Gardening at 63° North

[svalli]

Originally Posted by arnorrian

Incredible! Didn't think gardening is possible that far north.

Climate in our area is not any extremely difficult for gardening thanks to Gulf Stream bringing warmth up here. Finland is quite long country where the climate and the hardiness zones varies a lot through the country. I know people with beautiful gardens in Kemijärvi above the Arctic Circle. There are naturally challenges and perennial plants have to be very hardy. We have short summers, but a lot of light during the growing season grows tasty veggies and fruits.

Sari

[arnorrian]

Your town should make a yearly offering to the gods to keep the Golf steam flowing. Human sacrifice works best, something like the wicker man.

Also, love your Moominmamma avatar.

[amideutch]

Originally Posted by RJGlew

Please send a little heat this way - so far in July we have not met the average high temperature 14 times, and the long term forecast is showing 6 more days below the average near the end of July. Earlier in the year we went 39 of 40 straight days where we did not meet the average high temperature. I don't have a single tomato plant over 2 feet tall yet, and the last date here where flowers have any chance of ripening fruit is the 1st week in August. Funny how world weather works - lots to understand still.

rg

RJ, My daughter just returned from a two week tour in Canada and said the weather was as you described and ended up with an ear infection as well.

Todays temperature in Germany is 37 C. Watering my mater plants twice a day.

Ami

[bower]

Sari, those purple pods and blooms are spectacular!
I noticed that the slugs and bugs are not so attracted to red lettuces as they are to the green ones in my garden this year, so another good reason to grow them, they might leave me some!

[svalli]

Originally Posted by arnorrian

Your town should make a yearly offering to the gods to keep the Golf steam flowing. Human sacrifice works best, something like the wicker man.

Also, love your Moominmamma avatar.

The Golf Stream may shift, if sea levels rise, so burning to create more CO2 is not a good offering.

The businesses in our city are already doing a lot to fight the climate change, since there are many companies working and making products for energy saving and alternative energy production. The rising sea level is not a big threat to us, even we are by the coast, since the ground rises here 1 cm each year, when it is bouncing back from the pressure caused by the last ice age. The threat to us is that the shifting ocean currents will cool us, so that the area will become too cool for agriculture. I'm not sure, if anything can be done to keep the climate not changing, but I am happy to have worked with things, which at least reduce toxic pollution.

Sari

[peebee]

Somehow I missed seeing this post till now. Wow Sari everything looks lovely there! How lucky you are to be among such beauty.
Are those Japanese cucumbers you are growing? It's been a few years since I have been able to grow nice cukes. I try every year anyways. This year I got 3 cukes so far from 10 plants. They are mostly dying now, from pests. But my tomatoes are doing great so I can't complain.
Thanks for sharing your pics

[svalli]

Originally Posted by peebee

Somehow I missed seeing this post till now. Wow Sari everything looks lovely there! How lucky you are to be among such beauty.
Are those Japanese cucumbers you are growing? It's been a few years since I have been able to grow nice cukes. I try every year anyways. This year I got 3 cukes so far from 10 plants. They are mostly dying now, from pests. But my tomatoes are doing great so I can't complain.
Thanks for sharing your pics

I had bad luck getting the cucumbers started this year. I forgot the cover on the first seedlings and those died and I tried sowing new ones in the greenhouse, but the spring was so cool that the seeds rotted. So I ended up buying plants for seedless cucumbers, which are similar to the Japanese ones.

This year I am growing only two Japanese tomato varieties. Amakko is just started to ripen and Frutica F2 has a lot of green ones growing. It will be interesting to see if F2 is as sweet as the Frutica F1.

Our heat wave was really short and temperature dropped to chilly rapidly. Tonight there is frost warning for inland and temperature here by the coast may also drop close to 5°C

Sari