I found a bag of dried figs in the pantry. They had probably been there a while. Much of the sugar in them had crystallized on the surface. They were delicious.

Adrian’s new shoes for this autumn. Size 29! Beloved but not lovingly cared for…

This year’s big planting project is 90% done! I’m continuing my long term mission of replacing lawn with better things, such as bushes and perennials. Lawn is a pain to care for and boring to look at.

I was kind of planning to focus on section 4 this year, but it didn’t turn out that way. It was easier to continue in section 1 because I have a rough plan all ready in my head for it, whereas all I have for section 4 is a vague vision.

It’s taken almost all summer. The planting bed covers about 15-20 square meters. Preparing it involved cutting away about three tons of turf – literally. Then spreading about 1 cubic metre of mulch and manure on top, and mixing that with the clay soil to make it more plant-friendly. And finally another cubic metre of prime planting soil on top of that.

At first I was just going to replace the lawn under and between the dogwood bushes with better ground cover that would look more interesting and not need mowing. But when I was halfway through the digging, I realized that if I am going to put in all this work then I might as well get something more grand for it!

Today I took a trip to the garden centre at Ulriksdal and came back with the car packed full of plants. It was like a jungle in there. It was a good thing no kids came with me because on the way back there would have been no space for them in the car. And now they are in the ground! Now I just need to add some more ground cover plants between them and then I’ll be done with this bed for this season.

This bed is in deep shade. It’s situated along the west side of the house, and our cherry tree and the neighbours’ tall trees shade it in the afternoon and evening as well. Possibly the bottom end may get a tiny bit of sun now and again. I like shade plants: Hosta and Brunnera and Polygonatum and Bergenia and the hardier Geraniums. But I wanted some taller blooming plants as well, so I also put some Astilbe and even a few Aquilegias there. It remains to be seen whether they will survive or flower.

Frankly I’ll be happy with anything as long as it is not lawn and not obviously a weed. So if a few of the plants get pushed out by others, I don’t mind. And if the bushes smother some perennials, I won’t cry either.

Here’s what I have:

• Aquilegia “William Guinness”
• Astilbe, Japonica group “Ellie”
• Astilbe “Purpurkerze”
• Alchemilla mollis
• Bergenia “Silberlicht”
• Brunnera macrophylla “Jack Frost”
• Carex morrowii “Ice Dance”
• Geranium phaeum “Samobor”
• Hosta “Albomarginata”
• Hosta “Big daddy”
• Hosta “Halcyon”
• Lamprocapnos spectabilis “Alba”
• Polygonatum

So grateful that I do not need to trek across a continent to save my family from war.
So grateful that I do not have to worry about my children drowning when crossing a sea in an overcrowded boat.
So grateful that I do not have to leave behind everything I own and try to build a new life from scratch in a strange place.

It’s hard for me to imagine being in a situation like that – and yet not so hard after all. After all, it’s not that long ago that Estonians were fleeing across the sea. Not in my lifetime, not in my mother’s – but in my grandmother’s.

In another timeline, it could have been me.

I could be living in Estonia still instead of having moved to Sweden as a child. Russia could have aimed their provocations at Estonia instead of the Ukraine. I could be trying to escape from war to a peaceful country on the other side of the sea.

Adrian’s preschool had a “bulb planting festival”. We planted bulbs. And ate soup.

This is one of my few splurges: spending silly amounts of money almost daily on the best fresh, seasonal fruit I can find. When we get home in the afternoon, the kids and I eat fruit until it’s almost coming out of our ears. It starts with all kinds of berries during early summer. Those were followed by peaches and nectarines, and now we’ve come to apricots and plums.

He loves the breads that Eric bakes – all the different kinds. And now he also loves cucumber (which he refused to even try a year ago).

We’ve had a lot of rain today and it’s washing away the soil I just spread here! Well, I guess it’s good to discover this kind of bug early in the project’s life – before this area is full of newly planted plants. The rain barrel definitely needs upgrading to something bigger (and less ugly) and we need a drip irrigation hose to lead the water to the plants rather than to the street. And the soil needs to be covered with mulch of some sort to help keep it in place.