Early August- The growing season is almost over, but the harvests not ready yet

It´s early August, and I have been busy not only gardening but also travelling and chatting with other people growing their own food.

Interactions with other people

In the past couple of weeks, I received two visits of people interested in Permaculture. The visits were readers of the permies.com forum. One was from a couple that is starting a farm in south Iceland and so I am very glad to see someone joining the movement of growing local food in Iceland. The other was a friendly guy from Alaska, growing food at Bethem, they have a similar climate to ours, though the summer is warmer than ours. They made extensive use of polytunnels and subterranean storage rooms. Here is their website www.meyersfarm.net 

During this time I also exchanged emails with people growing food near the Arctic Circle. One was Lone Sorensen, growing food at Nunavut www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories The other was from a food chef grows salads at Svalbard, but indoors http://norwaytoday.info/home_view.php?id=2761

In the next few weeks I will visit the projects of Plants for a Future and Martin's Crowford forest garden in southwest UK, and Seff Holzer Kramerterhof project, high in the Austrian Alps.


The experiment with 1 month food production outdoors in Iceland

Its still early to know whether the experiment worked or not.

The biomass in the garden has grown to its full extent. I had eaten the first few harvests of peas, lettuce, broccoli, carrots and kohlrabi. The broad beans are still forming pods, while the grain is heading but I am unsure whether it will ripen or not. The potatoes have lush foliage and I wonder how good they are beneath the soil surface. I am confident that with a good harvest of potatoes, beans and grains, my experiment with food production will be considered a success.

I sown a lot of overwintering wheat, rye and triticale, both in a bed prepared with cut lupins, compost and pumice, and in an extensive backyard area that has tilled soil without any preparation.

I have two siberian tomatoes ripening outdoors, but were transplanted in fruit setting. The ones that started flowering outdoors never set any fruit and probably never will. It was also a failure for the zucchini. While I had a nice crop of it in 2011 and 2012, this year the weather has been so cold that it is proving impossible even under a low tunnel.

I had a few frosts in June, July and August. And also cold northern winds for the past few days. The improvised windbreaks and plastic frames help, and raise the temperature by 2 to 5ºC but I am not sure whether they will survive the extreme winds of the upcoming winter.

The swedes and turnips are just forming their bulbs as most kohlrabi. The beets do not seem to be forming a bulb yet. The painted mountain corn was a failure: no harvest outdoors, not even flowering. Some perennials look very good: the walking onions, the good king henry, the chives, crambe and jerusalem artichokes.

The arugula, valerian salad, pack choy and coriander, are flowering and I hope to have it self-sown.

Indoors I cleaned everything because of the spider mites, I introduced predator mites and hose the plants left outdoors for a few days. Everything seems much better, but some indoor plants were slightly damaged by unexpected frost a few days ago. I think I will not have any crop of the millet, amaranth, lima beans, winged beans, groundnut, and other rare vegetables I was expecting to have. The summer is just finishing, and the daylight quickly decreasing.

However I still hope to harvest some oca and quinoa, now growing outdoors.


Testing nutrients in soil

I received a kit to test soil nutrients from ebay and I analysed the soil. I was surprised to see a neutral pH, high levels of potassium and phosphorus but depleted levels of nitrogen. It seems that the nitrogen is leached due to excessive rainfall but this loss is prevented by covering the ground with thick mulching, plastic or growing nitrogen fixing species. I will write a detailed post about this.


Finally we also got a kitten, and we did a natural pond to attract wildlife.

Overall, I now feel a feeling of letting things grow wild and nature follow its course; not creating too many expectations; and adapting myself to this hard climate.

Plan for 2014

Since the summer is almost gone (and has been so cold), I did a plan of our garden for next year, using growveg.com. It is just an idea. 

I am thinking planting the taller plants to the left, since that is facing southeast (where dominant winds blow). I will also place on that southeast facing side, a windbreak, to shelter against the winds.

Click here for full size picture

Gardening at the Arctic - ways of raising soil temperature (and extending growing season)

RAISING TEMPERATURE

• Windbreaks (by using transparent thick plastic, the plants are protected by the winds, wildlife finds a sheltered spot, and the sun heats through the plastic increasing the air temperature around the plants (up to 2ºC)
• Use raised beds and slope beds (facing the sun) to increase the soil temperate- raised soil warms much faster than surrounding soil. Use black sandy soil, near the surface.
• Avove or within the soil, place a mulch of decomposing grass (when it decomposes it releases heat.
• Use clear plastic mulch, above the soil and grass mulch (this increases much more the soil temperature)
• Use microclimate; place certain plants in a protected spot amongst other taller and bushier plant. Also planting against a south oriented wall, has a higher temperature than other spots (around 2ºC).

FROST PROTECTION

• Any sheltered spot, near a wall, has also higher temperature (usually up to 2ºC), and much less frost.
• Sandy soil freezes less, and warms faster. Count up to 2ºC more, when sun shines.
• Use peatmoss as a protection against hard freezes. Cover plants also with a plastic for extra protection. Both can raise the soil temperature up to 2ºC. Bare soil is the worst, it will freeze hard, without any protection. 
• Use fleece as an easy way to protect all plants from frosts. A fleece prevents frost formation down to -3ºC, but usually only raises about 1ºC of the night temperature.
• Use a cold frame to protect young seedlings. Cold frame can increase night temperature up to 2ºC and significantly more during sunshine. If you use all methods above, you can prevent the soil from freezing even when it gets to -10ºC.

Early July - the first harvests!

July frosts, rain nearly every day

For a few days of the last days we have been having minor frosts at night (lows around 0-3°C) but sunny mild afternoons (highs around 15-18°C). Still it is a cold summer, colder than average, and the squash is just beginning to flower now (too late). The melon plants died, when the temperature first reached 2°C during one of the last nights. But it has rained non-stop for 2 months! 

First harvests: kale, pak choy, salads

Still, there are many successes. The pak choy and kale is ready for harvest, so are the salads, the peas and beans are flowering, and the broccoli is just a question of time. Another nice harvest are the strawberries (they grow so well in the Icelandic summer). Chives is another of those perfect crops for Iceland.

Slowly the turnips, leeks and spring onions also seem to be heading to a crop. The swede (swedish turnip) is much faster and it is just beginning to start forming its large root.

The rye and oats are heading and I should have my very first harvest by September. Probably the barley (and the perennial rye) will be heading in the next few weeks, but the wheat seems to be slow, and I don´t think I will get an harvest from it. 

Kale, broccoli, pak choy, salad, parsley, coriander

Best time for sowing crops

Mid July is also the best time to sow radish (outdoors). Because early sown radish tends to bolt during the 24 hour daylight. It is probably the best time to sow overwintering grains.

The best time for sowing the other crops is late March for broccoli, kohlrabi, leeks, celery, beets, fennel, lettuce and tomatoes (all indoors, for transplant out by June), mid April for lettuce, corn salad and carrots (outdoors), cereals, broad beans, turnips, swedes, pak choy and kale (outdoors or growing indoors for a few weeks) and squash (indoors for transplant out by mid June). Potatoes should be planted out by June.

Turnips

The story of a kohlrabi

I might have for the first time (in Iceland) a kohlrabi, it is forming the bulb now, but it was a 2.5 month old transplant in mid June (so best time for sowing it indoors is around late March. The soil where it is planted is the richest - it had a lot of our homemade kitchen compost.

The kohlrabi

Weeds as soil indicators - and the secret of a fertile soil

I am using weeds as soil indicators. Where sorrel grows, it indicates an acidic soil, potencially lacking in calcium. If I start to see weeds like chickweed, groundsel and pigweed family weeds, then it means that the soil is as fertile as it should be. This is done just by adding enough compost and ensuring a good soil structure (adding the hollow branches of lupins and angelica, as well as peatmoss and seaweed, really helps!). I also mulch with a lot of nettles, lupins, sweet cicely, ferns, coltsfoot, dandelion and meadowsweet, to see which weed is best cut as a mulch.

This is a container having hugelkultur; compost, dead wood and branches - the vegetables are growing very healthy and rapidly, because of the good soil structure and soil life.

Planning new grains for overwinter

I am digging out the last remaining part of lawn in front of our appartment. I am laying soil and compost over it, and around 15-30 July, I plan to sow winter oats, winter rye, triticale, and winter wheat (some new 4m2). I am waiting for the seeds I ordered from www.bountifulgardens.org. If I can manage to make the plants overwinter, with thick mulching, then I should be able to have a harvest next summer. The challenges in Iceland are both a short, cold and unreliable summer, and the winter with too many cycles of thawing and freezing.

The medicinal plants of Iceland

We have been trying the edible and medicinal uses of many Icelandic native plants. These last days I drunk an infusion of lady bedstraw, greater plantain, we cooked with dandelion and nettles, I ate the leaves of sweet cicely and cuckoo flower  (after positive ID)

Warm loving crops and building a plastic windbreak

The siberian tomatoes are just beginning to ripe (but they are so slow that its only for the fun of it). The painted mountain corn is a kind of failure. It grows slowly and if I move a tall plant from the greenhouse, the stems fall with the often windy Icelandic climate. Seems impossible to grow corn in Iceland, even with this variety, which is the best for cold summers.

However, one success story is the quinoa. The quinoa was growing 2 months indoors before being moved out in June, and it is about to begin the flowering stage (which requires cool weather). Hopefully it will produce an harvest sometime in late summer.

I started yesterday to build a simple windbreak and kind of cold frame, or greenhouse. In a sheltered spot near the walls of the house (where I grow the tomatoes), I stuck two pieces of wood and a transparent plastic between them (1 meter high, 2 meters wide). This should produce a greenhouse like microclimate, that should allow me to grow many of the warm loving crops next year.

Siberian tomatoes cropping outdoors

Many flowers

After the tulips, daffodils, crocus, scilla, frittilaries and muscari, I have outside pansies, tagetes, centaurea, phacelia, lupins, wild myosotis, wild sedum, roseroot, poppies, water avens, and even a nice clematis and laburnum climbinb against the wall. The flowering brassicas and angelica attract many beneficial insects.

Flowering broad beans, peas, brassicas, pansies and oats

Trying perennial vegetables in Iceland

I also abandoned the idea of moving my 1 year trees to the outdoors, after causing them to suffer a cold shock in June. I keep all the mulberries, honey locust and chilean mesquite indoors, as well as the asparagus, since they seem to stop growing in such cool weather. The same happened for the groundnut (and thus I kept one plant in a container indoors). The chinese yams also do not grow outdoors. 

I have a feeling that the siberian pea shrub might do fine in Iceland, as well as the good king henry. The crambe is also doing nicely outdoors, but I believe it will not flower this year. All these are growing in a fine way.

Besides that, we have nice patches of strawberries, chives, multiplier onions, walking onions, perennial rye, rhubarb and scotish lovage, all growing very happily in our cold climate. There is a change that the amelanchier (juneberry), mulberry, elaeagnus (silverberry) and pecan, might grow better outdoors.

Good king henry, a kind of perennial spinach, giving also broccoli like heads and  early spring shots like asparagus

Map of the permaculture garden - 2013

Thanks to http://www.growveg.com I was able to draw a design map of our current garden.

Click here to see the map in full size

Late June updates - the coldest summer, but still some happy news

Nothing is colder than Icelandic summer (well, except Antarctica and Greenland)

Once again an update. June is just finishing and there was no summer weather until now. Except for a few rare days, the temperature has barely risen above 10°C and weeks of constant rain. Best case scenario, in a few sunny days, the temperature has risen to 17°C, which is still little, compared to the 20-22°C recorded in many days of the last years, even in colder months like May or August.

Today we had even a little bit of ice shower, with daily temperatures just above 5ºC, while at night they dipped to 3ºC, here and down to 1ºC at a few spots near the coastline and by the mountains. It has been the coldest summer day for a long time.

General view of garden. Lots of flowering going on

Still the Siberian tomatoes are growing

The Siberian tomatoes have flowers on them - these flowers were totally obtained outdoors. It was a 2 month tomato seedling about 8cm tall, at the first week of May (after the last major frost). It survived many minor frosts and is now a dwarf 15cm tall flowering tomato plant. In theory, if I would had started in a larger container, with a warmer greenhouse temperature, I would need only 1.5 months to transplant a larger plant outdoors by June.

Newer flower-free tomato seedlings have not flowered yet. However they seem to grow way faster than the conventional varieties of tomatoes (which actually do not grow at all in such chilly weather!) Transplants that had already began to set fruit (inside the greenhouse), are setting gradually larger fruit but which has not ripen yet. 

Siberian tomatoes grown first indoors, transplant out and slowly setting fruit now

These siberian tomatoes were very young when they were set outside during snowy and frosty weather, they survived well, and are now flowering.

Other vegetables in the garden

Most vegetables are growing very slowly (compared to previous years), and even wild flowers have been quite late. Flowers typical of April have been flowering in June.

Still, we are seeing quick growing Broccoli and Pak Choy (damaged a little by slugs due to such moist weather), and the first flowers outdoors of peas and broad beans. Interestingly, all of these seem to prefer a sunny location, even if exposed to the winds and chilly nights, than a more sheltered spot, with less sunlight.

A line of pak choi was planted. To the left, spontaneous seedlings of pak choy and kale appeared.

The walking onions, leeks, spring onions have been growing slowly but steadily. The carrots have just germinated. The multiplier onions and chives are very nice. Actually anything that overwinters in Iceland (and stores reserves in their bulbs) fares very nicely during the cool Icelandic summer!

"Perennials are the key" - I repeat my mantra, i got this insight a few months ago. Thus I have an excellent patch of rhubarb, Scottish lovage, strawberries, scorzonera, raspberries and currants, good king henry, crambe, perennial 9 star broccoli, and self-sowing siberian kale.

Multiplier onions and chives

The wonders of Huegelkultur in Iceland

Some heirloom peas were planted from seed at a huegelkultur at the sheltered spot, in a part shade location. However they have been growing very quickly! Same thing, for all the vegetables (peas, swiss chard, nasturtium, letttuce, fennel, carrots) sown in a huegelkultur container tray. It was an excellent idea, since it provides maximum fertility, maximum soil aeration, maximum soil life, maximum moisture, and maximum soil temperature, since it is a raised "bed".

The potatoes are in a sort of huegelkultur, but with only a few wooden branches and plenty of seaweed, compost, green manure (the lupins around), and a lot of clipped grass! Sown in May and they are up to 40cm tall. Excellent, despite the chilly summer.

Potatoes growing in a bed full of branches, compost and cut grass

This is the sheltered spot behind our house, facing a forest to the east side. 

Broken promises

The cherry tree is a failure. The guy that sold us the tree (and it was quite expensive) said it was possible to have cherries cropping in Iceland, with some patience and shelter. He said the tree had a lot of buds that would flower. Only 7 flowered, and in my most sheltered spot, only 3 buds remain now. Obviously this summer has been lacking sunshine, and it has been chilly and rainy, and even windy at times. Even this Stella cherry variety is not going to crop anything!

The cold resistant painted mountain corn is very sluggish. A few plants have died, most have been growing slowly. It fares ok in sheltered spots but it lacks that kick of mild sunny days. I wonder whether it is going to crop at all. Indoors, this corn is growing nicely but has not tasseled yet. It should by the end of July. The outdoors corn must tassel at latest by early August (since the first frosts will arrive within a month), so I really don't expect anything from it.

Painted mountain corn, survived frost and snow, and is growing well, but slowly

Even the squash has been very slow this year. It does not have flowers yet. When it usually starts cropping fruit by now. Guess that the melon and watermelon are not growing at all, and that the pumpkin seedlings are near to their demise!

Grains - barley and oats are the easiest in Iceland

Indoors, I have been having the heading of teff and pearl millet (the fastest growing grains of all - heading in 4 months since sowing in February). Outdoors, rye is heading, 3 months later, after it was transplanted after 2 weeks of growth in a tray, in March, in plain frosty weather.

The overall view of our grain bed (3m x 2m). From nearest to furthest: oats, rye, barley and wheat. These are also growing under a fleece to the left side. Two potatoes appeared between the rye.

Kamut wheat, the slowest growing of all grains here

The hulless oats were even faster! They are now heading in the sunniest location, just 2.5 months after they were sown (but they were growing 1 month in a tray, during the month of April).

The perennial rye shows fantastic multi-tillering, but hasn't head yet. The wheat is rather slow and I doubt that it will crop, even if it was sown in late April.

The barley is near heading (but not yet), it is still ONLY 2 months after sowing, although it was growing in a tray indoors during the last week of April.

   Clearly, the barley and oats are the easiest grains to grow in Iceland! Rye seems to produce more heavily, though it needs to overwinter, and the problem is finding a variety that does not break with the severe winds.

In the southwest side, oats is already heading. Its much more exposed and sunny here

Rye is also heading, in the southwest side. It is intercropped with broad beans. Both grow well and support each other, during windy weather.

More pictures!

Beautiful garden....

Broad beans and peas in nearest bed, more distant are flowers, brassicas and some perennials

Pink tulips

Nasturtium, growing in a container

Black tulips!

Black tulips, and garden in background

First time I cooked with moringa, galangal, and nasturtium flowers

The rhubarb

Seed balls germinating...

Perennial rye, in close-up

Mid June- things are very slow, it's the coldest spring in many decades

It feels like the Little Ice Age
And it has been raining, raining, and raining. It is the coldest June in many decades, after the coldest May for a long time. Guess that it is almost late June and the dandelions are only now starting to bloom, as well as the daffodils and tulips!

With an average daily temperature of 10ºC for the past weeks, I cannot hope for a bountiful harvest.

In fact, everything is growing slow, except perhaps the peas in the huegelkultur, the volunteer kale seedlings from last year self-seeding plants, and for oats and barley grown in the backyard of my house, in a place sheltered from the winds, but not that much sunny.

Potatoes are just sprouting, as are the sunchokes. I have no idea whether their harvest is going to be a fine one, with such a short season ahead.

Same for beets, carrots and salads. I had to buy larger transplants, because the ones I had were still tiny.

Last year the squash was already giving fruits by mid May. This year it hasn't even flowered in June!

Guess this is what people endure through the climate of the little ice age, when rivers froze in winter in Europe and fairs were held in such solid frozen rivers. In iceland, famines were frequent as oats, rye and even potatoes were complicate to grow. What can you eat in such conditions other than fish? Of course, animals do also grow, but only if there is an effort of providing them enough food and this summer food grown in such crazy climate must be stored for the 9 month winter ahead, when no food is available.

An explosion of color
The good news is the explosion of color in the many newly planted tulips and daffodils.

The cherry tree is blossoming, so perhaps I could have some cherries this autumn. That is a big unknown.

Cherry blossoms. The hope for the first cherries this far inland in Iceland (and still outdoors).

The siberian tomato is also flowering, and that is a major improvement over the experiments with conventional varieties last year, but the painted mountain corn still looks stalled in growth. The same goes for many small trees in containers outdoors, beans, the groundnuts outdoors, the asparagus, the maca, and the chinese yams.

Seedballs
Some of the nice experiments include tossing seedballs around, and tossing seeds in unprepared soil beds and seeing what happens there (especially under such chilly summer).

Basically the layout out there is still the same: 8 m2 of grain, 4m2 of potatoes, 3m2 of broad beans and peas, 1m2 of broccoli, spring onions and garlic, 1m2 of turnip and swedes, 1m2 of pak choy, leeks, carrots and walking onions. I haven't planted much of anything else except for a few perennials and some experiments.

The 6m2 of grain in the picture is growing nicely, despite being mostly shade. But the climate has been very cloudy, rainy and chilly. The question is: how strong will this harvest be?

More updates, in gardening in the 2013's year without summer, in soon

Early June - Summer moods, rushing towards growth

A quite cold summer weather
Finally summer has arrived after a freezing April and a very wet and cool May. We had continuously rain in the last few weeks and cool weather (always around 10ºC). But now the first days of sun and warm weather (up to 20ºC) are just starting!

Colorful Flower edges
I planted many flowers outside, lining the edge of the garden beds, to make it beautiful and attract wildlife and repel pests. Mostly pansies and tagetes! Besides that, we just have also an explosion of color from all the tulips and other spring bulbs planted last October!

Fritilaria

Tulips

Flower edges!

Experiments outdoors
I transplanted out (to the garden soil) the cold resistant varieties of painted mountain corn and siberian tomatoes. They are doing fine even with cool weather.

I also planted many perennials outside (the siberian pea, good king henry, indian ricegrass, crambe, and groundnut). I transplanted out the sunflowers (one dwarf variety is doing much better than the common one), and I am about to transplant out also the squash, melon and watermelon. I digged holes and put a lot of compost and seaweed on them. But these plants are sown quite late. Guess the most important thing about gardening in Iceland is growing the strongest possible transplants until early June, when it's time to plant out.

This is the sheltered spot, south oriented, where broad beans and rye grow stronger,  and where we planted siberian tomatoes and painted mountain corn.

Speaking about seaweed, it has been a party of fertility on the garden. Last summer I refrained of adding any ammendments because I wanted to see how far non-input I could go in my garden with poor soil. This year I am building heavily on the fertility side, with seaweed I picked from the coast some 50km away, and plenty of compost, green manure from the rampant lupins, and of course, the experiments with huegelkultur. Actually, many vegetables seem to thrive way better in huegelkultur than in normal garden beds.

The best thing outdoors has been really the discovery of our self-seeding kale and pak choi last summer. I let those plants flower last year and drop all their seed back into the garden beds. Now I have literally a thick forest of kale volunteer seedlings everywhere in the garden, even spreading across the nearby lawn! The pak choi is not pure variety, it seems rather a mix of turnip and pak choi. The intention now is to create an even further self-sustaining garden.

A forest of kale seedlings, growing wildly. This is Fukuoka's farming!

Finally, we have our newest flowering cherry tree, "Stella" self-fertile variety, growing outdoors still in a container. Hopefully, we will have cherries this year. At least that's one of our main goals.

Experiments indoors

Indoors I transplanted a lot of quinoa, into medium size containers, and it's doing great because I added there plenty of compost, branches and a mix of sand and rocks to provide good drainage. And I just move them outdoors because quinoa seems to need cool temperatures in order to flower and set seed.

Quinoa growing very happy, with cool weather and a fertile soil

But I am still failing with amaranth. I know now that the spider mites and mice are to blame. I also had to took the corn and millet outdoors to prevent the spider mites. It's also because I haven't been watering my indoor plants as much as I should, so the room atmosphere is rather dry. Best to have a moist environment to grow your plants indoors.

Other than the thriving tiger nuts, I have not so much to report from indoors. I am moving almost everything outdoors this summer.

Community garden

We planted a lot of vegetables there, mostly using companion planting and mulching. There were also a lot of colorful flowers there and a small emphasis in perennials (such as asparagus, chives, strawberries walking onions, raspberries, rhubarb). Today we chose a perfect spot, the most sheltered one, and we planted the painted mountain corn, squash and siberian tomatoes there, with plenty of compost and a wooden wall, to provide extra shelter.

Beautiful flowers!

Pansies and tagetes, lining the garden edges

Less known tulips

Beautiful color now in our garden!

General perspective of the garden

Daffodils, also coming into bloom

More to come in soon!

Late May - Spring has finally arrive but its a rainy one!

Hello everyone,

May has been a much expected month. After a mild winter, almost without snow or freezing temperatures, March and April had the worst to come, with severe freezes without snow cover and a few blizzards. But May has seen mostly mild temperatures, the first half was very sunny, mild afternoons but with plenty of night frosts, with some days with very windy and drying causing loss of many seedlings, whilst the second half of May has been very rainy, with a general lack of sunshine.

Still, we have the first flowers of the year: crocus and tulips. Very late for their normal flowering time.

The first tulips. They flowers last only a short time because of the rainy and windy weather

Losing seedlings for birds, drying winds and minor frosts
The broad beans and peas have been growing nicely, as well as the different grain crops (barley, oats, rye and perennial rye and wheat). Birds sometimes cause trouble when they go digging stuff for their nests, and sometimes eating seedlings of leeks or peas. How to keep them away? I don't know yet, but the fleece or the cold frame seems to be the best solution.

The seedlings of walking onions, spring onions, leeks, pak choy and kale, have endured the first few weeks after transplant outdoors, under a fleece. However many seedlings (about a third of them) having been lost for ocasional harder frosts or during strong and very drying cold winds. I also lost about a third of the garlic that has rotten during the last two very wet weeks!

The multiplier onions and chives are doing great but they surely cry for warmer and sunnier weather. I have gathered some wood to build a raised bed and cold frame, in our garden beds, but I am not sure how it will end up. Even after decades of experience, I am still an impractical and inefficient gardener. Still I have lots of fun developing skill mistake after mistake. This is my sobering conclusion.

The salads have been a total failure when sown outdoors. Often seedlings dry during windy winds (even if I water them twice a day), then birds mess up with the soil and eat the remaining seedlings. One solution was to grow salads in trays first indoors, then outdoors.

Perennial hopes
I am now very excited to try perennial crops, rather unconventional, just to overcome the troubles of having to grow always every year, plants from seed trays, which is a lot of work! These are the key for a self-sustainable garden in the Icelandic climate. This is an extremely important insight. Basically, these will be roots like scorzonera, multiplier onions, chives, walking onions, groundnut and chinese yams; pulses like the siberian pea and honey locust; cereals like perennial rye, ricegrass and lyme grass; greens like miner lettuce, good king henry, asparagus, perennial broccoli and crambe; and a few fruit trees and berries.

Experiments outdoors
The big attraction is planned to be the painted mountain corn and siberian tomatoes, but will also include food production from sunflowers, squash and cold tolerant varieties of watermelon and melon. Second is trying to keep the trees I am growing since last year (mulberries, pecan nut, honey locust, etc). These trees were not enjoying being indoors (too warm temperatures, pests, messing up with their natural cycles), so I moved them outdoors but they were burnt during frosty winds, but are still alive. I also bought a 3 year old and flowering "Stella" cherry tree (that I will place in the most sheltered and warmest spot in the garden); its a big gamble whether or not we will be able to have cherries this summer; I also have plenty of flowers ready to plant outdoors (mostly viola, tagetes, clematis), and plenty of turnips and swedes. Some plants will surely be a failure but with so much diversity something will probably work!

Moving the cold frame around protects young seedlings from birds and cold drying winds

Experiments indoors
The largest bets are for several varieties of millet, teff, trying to get an harvest from quinoa, having a larger harvest of amaranth; as well as the experiments with pigeon peas and jícama. The best growing plants are the tiger nuts, turmeric and passionfruits (I have one plant flowering and even setting the first fruit, after 2 years from seed), the worst were the lima and winged beans lost recently for spider mites. Complicated is also to keep the macas, good king henry and chenopodium paudicaule (the non-saponin quinoa) past the seedling stage. I got a new variety of ocas after losing the ones planted in late winter (basically to a lack of sunlight and aphids). I also have stone age wheat, ready to transplant outdoors.

Community garden
Here at Sólheimar we are proud of continuing our new project, a community garden that will also be based in organic and permaculture principles. We planted raspberries, red clover and mints the other day, in addition to the spring flowers already there, as well as cherry and apple trees that survived since planted last autumn. I hope to carry a few perennials from my garden to the community garden, which will be labelled to any visitor interested in discovering them. As well as some of the broad beans and cereals.

More to follow in soon.