As we come to the end of May here in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia, we take an assessment of how our garden at Chata Diviak compares to last year.
The first major difference is the drop in rainfall. Last year was the wettest in decades.
It wreaked havoc on most of the root vegetables. We failed altogether with beets. Even the potatoes were small and few. As for radishes, this was the entire 2010 radish crop:
This year we’ve had just about the perfect amount of rain for growing things. And the radishes so far look like this:
We had good luck last year with peas, so Scott has planted twice as many this year. Here you can see him getting the ground ready for them. We run them along the east fence, so it’s important to keep the weeds away even outside the garden.
They’ve sent their tentacles out to find the fence and start flowering.
Because the construction on the house offers no access to the her window boxes, Jo has done nothing with them this year. She has had to content herself with the wild flowers, although she never tires of seeing wild violets in her yard.
Back to the garden: it’s almost silly to grow potatoes here in this part of the country, they’re so cheap in the market; but they add an extra shot of potassium to the soil. The very first year we had our garden, the spring before we moved permanently, we planted only potatoes. Our caretaker Ivan and his wife Tamara showed us how. Here’s a quick photographic recap of how our garden grew:
(yes that's JoEllen shoveling manure)
This is our first crop of potatoes in 2009.
Since then, we keep had a small, rotating plot with a dozen plants, just for the potassium.
Those of you who know Scott know he loves loves loves tomatoes, though not just any tomatoes. They have to be really good. The first month we moved here permanently, we visited young Slovak friends we met in London. They live close to his parents and we visited the gardens of both parents and grandparents, coming away with armfuls of some of the most beautiful tomatoes Scott has ever seen. They were as tasty as they looked.
His mission is to grow them here.
Last year’s crop was almost fair. Our greenhouse tomatoes contracted a blight that crept into the garden tomatoes. While we were able to pickle a half dozen jars of green tomatoes, there were few ripe and juicy enough to enjoy fresh. Here’s the greenhouse last summer when our hopes were high:
This year we learned from last year’s mistakes, such as keeping the greenhouse door open.
It's not even June, so we must wait to see how our cucumbers, zucchini and broccoli fare.
We will leave this post on an up note, however:
Last year we couldn’t grow spinach for anything. Katastrofa, as they say here. This year we’ve already eaten two salads with spinach fresh from the garden. We attribute this to starting them in the cold box and Sisi’s expert irrigation management skills, shown here:
(The mole has gone somewhere else. We think into the potatoes.)
We learn every day.
And we’ll keep it posted.
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