Tomato forest

My tomatoes have been doing their utmost best over the past few weeks, they are growing like crazy! One side of our balcony looks like a real tomato forest. I have had to bind them up and I now am very glad I bought these ridiculously long bamboo stalks. And if you look at the thread I used, you might recognize the 'knitting theme', for yes, it is indeed raspberry red/pink organic cotton.

I also have proof now that I have two different varieties: I did mark the seedlings of course, but my son found the neat rows of plastic cups quite boring and decided to arrange them in a more appealing way - by putting all of them in a wide circle with the marker straws laying in the middle. As if the seedlings were going to play 'who is who?' with them(?!). 

The plant above is most likely the cherry tomato, judging from the neat parallel rows in which the fruits are growing. It has produced an amazing amount of flowers so far, and is still producing new ones every day. The plant below (actually, two of them) looks to be a 'regular' tomato, although I forgot what the name is (note to self: make better markers next year). The mystery of the missing flowers is solved by the way, for in the end this plant did produce yellow flowers, it just took much longer than the cherry tomatoes. 

The only thing I am bit worried about is that the fruits will not be ripe before we will be leaving at the end of August... Let's hope that they will ripen soon!

Marta's book 'n box

I have been experimenting with some lovely chiyogami paper that I bought at my all time favorite shop here in Berlin: Modulor! It's probably the best craft supply store in Europe (though it is always dangerous to use big words). Because chiyogami paper is completely handmade, it's rather expensive so I only bought A4 size sheets to try out some ideas I had for creating boxes in Japanese style (not Japanese boxes, that is something quite different). Last year, I bought a large board cutter from the widow of a deceased bookbinder in Dordrecht (alas, bookbinding is a dying craft). Along with the cutter came a considerable amount of cut board, enough for at least 10 small boxes. There was no work description for these boxes, but they did not look too complicated. The best way to make the box was too include a hinged lid - only, I had never made such a box before. It took a while before I produced an acceptable box, but the result (below) was promising (there is always room for improvement...). 

The most difficult thing proved to be the cover: I wanted to use the chiyogami paper, but it was a bit too small. I had to cover the short sides separately, whereas it is custom to use a single sheet to cover the whole box. The advantage of covering the box with separate sheets is that you can adjust the pattern to match. And since I was busy matching everything, I decided to make a matching book with pockets.
I love this paper! More items will probably follow shortly, I will show you when they are finished...

On the mountain

Last week, I visited my dear friend Marta on 'her' mountain just outside Grenoble. It was an inspirational week with lots of laughter, good company and the most wonderful views from the terrace (even though the wretched hedge was still way too high).

The house itself perches on a steep allotment and when shot from below, it looks a bit like an old Japanese  wooden house. (But not from close by, though) In this picture, the cursed hedge aligning the terrace had already been cut somewhat lower by the humble gardener. When it will be cut to the right height you might actually see part of the windows. I will ask Marta to post a picture...

The terrace provides a perfect outdoor working/eating/chatting/relaxing space; when the sun is shining directly on the terrace, Marta puts up the cheese cloth 'sails' by fastening them to the balcony of the floor above and to the hedge on the side. A very cheap and handy solution, indeed.

And if the terrace gets too crowded, there is more space in the garden, including a hammock with a view and cherries for an easy afternoon snack (although they have all been eaten by now).

And then there is the potager, of course, which is an ongoing and very fulfilling project of the lady of the house. There are plants and seedlings everywhere around the house and in the vegetable garden and I loved to go out and fetch some delicious homegrown veggies for dinner every day. And if you will be visiting Marta and Eduard somewhat later this year and you will have chickpeas for dinner, then think of me, for I planted them. Thank you Marta, for this wonderful week! 

Tomatoes revisited

Remember my tomatoes? Well, they have already outgrown their pots and needles, so I had to build them a bigger home. Since we are here only temporarily, I did not want to buy too many pots, as we all have to take them home with us. Bigger food buckets would have been a very cheap and convenient replacement, but none of us are big eaters...

In the end I bought some buckets at the 1-euroshop and bamboo canes at a hardware store. I planted the roots relatively deep; they grow upwards and need extra soil every week. 

The tricky thing this time was that the plants were already in bloom (yes!), and I was not sure if the flowers would suffer from the replanting session. But after just a few hours, they seemed happier than ever and they are still growing as crazy! The only thing that keeps puzzling me is that the plant on the left has real yellow tomato flowers (see below, on the right), while the other two plants have little green bells that seem quite empty (see below). I mean, I cannot see any flowery stuff in there. It seems that these are 'sterile plants' that apparently do not need pollinating(?). Maybe I should investigate a bit more on that subject...

CeeCee

If  you wan to know what's hot and new in Berlin, you could subscribe to CeeCee, a wonderful newsletter in German and English. It's made by two Berliners that like to tour their hometown in search of new shops, exciting events and cool bars. Attached to the newsletter and their website is a city map on which all the reviewed venues are indicated. Very handy! Want more? Here's the site: CeeCee

Seed bombs

My son recently received mail from OERRR, an initiative by Natuurmonumenten (Nature Preservation) to get children to explore nature. In the envelope were some new outdoor discovery cards and a package containing zaadbommetjes (seed bombs). He got really excited at the word 'bombs' but was disappointed when I told him the package would not explode when opened. The idea of making his own seed bombs became much more appealing when he realized that sand, clay and water would be involved. Since we did not have clay and the bombs now had to be made immediately, we just put some sand and water in a small bucket and mixed in the seeds. He then wanted to just throw the seed bombs off the balcony, 

but I managed to convince him that the seeds would probably be scooped away by the construction workers. So we went down into the 'garden' to look for a suitable place to drop our bombs...

In the end, we settled for a space next to the old electricity house, which is not likely to be torn down in the next months and which also had plenty of sun and most important: it is not an active construction site. As you can see, he did not want to get his hands dirty and carefully shook out the seed mixture in several places. He then faithfully went to watch the seeds grow for the first few days, but then decided that they were probably dead. Patience is not his strongest asset. Yesterday he suddenly remembered the seeds and went down to the seed spot to see if anything happened. 

Yes! Tiny little plants had come up at most of the seed spots and we could already discern several different leafs, although he was disappointed that I could not name the flowers. But hey, do I look like a flower expert to you? Anyway, he now checks up on the tiny fellows every morning before going to school and he puts a thumb to me when they grown again.

Lemon balm

About three months ago, I bought a tiny package of Zitronenmelisse (lemon balm) seed in the supermarket, for the one and only reason that the info on the back said: 'mosquito repellent'. Good! I thought, for if there is one thing I hate in summer... I sowed the seed in an empty milk carton, they are ideal for planting all sorts of stuff. The package also informed me that the seeds would germinate unevenly over a longer period of time. And indeed, it took over three weeks before the first tiny green sprouts became visible. The tiny sprouts remained tiny for another three weeks, but then suddenly started to grow really fast. I had to replant them and again used empty milk cartons, for I had a strong suspicion that they would need replanting within a couple of weeks.

And still, more tiny little sprouts keep popping up in the seed box, but I am in doubt now if I should still plant them on in bigger pots - in two months time, we will be moving back to Leiden and my husband is now cautiously starting to ask whether all this greenery is supposed to move back home with us...