Tallbacka in 2024
The garden dog Sera is dead
Sera has been an important member of the garden throughout its existence. In early May, her illness became overwhelming, leaving us in a sense of silent sadness and emptiness. At times, the whole garden felt pointless. Such was Sera’s gentle presence.
We buried her in the back of the garden, but couldn’t visit her grave during the first summer. Possibly, time will make the most beautiful flower grow on it.
Beautiful soul, we will never forget you.
Tallbacka Mix
Tallbacka garden has an excellent main product, the salad mix Tallbacka Mix. It is unique in terms of varieties, flavours, colours, an edible delicacy – updated according to the growing season and quite surprising. We are proud to be able to deliver the Tallbacka mix to our customers!
At the turn of the year, we decided to invest in our salad even more. In addition to previous restaurant customers, we made an agreement with K-Reimari. It would be possible to buy Tallbacka salad also from the store’s vegetable shelves, in 200 g consumer packaging as long as the season would continue. We drew a new logo, Tallbacka Bear had instead of fruits a large pile of salad in its arms.
We planned and procured washing and packaging agents for a larger need. We carefully considered the different varieties, species and necessary areas for planting. The first delivery arrived just in time for midsummer and it all felt very festive. A couple of times we were also marketing our salad on the spot at Reimari and relatively satisfied with the situation.
Pretty quickly, it became clear that sales weren’t up to what we had hoped. We would have needed a lot more publicity and visibility to get people into the store. We realised as autumn approached that our resources weren’t enough. The disappointment was hard to swallow. The product is good.
Leasehold land and dam construction 2024
During the year, the land of about 660 square meters of Pargas town was cleared of trees and branches from the area that will become a freshwater dam. Once the work was done, it became possible to remove the top soil in the autumn so that the contours of the future dam are now visible.
In the coming season 2025, it is planned to dig the dam out of the mud which will also serve as a sealant for the dam. We don’t yet know what will grow there but bulrush, irises and watercress have been included in the plans as well as various types of water lilies. We hope of course that insects birds and aquatic animals such as frogs and salamanders will find their way to the dam.
In the westernmost part of the garden we have tried asparagus and chicory. For the coming season we will be growing the hostas and root chicory in the area which is now covered with compost during the winter. It’s a pretty dark corner of the garden but the Hosta thrives in shade and drought so we’ll see if it goes well.
PLANT GREENHOUSE COMPLETED IN 2024
The plant greenhouse, which was begun in autumn 2023, was completed and finished in autumn 2024.
The plastic covering the house was laid in the autumn and coped well with the pressure of snow and winter cold. Then there was a rush to finish it in the spring in view of the incoming growing season. First it was necessary to install doors and air vents. Then came the arrangement of the interior. First, irrigation had to be ensured with the installation of irrigation pipes and cement slabs on the floor. The growing area had to be dug clean of gravel and replaced with compost and mulch. The edges were secured with cement slabs to get a sufficiently deep growing ground
Specialities like figs, peaches and apricots were planted in the greenhouse. Finally, annuals like tomatoes, cape gooseberries and garden rocket.
The irrigation tables were mounted and connected to the irrigation system. Unfortunately, we were not able to get a plumber to connect the irrigation pipes to the house until the end of August so the irrigation system, which was basically automated, did not work until August. Then came the installation of lighting. In good time, however, pricked out lettuce plants and other seasonal plants were able to get a place in the greenhouse. One setback was that the tomatoes in particular suffered because the soil inside the greenhouse was so new and dry that it had not yet established itself, so the tomato harvest was very small.
Finally, the sink and container for compost and mulch were put in place. The automatic irrigation system was secured with a wall cabinet and a defrosting element was installed.
Then, in September, came the final review of the construction project and its approval. By then, we had also cleaned the outside, and added compost to it. Now we can plan for the next season from a working nursery greenhouse.