Gardening at Kullfallet

The spring and summer of 2022 I focused all my attention on making the Kullfallet garden look nice.

Most of the stuff I grew from seeds, which was fun, and kept costs down.

Finally I also planted fruit trees, something I had wanted to do for years.

The temporary firewood storage (seen below in the background) was replaced with a proper shed, built on concrete posts.

Then I spent several weeks moving dirt around to create a level area near the cellar, and a nice looking slope, which I planned to use as a flower bed.

In the end it turned out quite nice with concrete stairs leading up, and multiple flower beds on all sides.

This flower bed was made from natural stone and mortar, and has dark purple Sweet William (Borstnejlika) in front (flowers coming next year), and yellow and purple Columbine (Akleja) in the back.

On the other side of the cellar is a similar flower bed with Obedient plant (Drakmynta) in the back and Daisy "Pomponette" (Tusensköna Pomponette) in front. I'm expecting these to flower next spring.

Further to the side is Maltese-cross (Studentnejlika) which will have really tall stems with beautiful fragrant red flowers.

On the slope I tried many different species, but only half of them grew. The idea was to have varieties that are good ground cover to prevent erosion. But I also wanted something beautiful and fragrant. Snow-in-summer (Tät Silverarv) worked exceptionally well, and grew very fast to cover the area.

Creeping Thyme (Backtimjan) was hard to make grow, but once it came it gave a very pleasant smell and cute purple flowers.

But the big winner this year was Garden pink (Fjädernejlika). They grew fast, and produced lots and lots of strongly fragrant flowers through the whole summer.

Phedimus (Fetblad) and Stonecrop (Fetknopp) did really well on the same slope too.

Below the main slope I planted Strawberries (Jordgubbar), and then a really long patch of Wild strawberries (Smultron) which I took from the forest. Plants multiplied quickly through runners, so I had berries throughout the whole season.

I found three varieties of Blackcurrant (Svarta vinbär). Small bushes, but they still yielded a handful of berries.

I got two Cherry trees (Körsbär), which I planted near the cellar.

To the left of the stairs I put some Lavender (Lavendel), a plant that smells amazing. A fresh sweet smell of summer.

Behind the house is a fairly large lawn, where I planted three varieties of apple: Transparente blanche, Sävstaholm and Gyllenkroks-astrakan.

I created a new flower bed behind the garage, where I put Dames-wort (Trädgårdsnattviol) and Meadow sage (Ängssalvia). Not much to see this year, but I hope they will be great next summer.

In front of the house I tried Edelweiss (Edelweiss), which grew extremely slowly. I'm hoping for flowers next year. I also tried Alpine poppy (Alpvallmo) which worked well. Cowslip (Gullviva) and Fall phlox (Höstflox) I've had for several years already, and they reliably look great.

My climbing rose bush really took charge this year, producing hundreds of fragrant white flowers.

To my surprise, my grape plant had not died. It was just a dried out twig in the spring. But it came back with great power.

The Chokeberry (Svartaronia) bush gave plenty of berries, which I will soon cook into jam.

I have eight plants of Lilac (Syren), which is a very common bush here in Sweden. It has white or purple flowers that smell great in the spring. I planted them three years ago and they haven't grown at all. Perhaps they just need time to develop a root system.

For this year's herbal garden, I planted Mint (Mynta), Oregano (Kungsmynta), Parsley (Persilja), and Lemon balm (Citronmeliss). Garden thyme (Kryddtimjan) came back as usual.

In my vegetable patch I grew carrots (morötter), leek (purjolök), spinach (spenat) and salad (sallad).

This year also offered plenty of mushrooms in the nearby forest. Chanterelle (Kantarell) is really delicious.

I tried to be helpful to the birds in the area, so I built a bird feeder and four bird's nests.

2022 was an unusually great summer with lots of sunshine. I'm happy that I finally managed to make it look nice around the house.

My place really is in the middle of nowhere. Here is a view from nearby hill Blåbärskullen.