The longing for harmony, to mix useful plants with perennials, the vigor of the plant, the harvest, to find sustainability in the small things...compost, chicken droppings and rainwater. That when the garden falls into the deep shadows, the long rest, capture the slanting rays of the sun so that during the dark time you can still experience the light. In the breaking point between winter and spring I have a relationship that is not very harmonious, it cuts and it pulls, full of anxiety. Nothing is. Only when the heat settles so close to the earth that the night frost cannot extinguish life does the day and life open up again. There are no rarities in my garden, whatever likes it here can stay here. The imperial crown cannot withstand frost. For a year it got up every day after the hard pinch of the night and maybe it learned that if I fight I stand strong in the end. In the spring, I enjoy making disposable pots out of newspaper with my beautiful potter, filling them with soil and poking the little seed that will grow past me during the summer and let me enjoy spaciousness, color and a beautiful meal. To be honest, I'm not much for sowing, but the wonderful thing about making paper pots, long ago with the children, now maybe with the grandchildren, means that some seeds every year get a little head start. Old windows, an old door that we saved in a house demolition have, together with the location we chose, been the starting point for our greenhouse. A good friend has led us into paths we never even dared to dream of. Now it stands there. Alder trees were cut down, dried, sawed and planed to be joined with tree dowels in the old fashioned way. Here, edibles will coexist with sculpture and information about our local area. The peony's deep red first leaves burst open in late spring and speak to the scilla. The blue iris stretches in early summer towards the bent branches of the wild rose with its simple pale pink flower petals. There is still great warmth in their meeting. From the first bud to the late summer harvest I follow, I enjoy the garden. For me, it's about quality of life. In my garden, sometimes the plants find their own places where they want to live, often much more interesting than what I can imagine. Carefully I have to try to see what has seeded, maybe some bird has helped. I want the garden to be a room for everyone. The children's projects have been combined with spices, perennials, vegetables, apples, chickens and common life. Imagine a summer when one of the hens shared her eggs every day with the hedgehog who lived under the henhouse, she laid and he ate. The hen laying under the lavender bush probably thought more of her future offspring than the survival of the hedgehog. To my delight, when the children were small, I saw that they were actively in the garden and enjoyed being able to express themselves in their own way. They dug canals, made flower beds, made a passage behind the wild strawberry mock orange to be able to place a chair deep inside and feel the aroma. The pond they dug later became the site of a hut which was transformed into a ”fika”-place and which now provides space for one of my sculptures. The garden is constantly changing, creatively growing. At dusk, my husband Urban practices his 31 kata, the white aikido suit against the green vegetation, the determined movement scheme of the kata, harmony with natural forces.