Once again the night was cold, -4,4C (25F), and all things outside were covered with a thin layer of frost. It´s still a long time until we can sow anything outside up here in the north. But if we like me wants to grow our own tomatoes and don´t have a green house, tomatoe plants are now taking a lot of space in our kitchens or other places that can fit until we can place them outside.

Most of us that grows our plants inside like this usually have troubles because the plants grows to fast, they get thin, long and unsettled. Usually it´s because we have to little light in comparens to how warm it is inside. The best thing is to get more light to the plants, naturally we can lower the temperature too but most of us doesn´t want to be freezing indoors :-) There is however another way to keep the plants short and steady. They have found out that if the temperature is a couple degrees higher during the night when it´s dark than it is during the day, the plants stays shorter and steadier. More and more nurceries are now using this fact, instead of using hormones or chemical stuff to keep poinsettias short and stubby they now use temperature to do the same thing.

My redberried Elderberry is way to early to be honest, it´s realtives in the forest has not opened any buds yet. But this one still belives it grows somewhere in southern Sibiria.

The flowerbuds on the hawthorn are also covered with frost. I got my first ten berries on this little tree last year. They are delicious! but a bit difficult to pick because of the nasty thorns :-)

The coldfront with clouds that should have passed during the night is a bit delayed and is still placed over my little cottage. But I can see big holes in the clouds now so we will have sun within a couple of hours at the most.

It´s only two days left until we have to change tires on our cars, that is if we have snow tires with studs. I have that. I also need new summer tires to be honest and I thought I had till the end of the month to get new ones. But they have changed the law and most of us had no idea about that. So now I have to order new tires and get them changed, but the problem is that all tire firms has a long que to do this now (as usual most of us are really late to change tires :-) :-)  ). So I have to put on the old ones and have them for a couple of weeks until I can get new ones. Well I could have worse troubles in my life, but it is a bit annoying anyway :-) :-)

I wanted to show You my cattleya again now when the second flower is open. The other one I bought didn´t open up completely, but next time it flowers it will be beautiful.

Now it´s time for a cup of coffee. I forgot to buy tea yesterday and I´ve decided not to do anything exept for being at home today. But tomorrow I´ll have to go to the store because then I´ll be out of coffee too :-)

Have a great day now!