Oak Hill Cottage Garden - December 2019
This has been a wonderful year at the cottage, and now it's time from my last update about winter in Oak Hill. I'm growing potted tomatoes in my kitchen and hoping for an early harvest from my winter sowing outside!
It's time to finish my monthly updates and vlogs from Oak Hill Cottage Garden with a post from December! It's finally winter in Oak Hill after all. I wanted to show you a few pictures of the winter garden and also thank you so much for following this series. I'm going to tell you a bit more about what happened this year and what the plans for the future are. This is my last video from Oak Hill Cottage Garden in this series, but I'm going to post more material from this magical little place in the future too of course. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel Sara's Kitchen Garden to see more videos from Oak Hill!
Here are some pictures from December! I did a lot this month, I put up new wallpaper, did a winter sowing, enjoyed the snow and thought about how I can redo my floors:
The weather was so dreary all through fall, but my garden still looks pretty decent with the wood chips on the ground. I turned my composting pile into a new bed for winter sowings, edged by a little brushwood fence.
The pallet collars fit perfectly! I put them on top of a layer of soil that covers the plant material in the compost. This is where I did my winter sowing. Fun!
I was planning on using this wall as a little miniature studio background for some of my videos and pictures. The wallpaper is so nice, but now that I see it on the wall, I'm not sure that it's going to work color-wise. It might make everything look a little green through the camera. Maybe I should rethink my decision. Which color do you think might work as a background? The little bubbles in the wallpaper are caused by the layer underneath, but they won't show when the wallpaper dries a little and stretches out.
This hallway will be my first big project in the cottage. I recently gave the large black cupboard away to a young couple who just moved to the village. I'm going to remove the structured wallpaper and make a cozy little corner here.
We had some snow in early December. This was the first time I got to experience real winter in Oak Hill Cottage Garden. I can see the lake from my bedroom window, right by the houses below the pasture. It's covered by snow and ice. When you don't know about it, it's easy to miss. But for me, it's basically all I see!
I'm used to living in a really drafty house with fireplaces and stoves as the main source of heat. But winter in Oak Hill is a different story! My air source heat pump keeps the first floor warm, around 64 degrees (18 degrees Celsius) at night and then it gets even warmer when I light the fire of course. I'm so glad that I don't have to worry about my pipes freezing!
I'm preparing a little get-together while I'm also trying to figure out what I want to do with the floor. I want to have something that's easy to dry off, where I don't have to feel bad if I go inside with my boots on. And not white of course. Maybe a deep red color. What do you think?
We didn't go all in on the Christmas preparations this year, since we have a few projects going on at home. But we bake something new here at Oak Hill every week. For example wafer rolls! We all love them, and I got the type of stove and equipment to get them just right here. Yum!
Not very fancy, but cozy for sure! I'm even wearing the shirt I slept in, even though it's afternoon now. Just like I remember how my own mother was sometimes too busy to change. But that's ok! Alba is wearing her little santa outfit though, and the wafers turned out great!
The snow melted and it almost felt like spring was in the air! It was time to cover a little spot outside the office, and start working on what's going to be my son Otto's own little garden there. He wants to have a small garden of his own and even made this little path from woodchips himself. Otto planted some privet cuttings he got from home, and I planted a bunch of alliums in the rectangular strip of soil.
I'm a bit surprised that so few animals have found Oak Hill Cottage Garden. Someone messed with my compost once, but my crops are very rarely eaten. The proximity to the road probably makes a huge difference. I put a row cover on top of my winter sowing to prevent the cats from digging in my bed though.
It's starting to look nice and green inside too! I'm just moving some of my replanted crops from home here. I have a large area prepared for these plants upstairs, with extra light and water, and a designated spot for them in the kitchen too. I want to be able to see my little darlings as much as I can of course! Here are my potted tomatoes that I sowed in mid-November.
Thank you so much for following my journey with Oak Hill Cottage Garden, both here on the blog and on YouTube. I can't wait for what's to come! I have so many plans and ideas. Buying my own little cottage was without doubt the right decision, this place is turning into a lovely creative and fun workplace for me. Doing things that I like fills me with such joy. And I'm beyond happy to be able to share my progress with you this year. It's been absolutely amazing!
I will continue to do videos from my new cottage in 2020, and you will get to see some of them in English too. When you read this, I'm preparing for the start of spring with lots of lectures about my new garden. I will do a livestream for you with a few new updates when I'm back though. Thank you again!
/Sara Bäckmo
