Start of the gardening season

This year has been full of changes for us. The biggest one is that we have finally moved into our new house! It took us 1.5 years to renovate it, and I'm not going to lie to you, there are still some things to be done, but we managed to move in at the end February and love it! My husband has changed his job and I have finally started my own small business which leads to my days being completely consumed. The end of last year was so busy that I didn't have time to prepare the garden for winter and I was concerned about its condition in spring. With our move I have started working in the garden way to late when our neighbour were almost done. As I kept the soil open over the winter it was like one large piece of concrete and so difficult to work with. Luckily, I had my sister helping me and we managed to prepare it in a less than a week which I considered a great achievement. All of our neighbours were cheering on us, but not one of them offered to help us. Anyway, it's been done and my muscle ache is gone too, so all is good in the end. I've been wanting to write a post for so long, but I didn't know what to say or how to start after such a long time. And then I decided that I will simply start and see how it goes... So, let's have a look at our garden! I've been always reserved about planting strawberries as I believed that snails will get to them first and all my work will be wasted. I have received many runners last September from one of our neighbours, and I thought well, let's try it. I prepared the soil, planted the runners and kept watering them for a while to make sure that they root well before winter. Then I forgot about them... When I came back at the end of March I was surprised to see that all of them survived. They were not in the best condition, but that's something I could fix and so I did. I loosened the soil, removed tons of weeds, placed straw around the plants to keep them clean and look at them! I'm so proud of them! If it all goes well, my first harvest won't be too bad at all. It's been such a dry weather this year, and I thought I would have to water them constantly, but the straw really keeps the soil moist, so I only water them twice a week.  ----- The plants are on the smaller side because I loosened the soil a bit later than I should have, but each of them carries plenty of fruits. I can't wait for them to ripen.  ---- I planted them in the spot where I had potatoes last year, and it looks like I didn't remove them all as today I have noticed a potato volunteer 😊  ----- My favourite plant in the garden is chives. They reseed year after year and my harvest is bigger every time. This is such a versatile herb and I love to use it in the kitchen. Think of chives on buttered toast, tangy pesto, salad garnish, and more.  ----- I pick chives flowers and use them as flower bouquet until I find time to make chives vinegar and dry the flowers to use as seasoning for baked potatoes. If you haven't tried this yet, you must. It's a life changer.  ----- Last year, I had plenty of radishes and recently I have noticed a few volunteers. I didn't want to plant radishes anymore as I thought I was too late, and they prefer colder weather, but I've tried anyway and will see how it goes. ![6.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd- […]