https://youtu.be/wNX1QtyG9_8

I remember well the national Prince Spaghetti television ads and so many other ads of the 1970s. It’s not easy to forget someone yelling Anthony, Anthony out of an upstairs window. The ads changed over time, but it was always some kid named Anthony who was somehow late for his dinner of Prince spaghetti!  Then, Wednesday came to be known as ‘Hump-day.’ Whichever of the terms gets you in the groove is all that matters. The weekend is on the way!

So much has been happening here. For starters, the weather has been ideal. Slightly above average October seasonal temperatures has meant I was able to get much of my autumn to-do list completed.

What’s on the autumn to-do list? Mostly, it was dividing and transplanting hosta. When I first started buying them, it seemed I would never have enough to tuck into all the places where shade presides. It takes a few years for those simple, small store-bought items to turn into anything. But eventually, they did. Clumps formed, and sparsely planted groups became lush clusters. It became clear this year that those lush clusters of hosta had come into their own, and some had become huge to the point of concern for other items they were smothering.

In went the spade and out came all the hosta. Some clumps were so large I could divide it into 8-12 new plants! All those new plants had to find a home too! I easily doubled the original amount I had growing with all the new divisions, and STILL had several dozen left over.  I potted up the remaining hosta and will offer them for sale at next year’s open garden day. I tallied over 40 potted hosta!! The time has come and gone where I do not have enough hosta! I now have too many!  And in another 4-6 years the whole process will likely result in an avalanche of even more hosta!

In addition to the hosta, I once again plucked out several dozen Foxglove (Digitalis) which are STILL popping up even though we haven’t been growing them for years. The millions of seeds they produced when I did grow them, provides another source of material to pot up for the garden day sale. For as many as I pot up, there are as many that I just pull out and throw away. Yet, there are still plenty growing in a few areas – so it looks like I will have a quantity of Foxglove to sell for a few more years. Foxlgove tally = 50.

Also, we have all sorts of pine tree volunteers growing in the garden beds. Once they get a bit over 6 inches tall, I dig them up and take them across the fence and plant them in the council green space. Oddly, there isn’t a pine tree on the whole parcel of land, just scrub weed trees like poplar and maple. We also dug up and transplanted several Glauca roses to plant on the council side. Eventually that parcel is going to be a pine forest – I planted at least 50 pine trees there this year alone! There’s a great spot for an oak tree. Now, if only the deer don’t devour all those new trees, we might actually be on to something!

Pekka is busy 5 days a week training for a weight-lifting competition, so not much work on the shed building. Once a week we get stuck in there doing something, but the whole process is really dragging on now with only 1 day a week ‘visitation’

Autumn truly has set in, the leaves are tumbling down and the angles of the sun are creating those long irregular shadows on the lawn. In preparation for new incoming roses, all the new holes have been pre-dug and are ready for instant planting. Can you believe I ordered even more roses? I must be nuts! Thank goodness we had such great success with the Swedish grower Flora Linnea, and the German grower Rosenhof Schultheis in the past, so I ordered from them both again.

This is out of the upstairs TV room window looking towards the shade garden where the previously mentioned gazillion hosta are growing

I noticed an Iris a few weeks back was putting up a spike of flowers. Totally mixed up plant, but delightful anyway!

I tried baking Finnish Pulla for the first time, two loaves – ideal and tasted great. I think I have the bread-thing down pretty well at this point. Two fresh loaves of various bread are now popping from the oven every week.

Everyone is fine here. Enjoyed a relaxing outing to the Swedish-speaking village of Inkoo a couple of weeks ago to visit their autumn harvest festival – good fun and food. We came home with three plants from the local plantsman Jussi Tallebo. We now have a Ginkgo – did we need one!? I don’t know, too late for that now, it’s already in the ground. The What’s Growing at Vanha Talo Suomi page is fully updated!

I’m going to ease into another red currant muffin I baked last night – that’s all from me until next time! ❤