It's happening! My Oak Hill Cottage garden is starting to take shape and I feel so proud!

I'm writing this article in June, and I already feel like Oak Hill Cottage Garden has been a part of my life for ages. We haven't had the time or funds to redo the inside of the house to my liking yet, but the decision to buy this place still feels completely right.

One of the things I enjoy about the house is that it's quite close to our home. I can take the bike to my cottage office. It's amazing! I'm also thrilled that it's located right in the village. I can say hi to my kids when they are on their way to church to practice for their end-of-semester recitals. So idyllic!

I have kept busy recording new vlogs, and now I can finally show you what my garden looks like in summer:

Many of you appreciate following a project from start to finish, so that's why I decided to make a video about how I made the beautiful flower bed in the front yard. Here it is!

I just love going through the summer pictures from Oak Hill Cottage.  My Herrgård artichokes did great at the start of the season.

My artichokes have had a hard time in my kitchen garden at home, since I haven't kept up with covering them in winter. I hope I can do better here in Oak Hill Cottage though! My oldest son loves artichokes.

Lettuce and leafy greens are generally very easy to grow. And dill actually gets better when you don't fuss too much over it. It doesn't take much before I can start eating fresh greens early in summer!

I really enjoy growing many different kinds of lettuce, it's so fun to pick between varieties. This is a loosely held lettuce head I direct-sowed in this bed.

In total, I have managed to make 8 growing beds in my front yard and a few wood chip pathways around then. The sun shines here all day and I my vegetables are going to grow really nicely as long as I keep watering them well.

I'm mulching all of my beds except one. This is a thin layer of soil that I simply direct-sow in. Basically no weeds except for a few plants edging the wood chips.

I get plenty of material that I can use for my compost from the neighboring gardens. Ingrid next door gives me plenty of weeds that I can use as mulch.

Can you really find nice-looking water barrels on a budget? This barrel is so ugly that I decided to leave it on the back yard. But I wanted to test out my solar-powered watering system and this barrel had to do for now.

The pots closest to the house are taken care of by the solar-powered watering system, just like parts of the artichoke bed. I'm watering the other beds with a watering can in June. The mulch keeps the material nice and damp.

Artichokes are generally quite thirsty and this is an especially dry and exposed spot in summer. I connected the bed to the solar-powered watering system and also added mulch to keep them happy.

We started celebrating Midsummer's eve with two families in the village, Hector and Grunditz a few years ago. In my mind, there's always a reason to celebrate! The Grunditz family didn't come this year though, but hopefully next year. The church makes such a lovely backdrop!

Tommy and Lena Sjöqvist created the composting system Mullnet that I really enjoy using in my garden, and they came to visit me and deliver another two Mullnet systems to Oak Hill Cottage. Yay!

What could be better than harvesting your own food? A simple bowl of lovely vegetables with a nice dressing, a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. The food I eat is so wonderful.

It's time for my kids end-of-semester recital! They get to bring flowers to church the day before the recital, to decorate the space. I always get a little cocky and start thinking that I'm amazing at making bouquets and then I regret my flower choices afterwards. Next year, I might have even more flowers to pick from though!

More about cottage gardens: A lovely cottage garden

I want to grow plenty of vegetables in pots here at Oak Hill Cottage, more so than at home. I think it's going to be a great solution for this relatively small garden. As long as I can keep up with fertilizing and watering, that is. My solar-powered watering system was a real life-saver for me. Take a look at how I'm growing lettuce in a pot below:

I'm going to post new videos from Oak Hill Cottage every week on my YouTube channel. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell so that you don't miss any new videos!

And of course, you can continue to read more about Oak Hill Cottage on the blog too. I hope you are excited about this new project!
/Sara Bäckmo