Remember: white chocolate contains basically cocoa butter and condensed milk powder. So if you are lactose allergic, be prepared to suffer. I personally think it is worth the suffering... :O)

Ingredients
100gr white chocolate chips (can be enough with 70-90gr if you do not want so much white chocolate)
1,5dl cream suitable for whipping

Instructions
Warm up cream without reaching cooking temperature. Dump in the white chocolate chips and mix until they are completely melted.
Let the mixture rest over night in the fridge.
The day after you will be able to whip it as "hard as you desire".

This recipe tasted very good, but in the cake, it kind of disappeared among the rest of the ingredients.Very likely it comes to its rightful position when eaten by itself or with less other ingredients. Next time I will try it on vanilla cupcakes I guess.

Sugar paste

The first time I used sugar paste, I actually purchased it ready-made. Then following happened:
- I read the ingredients' list
- I tried to work with it and it dried out within a very very short period of time and turned hard
Then I found this recipe at Bakglädje and so I collected courage and gave it a try.
The original recipe with some light modification comes below.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon gelatin powder
60gr cold water (0,6 dl)
175gr white syrup (1,25 dl) (according to reliable sources, it can be substituted with glucose)
1 tablespoon glycerol (which seems to be the same as glycerine)*
2 tablespoons neutral oil or coconut fat (rape oil works)
800-900gr confectioner's sugar (I opted for the 800gr and it seemed to work fine)
0,5 teaspoon vanilla extract
Icing colour can be used for colouring

Instructions
Mix the gelatin powder with the cold water in a metal bowl and let it rest until it absorbs and becomes thick. Now it is time to melt the mixture by putting the bowl over a pot with cooking water. The gelatine will melt down and become fluid. Now add syrup and glycerol and mix together thoroughly. Mix in the oil and remove the bowl from the heat. Note: I did not get any glycerol as the pharmacy I went to did not have it in stock. But the result was doubtful and wrinkled. So I do believe that you do need it. You can also add the vanilla extract now and according to the original recipe also coloring. Personally, I prefer to let it white and color it when ready with different colors (so I only need one batch for all colors). But I guess, it becomes more "pro"-like if you do it as originally thought?! Here again, I haven't tried and probably won't either unless proven necessary first.

I put the mixture in my Kitchen Aid with dough tool and added little confectioner's sugar at the time. Or at least I started out with "a little at the time" and got bored pretty quickly. So I added everything at one time and the Kitchen Aid handled the "little at the time" per default (it takes some time until everything is mixed in anyways). I had only 800gr sugar and I felt it was enough. The resulting sugar paste did not dry out at all during the 5 days the cake lasted. Which I personally think that is ideal. My guess is, the more sugar you add, the quicker it dries. But I haven't really "tested" and I very likely never will on purpose. :O) I have the feeling you want the sugar paste to dry quickly if you do flowers or stuff. But I do not really know...

Do not worry that the mixture is sticky. It will become malleable with time. I personally think it looks very very good after mixing. Had it not been so sticky and sweet, I probably would have eaten half... :O) I took a picture, but unfortunately I probably forgot the memory card in the camera...

Put the mixture in plastic film and cover it up completely with multiple layers to avoid drying out. In the original recipe, it is recommended to put it in a plastic bag and an air tight jar, I didn't as I did not read the original recipe as thoroughly as I should, but nothing "scary" happened.

Let the mixture rest for at least 24h. Theoretically, it can be preserved for a very long time as it is basically mostly sugar. But I haven't tested it myself yet. Probably, here, putting it in an air-tight jar becomes much more important. It does not need to be in the fridge. I let mine at room temperature.

I colored my sugar paste before usage with different colors. I used "gelatin colors" as that is the only edible color I got. The manufacturers of such colors state they are necessary for all cake baking and should not be substituted by caramel color that influence the consistency of the final result. Me not sure. But I believe in all kinds of marketing messages ;O)

But, hey, all summed up, I was rather satisfied with the result apart from the "wrinkle" problem.... Next time I will go out of my way to find glycerol, really!

Note: I found the Glycerol in a Pharmacy. Do not get scared by the fact it tells it is for conservation of leaves and stuff. I have wikied it and it seems it is edible. The result was much less "wrinkly" so make sure you have it in the mixture.

Note: Try to colour into the sugar paste in advance. Ideally directly after you actually have done the sugar paste. I did not do it that way, but it became very difficult to handle and it became cracked. If not directly, at least some day or two in advance so it sits a little before you need to use the sugar paste.