Helena-Reet: Life in the countryside – bird song for an alarm clock!

NordenBladet – I sleep with the windows open and early this morning I woke up to a wonderul bird song. Blackbirds are chirping happily already before sunrise. The daybreak is so positive and heartfelt! Birds love my garden and year after year there are more of them. There is a reason for that – namely birds prefer gardens where they have wildlife-like conditions for nesting. They say, the more uncultivated and versatile the neighbourhood, the more coulourful the life that is manifesting there.

The lawn is English-style, mowed to the ground, yet since the garden’s area is over half a hectare then there is space for virtually everything. In the middle of the garden there is even an island resembling the wood. I have many deciduous and coniferous trees, a buckthorn plantation, many bushes and the garden is breathing in the same pace with nature. Whenever my mother or my mother-in-law come to visit, they mostly roll their eyes – they disapprove of the nettle beside the compost box, the primroses under the lilacs, not to mention the goutweed having settled near quite so many flowerbeds. They shake their shoulders when they catch sight of a Bunias (Turkish wartycabbage) enjoying the sun somewhere. It doesn’t disturb me, quite the opposite – I like the wilder version of nature. My ideal would be to live in the countryside near the edge of a forest or perhaps also in the forest. On both sides behind the fence there would be meadows and not a single meadow flower (nor a meadow weed) is less beautiful in my eyes than cultural plants. Everything is the work of the Almighty and I see the diverse and varied character of the nature in that. I genuinely am not annoyed at and my aim is not to compete with anybody having a cleaner flowerbed. I do wish to enjoy the garden, to listen, to see, to take a moment for an enjoyment and for talking with the plants and the trees and doing as my grandmother once did. In the morning I walk around in a landlord-like manner, check all the garden to see what is to be seen and during the day I do a little bit of something here and there – exactly in a way that would let me feel good and be good to the plants and flowers in the garden as well.

Birds are of great use to a garden owner. For example a family of tits can consume tens of thousands of caterpillars and insects, many of which are garden plant pests. Swallows will help to get rid of gnats and flies. One family of swallows will eat a hundred thousand insects from your garden! And blackbirds – they like snails. Why poison/spray/artificially fertilize your garden when there are birds who so willingly help you – eradicate pests and when full they also offer you a wonderful concert. You can substitute fertilization with compost and dung and instead of a garden that would look like a sterile hospital room or a purified urban garden, I prefer the wilderness and a close-to-nature style. Birds, bees, and little animals (hedgehogs, for example) are very glad with such a garden! And me too!

Yesterday I created next to the strawberry bed also an onion bed and close to the house under the carpet beating frame a bean bed with the aim of building a natural green wall.

Besides I planted a new bunch of salad leaves to the greenhouse. Those I plant every other week, then I can harvest all summer long. Each year it takes less seeds, since I have learned that you needn’t sow them so often and so densely – in that case many will simply be wasted due to lack of space. Have a sunny and beautiful day!

PS! Pictures taken on May 20 2018, except for two pictures of my darling daughters –these have been taken at the same time one year ago. While Ivanka Shoshana seems as small as last year the Estella Elisheva has remarkably grown.

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