Stonetower

Not far from where I live is a secret garden in the middle of a small forest. 
I say secret because the garden is private but open for visitors who has been guided here by a friend. No hoards of tourists will come here, it will never be advertised in any brochures. The garden is owned and kept by two elderly brothers who takes care of it with love, knowledge and great respect for nature and environment. Everything here, vegetables, flowers, berry bushes and so on are ecologically grown. They gather rainwater in barrels, the only water you get here and almost all of the work is done with traditional hand tools. They work slowly but very efficiently and with great care for each detail. 

Öland is an island consisting almost completely of limestone. That means  agriculture is quite hard and even impossible in many places on the island. The fields are full of small and large rocks, the big ones are usually slabs of limestone, often flat and they vary in thickness. Many of the rocks needs to be cleared off the field and gathered somewhere. A common practice nowadays is to gather them in heaps or making simple fences of them. Here you can see one of the really old ways of doing it that the brothers are using. They build a round, chimney-like construction with one, two or sometimes three rows of big, flat rocks, leaving empty space in the middle, like a chimney, where you then can throw the small rocks. It takes a long time to fill it up and when that happens, you build a new one. The construction is about three meters high and maybe ten-fifteen meters around. I forgot to measure it in detail.

In the extra you can see another traditional way of doing it, a "shell-wall", consisting of two outer parallell layers of big, flat or round stones, creating an open space in between where you can throw the small rocks. Here you see their new stone wall to the left and the older wall to the right. 

I have an enormous respect for their hard, unpaid work, the area contains four big fields with flowers and vegetables and quite a lot of forest and grassy spaces surrounding them. I feel a bit chosen to be able to visit the garden whenever I want. As long as you show respect for everything growing here the brothers will let you be here. The stillness and beauty here all year around is very soothing to body and mind. I'm happy to show it to you, should you come to visit me.