Category: Techniques
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Baumbad Watering Rings
When we planted several trees in the winter of 2023/2024 I invested in some Baumbad watering “rings” for summer to make watering the trees easier. Baumbad also offers large stand-up watering bags but I figured flat rings on the ground around the trees’ trunks would work better for us here. I was more or less…
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Planting Season Autumn 2025
It is amazing how much empty space there is in this garden at the end of summer… And even though I know that by April it will all be more than full with poppies and such, there are still a lot of spots left to fill with “forever” plants. This year I began planting quite…
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My Garden Center Pet Peeve
After cutting back all the gigantic old Atriplex halimus shrubs eaten up by Monoxia obesula we needed to plant other shrubs to provide soil cover on our steep slope and to replace the Atriplex over time. Replacement plants needed to fulfill some very specific requirements: The gardener as well as the garden center people had…
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Shading the Vegetable Garden 2025
This summer as well I’ve been shading the vegetable garden to minimize water evaporation and to avoid sunburned tomatoes. Beginning of August I decided to finally try professional shade netting instead of the white frost protection fleece that is neither long-lived nor inexpensive. I invested about €50 in 10 meters of dark green HDPE shade…
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Trees for a Dry Mediterranean Garden
When we re-did our garden layout in the winter of 2023/2024, the goal was to turn the wide open vegetable and flower garden, where everything burned up in the summer, into a “park garden” with lots of shade trees. I researched a lot and made up a nice little shortlist of more or less drought-tolerant…
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Water Management in a Mediterranean Garden
Water management is a constant topic for gardeners and even more so in Mediterranean regions where rainfall may be scarce and/or erratic and water usage heavily restricted. This year, after two years of drought, we have had a relatively wet and cool spring. Between the beginning of October and until the 6th of July we’ve…