PATH TO FREEDOM
PEDDLER'S WAGON
FREEDOM GARDENS
"LITTLE HOMESTEAD"
DERVAES GARDENS
URBAN HOMESTEADING
Featured Freedom Gardener of September 2008
Freedom Gardens: Hi Yvonnes, congratulations! You have been selected to be the Freedom Gardener of September 2008! Tell us a little more about your garden. Yvonnes: I live on the westcoast of Sweden. We have a little homestead but no farm animals, only two cats. My kitchen garden is about 66 x 50 feet. I grow my vegetables mostly in raised beds because, when it rains a lot, the soil gets waterlogged. The beds are about 3 feet wide but are a different length. They are about 1 foot in height. I mulch them with lawn clippings, leaves and other organic things. The mulch layer keeps the weeds down and keep the beds moist and my helpers – the worms – love it! I don’t dig in the soil if I don’t have to. I want to keep the layers in the soil as is. I grow a mix of vegetables, berries, herbs and flowers but not a lot ( about 3×3 feet) of each in one place. I try to spread it out so I don’t have the same crop beside each other, but in lots of other places in the raised beds. Flowers are good to have in different beds beside the berries and the vegetables. The red and black currents grow around the kitchen garden inside the fence. Below the bushes I grow flowers, herbs and vegetables, different ones each year–some in pots, some in the soil. We also have a greenhouse in the kitchen garden where I grow cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and basil. In the spring I have my seedlings there as well. FG: Behind every garden, there must have been blood, sweat and tears. What have you felt was (is) the hardest thing you’ve faced (or are facing) in your gardening? Would you care to share a story? Yvonnes: For me, the hardest thing has been to keep my crops for myself. Why? We have roe deer and elk just outside in the woods, so we have been forced to put up a fence to be able to grow anything at all. Snails and slugs are another problem, we have a native small slug that is very nasty. I try to kill as many I can but they still are a problem some years. The lack of daylight in the winter here in Sweden is a problem if you want to grow year around. From November to February, I can only dream about gardening! FG: What do you feel is the most important thing in gardening? Yvonne: The most important thing for me is to use only environmentally friendly methods in the garden, no chemicals at all. I try to take care of the soil and all the creatures that live in the soil in the best way I can. If the soil is good then the things that are growing in the soil are going to be good as well. Sometimes a crop fails, but most of the time you can harvest some of it anyway. You see, a garden for me is a bit of nature borrowed and we are put here to take care of it the best way we can. Growing food is the most important thing we can do if we have a garden, balcony or just a windowsill. A couple of years ago I read about permaculture in the garden and suddenly everything I had thought about came to me: To make the most of everything you have and use it in many ways, that’s what permaculture is for me. Nowadays I think in a different way about things. FG: Have you changed - emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually - since you’ve begun gardening? Yvonnes: I think I have changed since I have gardened. I am more sensitive when it comes to how we treat nature, animals and the whole Mother Earth. I feel that we are more connected to nature than many of us will admit. FG: Has this website (freedomgardens.org) helped you with your garden? If so, care to share “how?” Yvonnes: Yes, Freedom Gardens and Path to Freedom are two websites that have inspired me very much from the first time I visited them. I felt a little bit lonely before. It was only me who was interested in growing food, I felt. Now it’s so nice to see so many people interested in the same thing – growing their own food. FG: Is there anything else that you would like to share with other Freedom Gardeners? Yvonne: I have recently bought Bokashi-buckets to compost my kitchen scraps and feel it is the best way to do that. When I put the fermented compost in the worm compost, they love it! I don’t know but it is something about the fermenting thing they like. I also am beginning to use EM (Effective Microorganism) when I water the indoor plants and in the garden. So far I have noticed that the indoor plants look more healthy, but in the garden there are not any changes yet. I started at the end of summer so I guess I have to be patient! This autumn I will prepare the soil with EM and compost and see how it will work out next spring. I also hope I will get some chickens next spring as well, so all of my vegetable scraps (a lot of lettuce) can be of use and we can have some eggs. FG: Thanks for sharing with us Yvonnnes and giving us an insight to your life there in Sweden! Your connection to your garden and the nature which nourishes it is an inspiration. We hope to be reading more about your adventures as you try new ideas in the spring and add some chickens to your life. Thank you also for your willingness to be interviewed, especially since English isn’t your native language. You did a delightful job and your interview was very interesting and enjoyable! Hey readers, Yvonnes has been sharing with us photographs of her beautiful garden! These are a real treat to browse! Be sure to visit Yvonnes’s profile to see these photos, learn more about her garden and send your well-wishes to Yvonnes as she battles pesky pests and nears the season in which she can only dream about gardening! 
