EMHED, Mr. Tree makes a recovery

This is what an espaliered tree is supposed to look like:
The branches are trained along a wire or along a wall to lie flat. This maximizes space and helps each branch get the max sunlight. I have always wanted to have a fruit tree like this and when we got this house my dream came true...sort of...

Yikes.

As showed in a post a few weeks ago, Mr. Tree got a pretty massive haircut. He survived and now he looks like this...

He definitely could use a few more leafy branches but at least now he's not taking off the gutters or putting anyone's eye out.

This is the horticultural equivalent of a high pitched girly scream. It's difficult to see but there are little greed buds shooting out from EVERYWHERE--all over the branches, from under the cracks in the bark, etc. I keep rubbing them off to encourage the few longer ones to develop more but Mr. Tree just keeps putting out more sprouts.

Having hacked off nearly all the branches with buds Mr. Tree only managed to set 6 baby fruits this year. Considering the circumstances I thought this was too much so I thinned to four and will thin again to two before too long. If all goes as planned there will be one for me and one for Morten at the end of the summer.

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We aren't sure exactly what soft of fruit Mr. Tree is making for us. My money is on pairs but I am holding out hope that they will be quinces. We will have to wait and see!

EMHED: Project Patio

We've been working on the Patio on and off for almost exactly 8 weeks now. The first two photos are from our first day of work on the house, 21 March. The rest of the photos are more or less chronological... The cement tiles on the patio were so uneven that you couldn't push back your chair without hooking a leg on an edge and toppling over backwards. This is how they looked after we cleared away all the dandelions growing up between the tiles.

Lots of weeds, including stinging nettles, but also some strawberries. Woo hoo weeding!

The rock wall was seriously falling apart and even though the weeds were gone their roots were sending up new little weed-lets that were just as difficult to pull out. Something had to be done...

...so while Morten worked on re-setting all the tiles I dug up all the dirt in the flower bed, sifted out all the weeds on a tarp, rebuilt the rock wall, and replaced the dirt.

There were also quite a few strawberries growing between the cracks of the tiles so we re-planted them in the cracks of the rock wall.
Look at how smooth and even those tiles are! Go Morten!!!

Here we are after phase one of Project Patio. Not finished yet but it certainly is a good start. (P.S. Ven would like to know if anyone would like to play soccer with him?) (P.P.S. Should that last sentence have a period or a question mark? I'm looking at you Sara and Laura.)
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Back to the main topic: The rock wall is rebuilt from the stairs around to the water spigot and all the dirt behind the rock wall is weed (and root) free. We even planted out first herb, an Oregano plant which was a house warming gift from Maj-Britt (Morten's Aunt), in the corner next to the metal bucket.

To celebrate, we had our first outdoor barbeque party with some friends. Best of all, nobody flipped their chair over backwards. Those level tiles are really lovely.

We put up some bamboo steaks and string to encourage Ven to use the stairs rather than walk straight through the newly planted herb garden. The next morning, this is how the fence looked.

"Who, me? I am innocent! I would never...

Look at how cute I am...

Do you want to play soccer?"

Since finishing phase one we have been slowly making progress on phase two and here is how it looks today, several more weeks later.

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The strawberry plants all survived and we already have quite a few berries set. We've planted a lot more herb plants, mostly gifts from Jette (Morten's Aunt) and clients who have been generous enough to donate from their own garden. As you can see we've also begun digging up and de-rooting the lower half of the beds.

I am now getting a (very late) start planting some vegetables. I had planned to get the seeds in the ground on Sunday but it rained buckets all day so instead I just organized all my seeds on the dining room table.

EMHED updates (FINALLY!)

We've been making a lot of progress on the house and yard but, as I am sure you all have noticed, zero progress on the blog. Fortunately that's all about to change! I am hereby publically commiting myself to uploading all the pictures of our progress during this week to get you all back up to speed.