Losing the garden battle

In my last post, I mentioned that the garden was a separate beast altogether. So, here's my post about that beast. Basically, I feel that I am fighting a losing battle to the plants that were once cute and green and are now insidious and looming.

My plants have fallen into five basic categories:

1. Plants that are being awesome. This category is smaller than I would like, but it includes the raspberries in a container (I'm very, very glad I put them in a container, they would've taken over the beds), my (now two) tomato plants - although one of them is teetering very close to being a category 3 (see below), the peas, and the peonies that were already in the bed. Yay for things growing and blooming!

Artistic shot of the peonies

Raspberries! They're looking great, but I'm still a wee suspicious, no berries yet.

Peas! My sad attempt at trellis won't be sufficient, I'm going to need to  make a much bigger one.

Tomato plant - I should've been pruning this, it's a bit large.

Second tomato plant - you can see a hint of my first ripe tomato, yay!

2. Plants that, despite my best effort, keep dying or getting eaten. Top of this list are my cilantro, which I've tried three times (in order: accidentally let go to seed, eaten, eaten within 2 days), and basil, which looks like whatever insects are eating it are learning how to make doilies. Also the rosemary goes in this category, although I suspect that is due to the fact that it prefers dry, poor-quality soil, which it doesn't have. My problem is that each time I buy replacement plants for this category, they seem to get eaten/die quicker.

Empty seed trays that never sprouted in the back, basil on the front left, cilantro on the front right.

Rosemary on the front left, cilantro attempt #3 in the blue bucket. 

3. Plants that are nowhere near under control. This category includes most of the plants and shrubs that I inherited. A prime example are the strawberry plants, which I was all excited to see when they started growing leaves, but now I've realized that they are everywhere, but well past their prime and produce only microscopic berries that mock me with their bright redness. Other plants include ones that I don't know the name of, but they are stringy and widespread and produce only piddling little pink star-shaped flowers. I've started ripping these out. Also, an enormous bed of something that is related to lilies of the valley, judging by the leaves, but have yet to produce any flowers - your clock is ticking down, mister.

Barely even worthy of the term "flowers." You are not long for this world.

This was much smaller when it first showed up in the spring.

Three of the five bushes that are perhaps supposed to be some sort of border, but have started to bear a striking resemblance to the trees in Snow White.

4. Plants that seem to have hit a wall. Specifically, my pepper plant in a container. I have no idea what its deal is. I got it, replanted it, it was all happy and growing, and then about 3 weeks, it ceased all activity. No bugs, no eaten leaves that I can find, no dying. It just completely stopped. Also in this category, my container strawberry plants. Wtf, I'm counting on you, sad plants!

Bell pepper plant. You can glimpse the strawberries on the left.

5. Plants that have straight up died. Unfortunately, this category includes all of my attempts to add something to the flower beds. My blackberry plant barely made it back from the store, so perhaps it was doomed from the beginning. And the loss that hurt most, two irises that were growing leaves when I purchased them, and which wilted and died within a week of me putting them in the ground.

So, what lessons can we learn from this? Apparently, I only know how to grow things in contained spaces, but even that's no guarantee (also, I'm bad at judging what size container to choose). Also, inheriting someone else's flower beds is WAY HARDER than tilling and setting up your own, where at least you start with nothing and don't have to play guess-the-flora. Thirdly, I should've been much harsher on weeding and ripping crap out of those flower beds (I still haven't ruled out doing such an action). Fourthly, I blame some of my troubles on the fact that the ground floor has things like slugs and nasty critters and birds and deer (and probably rabbits) that will stop by for a snack. And lastly, the answer to the question of whether I inherited my mother's green thumb is a resounding no (and my apologies to her, because I definitely took the beautiful flower beds that surrounded our house growing up for granted).

Walking to Zurich

Monday was the first sunny day we've had here in a long, long time (although I may have missed one while in the US), and I decided to take advantage of it by exploring a trail I'd seen leading off from our regional train stop. I ended up walking all the way into the city, which took only 30 minutes, even including my many stops and wanderings. I was impressed at the Swiss way of setting up their paths - they have no problems running them under huge highways or over creeks (bridges optional). I was also amazed at the number of people - all ages - who were out with various accessories - their dogs, kids, bikes, or walking sticks. I wondered if they were all unemployed, too, but I didn't ask.

I was sorry that I only had my cell phone with me, so the pictures are rather poor. I stuck near the river for the most part, and here's some of what I saw:

"What is where?" I only walked a part of this, but I was interested to see that there are several different areas contained along the river. Places for picnics, playing sports, dogs, bikes, and also places where each of those are restricted.

I'd never seen a sign like this before. I was amused.

I took a picture of this bright orange sign because I thought maybe it was warning about attack deer (to me, the animal in the picture looks like it could be poised for aggression). In fact, it was a sign simply warning people that deer are present in the woods, and to please watch your dog. 

Stepping stones across a small creek. Notice the massive freeway in the background. What a novel idea, to make the green space around highways functional in other ways.

Sheep! Many (but not all) were wearing bells, and they were surprisingly loud - you could hear them several hundred meters away. From the noise, I expected them to be in a full blown stampede, but they were just moseying along, chewing their grass. Strange note - despite much peering, I couldn't find a fence on the other side of them. For the life of me, it looked like someone had dumped them on a hill behind some abandoned building.

Dark picture of a black sheep.

Lamb following its mother (I assume that's who it was).

Thanks for posing, brown sheep.

Poor digital zoom on my phone, but I stopped for a while to watch a pair of ducks and their two tiny ducklings. The ducklings trying to cross the rather swollen river was most entertaining.

Also, the orange sign about the deer wasn't just for show. Last week, in the midst of fairly steady rain, I noticed this on the hill in our backyard:

Deer are a common sight in West Virginia where I grew up, and I used to mock the tourists who would pull off to the side of the road to take pictures of the herds. However, this was my first European sighting, and  I was surprised to see one in such a suburban setting. It had a decent set of antlers on it and didn't seem bothered at all by the large apartment buildings less than 20 meters away. I still haven't managed to get any pictures of the hawk in the next field, but I have heard it cry a couple more times, so it must live in a nearby tree.

Settling in

So I am totally enraptured with our new apartment. Which feels great - I was a wee concerned that I would like it only in comparison to B's studio, and I'd start bugging B to move in another year or two (which is totally normal in Boston - many people I knew there, myself included, often moved every few years, but here, it's definitely not done. People find a place and hunker down).

But instead, I find that each time I tackle something, it becomes more awesome. I am currently baking cookies, my first attempt at baking here, and it's wonderful. The oven preheats normally, the estimated cooking times in recipes are accurate, and even though the kitchen is small, it's set up smartly and it's very easy to make things without lots of running around.

Today is a holiday (Labor Day), so B is home and we did a fair amount of sorting this morning and putting what we can away. The spare room is currently our holding space, so there are still a good dozen boxes and bags in there, but I felt ready enough that I just brought up 2 suitcases from downstairs to open and explore (I unzipped the first one and decided to bake the cookies instead, so maybe I wasn't totally ready).

Yesterday B took off work (his company grants a day off for moving locally, which sounds like a very reasonable policy) and we headed to Ikea. While I like to think that I am an adult and past buying furniture at Ikea, it turns out I'm totally not. There are a few pieces I am holding out for in terms of quality (mainly a couch and a decent mattress), but we ended up with quite a long list of items that we'll order for home delivery. However, we won't receive them until we come back from US in mid/late May, so there's only a limited amount of unpacking we can currently do.

For some problems, it's been one step forward and one step back. We picked up our new TV yesterday, which B was keen on setting up - but since we don't have a TV stand, it's currently just sitting on the living room floor. We bought some curtains at Ikea yesterday, so that we could keep our blinds up. Unfortunately, all curtains here turn out to be three meters long (!), so they dragged a bit. We tied them up so they don't cover the floor, but the knot of course defeats the purpose of having them prevent people from seeing inside. I am trying to convince B that this is a sign that I need a sewing machine.

I spent a couple hours outside planting some seeds and plantlings today, as well as pulling some weeds from the flower beds (I HOPE they were weeds - I tried to only pull out stuff I was confident about or that appeared dead).

In the containers: strawberry plants and a pepper plant. In the beds behind, a rose bush, more strawberry plants, and many plants of uncertain assignment.

 It was perfect weather to be outside, and apparently some neighbors felt the same way. There is a German-speaking family on one side of us with a young son and daughter (I'm horrible at guessing children's ages, but I would say the son was 5 and the girl maybe 2.5?). The entire family was sitting on their patio, and the boy had a play bow and an arrow that he was shooting around. We exchanged friendly hellos, but nothing more - I am still a bit unsure what the protocol is in apartments here, but I've heard that Swiss neighbors are usually not terribly welcoming at first (fine by me - otherwise I'd would've had to give my standard "Sorry, I speak only a little German" and pulled B out of the apartment to make conversation).

In the containers: tomato plant, raspberry plants, and 2 trays of expired seed packets (we'll see if any of them sprout). Behind - another rosebush, forsythia, and more unknown plants. This summer's garden will certainly be surprising, if nothing else.

At some point, apparently the little boy's arrow went missing, as both parents spent a bit of time wandering around on the hill looking for it. Later, B came out to join me on the patio, and the little boy gave us several curious looks as he re-emerged and continued the hunt. At one point while directly in front of us, he called back to his mother on their patio (I understood nothing but "Mama.....").

B turned to me and said, "He said that he thinks the strange lady next door stole his arrow."

To be fair, I wouldn't judge the boy if he thought this figure was in the business of stealing arrows. (Also, note the size of the plant I am holding in my hand. I really hope it was, in fact, a weed)

Of course, it turns out that the little boy actually said nothing of the sort. B is wonderful at straight-faced bold lies (at our wedding, he almost convinced my cousin that he used to play golf professionally), and usually I can call him. However, this time I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Point to B.

As punishment for him, I'm eating all the cookies. And they are go-ood.

Alles ist schön im Frühling!

I'm not 100% confident that this post's title is grammatically correct, but the sentiment is there. Basically, spring (der Frühling) is awesome. Every year, I forget exactly how much, since I do enjoy snowflakes and being bundled up with tea when it's white outside, plus I have an...unusual number of cute boots (In my defense, B totally encourages this habit). But then it starts to warm up, and you remember that the sun can actually warm and it's not just something that makes it painful to look directly at the bright snow and suddenly, all the flora decide that it's time to wake from their nap.

We haven't had daylight savings time yet on this side of the Atlantic, but it's still light until almost 7 pm, and that's another best thing about spring (if you're counting, that's about 3 "best" things. Don't think too hard about it).

Also - sunshine!!

We had a faux spring a few weeks ago, in which I thought I'd get to store away my winter coat for several months. Luckily, I didn't get around to sending it off to the dry cleaners (yes, I can totes do that on my own now!), since last week the weather got cold again and it snowed off and on for 3-4 days in a row. But I'm taking the plunge today and declaring that this time, spring is here to stay.

So cute!

In the US, the small green spaces peppered around cities are often just that - green. At Harvard Medical, the quad was made of sod squares that were replaced at least once throughout the summer (I believe it was just before reunion - gotta make sure that it looks pretty for the returning alums that are now rich and may want to donate). They are mowed, treated, and probably kept within standard regulations that are set by some higher power. Flowers are severely kept to preplanned and oft-replanted beds.

So I was wonderfully surprised to discover that here in Zurich, the green spaces aren't just green. Many of the pictures here are taken just outside our front (back?) door, and all others are yards of apartment houses on the way to the nearest tram stop. For a girl who grew up with an untamed lawn and a mother who never could have enough flower beds around the yard, it just warms my little heart. It appears that flowers may have been originally planted in beds, but then they are pretty much left alone to spread where they wish as the years pass. Regardless, I love it!

Happy spring everyone!! Special thoughts to Boston/New England friends, who are apparently digging out from the third (or fourth?) late winter snowstorm. May your green spaces soon be bright!

NB: I wrote this post yesterday, but it was raining and I couldn't get flower pictures. I didn't plan at all to actually correlate with the spring equinox - Happy Spring for realz!