Hei!

Minä olen Noel, ROK:n puhtarhuri.

As you can see, I can not write Finnish. I can barely even speak it! But, I am learning, so I will try and fit in a bit of Finnish as I go.

My plan is to keep a gardeners blog to let you all know how your garden is growing.

The first talkoot of this year, on Saturday 15th, saw a group of about 30 people show up to shovel the horse manure into the kasvihuone. It was great to see so much enthusiasm. I didnt recognise everyone who was there. I hear that our membership has now grown to 75, so there are many new people around. The manure came from Sylvia koti, just up the road and from stables that are managed ecologically. So, this is a great start.

I started work on the following monday. Funny enough, it was Saint Patricks Day, the traditional start to the growing season in Ireland. The first job was to spread and dig in the manure. By that evening, all was ready for planting.

We got our delivery of seedlings from Rehu farm on Monday evening. To start with, we are planting tomatoes and salad. Later, we will replace the salad with kurkuja.

It is quite funny working in a kasvihuone at this time of year. On Monday I went to work through the ice and snow at -16oC. By the afternoon, I was sweating away in +25oC sunshine.

Planting, fixing and watering was more or less the first weeks work. Harri came along a couple of times during the week to give advice and help out. A crew from KaupunginKyla also gave a hand. By the end of the week, all was set.

Those bags you see in the photo are for planting new potatoes. Ulla: we should have enough for Ravintola Paiva and for sharing!

The other work this week was to start seeding herbs and salads. With our membership growing, we are now working on having enough for 100 people.

As the weekend approached the snow started to melt again and this time I'm told it might stay off. So, it shouldnt be long before we can see the garlic planted last October coming up.