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Year 4 – January-End of March – Planting and planning

During the winter season is all focus on planning and preparing the soil for planting season.

This year, I’ll be planting vegetables which are a fan favorite in our family:

• Broccoli
• Leek
• Radishes
• Tomatoes
• Bush beans
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Cauliflower

The chicory which I started late 2025 (November) has thus-far seen 2 decent harvests. Parts of it were distributed to family and friends. A greater part is in the freezer for use later in the year.

January-February saw mostly chicory harvests and soil tilling.

As February came to an end, temperatures slowly started to rise.
The month of March is a time where plenty of vegetables can started to be grown indoors.

With Christmas 2025, I got a little fun growing lamp which I am putting to good use.
During the month of March I mostly treated the various seedlings which will be planted in the months of April and May. Occasional cleaning and tilling of the growing beds and doing the necessary preparations for the first rays of warm spring sun.

As we neared April, did things take a bit of a turn in life.. but in a good way.
I tried maintaining focus on the garden but much more calm.. my beautiful daughter Roos was born on March 30th. I became a proud dad for the second time.

The growing lamp would continue seeing good use and help grow the seedlings into saplings.

Year 4 – April – June – Planting, replanting and experimenting

With the birth of my daughter did I get some additional spare time to work a bit more in the garden.
My little boy Remus, about two years of age at this moment, became my loyal little helper tending to the garden and learning the ropes.

He helps out with watering the plants and de-weeding the beds. In return I learn him about the plants we’re growing.

I bought myself a little whiteboard to help with the growing. It saw a few planting adjustments when I noticed certain seedlings dying off or a re-organizing of the growing beds. Helps keeping an overview.

The growing lamp I had gotten is turning into a solid addition. Plenty of seedlings to go about and made early propagation possible.

Additionally, I also got a raised growing bed.

During my parental leave, I built it and placed it in the garden with the idea of growing bean plants and some carrots/leeks in it which required some special soil for optimal growth.

I was also quite happy to see both the cherry tree as well as the apple tree getting into bloom.
During the month of April did I move the sunflower seedlings into both the front- and back-garden.
They have been growing ever since and doing pretty fine!
The cherry tree also received a very thorough cut-down as it was growing too big and wide.
We made sure we could still have a small cherry harvest… but reduced it about 50% in size.
This would allow propagating new shoots on the remaining stumps which can be more easily managed and reached.

At the beginning of May did we see that the spinach and Radishes were growing so well that a first harvest was in order.

My dedicated little helper came to the aid to wash and clean our first radish harvest.

Middle of may saw me doing some adjustments and clean-up.
At the moment did I still have the pots around from which I harvested the hot peppers last year.
I also had harvested the winter cauliflower and the little work/growing bench had become a bit aged and “trashy” looking.

So we did some re-arranging and potting. The hot pepper plants (seeds) were moved to the pots again, additional bean plants were added and also some additional carrots were planted in an elevated growing bed (normally for herbs).

Leeks were of decent size as well and needed some replanting. Part of them went into the chicory growing box (now empty), some of them were added to the raised growing bed in the garden next to the bean plants.

Treating the raspberry plants have proven to be fruitful. They were in bloom and we’re seeing plenty of fruits coming about. Harvest will be small by the looks of it, but just enough to share it as a healthy little snack to the kids.

I am also attempting to grow some strawberries in a hanging pot but no luck so far as the last couple of days became more rainy and cold again.
I can only hope it will not stunt the growth of the plants.

TO BE CONTINUED