October – a month of last harvest and preparation for winter time.

At the moment we have three gardens, that we (volunteers) are taking care of. We have small garden, which is placed in sunny place near to volunteer station, permacultural garden started by Helena and a Big garden.

First weeks of October we took the last harvest: Carrots, onions, pumpkins, turnips and corn. We took out all the plants, collected them, putted in compost place and fertilised the ground with cow feces.

In the pemacultural garden we did the same, though the carrots and turnips in this garden were much bigger!mmm 🙂

We prepared few lines for planting onions and garlic for the spring. After fertilising, and turning abit the ground we seeded onions and covered them with a thick layer of straw. This way of planting has alot of advantages – it mulches the soil, protects it from frost, in summer it helps to keep humidity and prevents from weeds. This is a way to keep the small ecosystem without disturbing it and it also saves alot of time as you dont need to put extra work in weeding and mulching. Taking harvest in this way is also easier, as you dont need to dig deep to find your vegetables!

During this month we are planning to seed alot of onions and garlic, so later in spring when they grow up, we can replace them with other kinds of vegetables that need to be planted in later period of spring.

These days snow surprised us, so planting slowed down, but hopefully not for too long..:)

From harvested vegetables we prepared some foods for loooong and coooold winter. Like pickled green tomatoes, pickled beerroots, tomato jam ( recipe from Zoe), and tomato sauce.Yummy!

Anoter beautiful project is being planned at this very moment by our three EVS volunteers – Daniel, Millo and Max together with three practicants from Belgium- Eva, Tijs and Niels.

Bear Botanical Garden is manifesting ! From the morning to the night these hardworkers are collecting information about plants, organizing it, sharing ideas about the purpose of this project to make it happen as soon as possible.

The Bear Botanical Garden will be a living museum, where visitors and groups will get informed about plants, trees and herbs that bears are eating. It will be made in a natural way, with a least human touch as possible by learning about this by observing and studying the nature.

Each plant will have a informative plate, telling about which part of plant bears likes to eat, about the properties of plant and more 🙂

So people that will visit Kuterevo, will leave with some more knowledge about plants, their properties and bears.

Its great!

 Ieva