Monday

It's monday morning and the winterbreak is over.
Last friday i went to Tapolas community garden for a job interview. It's quite far away, so my brother drove me there, and if i can go work there, this spring, i'm going to have to take two buses there, from Lahti to Niinikoski. One bus goes there in the morning and one bus goes back to Orimattila in the afternoon. They have all kinds of vegetables there and appletrees and currantbushes that we're going to trim. They also have eighteen milkcows, one bull, some calfs and chickens (hens). The woman who interviewed me talked a lot, i almost didn't get a word in, but she seemed nice.

A week before that i went to an interview at Korso, Vantaa. It was at Vantaas Steiner-school and the fields are right next to the school. It was Rudolf Steiner who established biodynamic agriculture. And both of the gardens i'm applying are biodynamic gardens. It means they use compost, manure and preparations. Crop-cycling is an important thing and they use astronomical planting calendar, meaning they plant and harvest the crop when the mooncycle is appropriate for the plants. It's also about the diversity of the nature, maintaining and enhancing the ecological harmony and life in general. In these communities people work closely together and respect the animals and see them as workmates, not as production units. I can't say much more about it yet, i'll see what it's really like, in practice, at the workplaces.

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My favorite vegetables:

sweet corn and
broccoli.

Favorite berries and fruits:

cherries,
avocados,
blackcurrants and
watermelons.

Favorite flowers:

poppies,
sunflowers and
cornflowers (aka batchelor's button).

Favorite trees:

larch,
cherry- and appletrees, and
lilac.

Favorite herbs:

basil,
lemon balm,
rosemary and
thyme.

Alliums and other favorites:

garlic,
artichokes hearts (as food),
chickpeas.

edit:

I changed the title of the blog, but the address is still the same.

"A picture heavy post"

I don't get to make that mushroom stool, because the teacher said that it's too much work. So, i started (and almost finished) making a small shelf.

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Here's some photos (that i have taken myself) of flowers, from last year. I don't even remember all of their names, let alone their scientific names. We haven't dealt with flowers that much lately, just with poinsettias and hyacinths, but these sure are pretty. (I'll try to look them up and find their names.)

Now, that's a white lily, i'm sure of it.

Poinsettias. The lighting is on, that's why it's all yellow-looking.

And here are some summerflowers from last May.

Fuchsia. (Fuchsia triphylla)

The herbs from the previous "open house" -day, in May 2012.

Sunflowers can be used as fallow plants in Finland, but it's kind of useless to grow them for oil or seeds, there's not enough of processing business going on here. Or, so i've heard.

 A Swallowtail?

Here's the corn from the schools samplefield. 

And here are some members of the cabbage family.

Schools sample field. I don't know how else to call it.

Peppers. Capsicums. These are the cone-shaped ones, and i'm not sure what is it's full name. I'll try to look for it.

...

There are some many different kinds of peppers, that i just can't find the exact one.

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I'll probably post some photos next time as well, but i'll try to write something about every picture. 

I don't really know what else to write. Perhaps sometime later i will write about the planting plans we've made.

New Blog

Hello, you all. This is my new blog and i'm doing this for my english class. I'm going to write here about my studies in study programme in Horticulture. So, i'm becoming a gardener, and graduating in spring of 2014.

When people think of gardeners, they usually think that we're moving the lawn and planting rosebushes, i guess, but what i do is grow vegetables, fruits and berries (or flowers) in greenhouses and in the fields, so i could say i'm becoming more like a farmer. That word gives you a better picture of what i'm doing, i think.

On wednesday and thursday, i have interviews for work practice places, in Orimattila and Vantaa. My work practice starts in April and lasts five months. I've also applied in other places, but i haven't heard from them, so i should probably call them, i case they have forgotten me.

In these past few weeks we've made planting plans for peppers and for open land vegetables and we started this english course and woodwork classes last week. I'm looking forward to making a small shelf and a mushroom bench (stool?), but those nailguns are scary.

(This is not my picture, it's from http://www.taitomaa.fi/k%C3%A4sity%C3%B6t/K%C3%A4rp%C3%A4ssienijakkara/7860 ,but that's what it's going to look like.)


I'm going to put here a lot of pictures that i've taken in school, but if i post others photos, i'll try to remember to put whose is it, or a link to the original page.

'Till next time,
Sam.