Learning To Prune Fruit Trees

Today was a perfect day to prune my crab apple trees. I have to admit that this was a task that needed to be done, but that I wasn’t looking forward to. I believe I’ve fairly well mastered the art of pruning shrubs. After all, it’s pretty hard to ruin a shrub. Most will survive… Read more »

Vegetable Garden Planting Record

If you haven’t noticed yet, I like to record everything. While this is largely a lot of fun, and mainly for my own interest, there is a practical need to keep yearly vegetable garden records. There is a mountain of information on vegetable gardening out there but even with only a few years under our… Read more »

Spinach Is Not A Warm Weather Plant

We almost made it — just a half a degree shy of a record today. While still not official, the temperature reached a spring like 16C today, albeit with 60km per hour winds. Now this was great for me, I really enjoyed walking around the garden in just a light jacket today. And who needs… Read more »

Right Plant, Right Place

Mother nature never ceases to amaze me. Out for a walk the other day I once again noticed how trees were growing in the middle of a local pond. Surrounded by ice in winter and water all year they not only survive, they thrive and reseed themselves. I believe these trees are some kind of… Read more »

Canada Geese Enjoying Warmer Conditions

Despite the wind and cold today, we put on a brave face (well ok, several layers of clothes really) and went out for a walk. It has been a terrific winter for being able to walk outdoors this year. Today we were rewarded for our efforts with a view of some Canada Geese enjoying the… Read more »

Time To Start Onions From Seed

Luckily for me it’s a leap year.  My 2012 vegetable garden schedule called for me to start my first indoor seeds, onions, at the end of February.  And they just made it in the nick of time — thanks to a leap day today. This year I’ve decided to turn a little more professional for… Read more »

More Than Snow White

In honour of the snow storm that didn’t happen this week, today we celebrate the colour white in the garden. Did you know that in general white and pale flowers are more strongly scented than their darker counterparts?  I guess that is why I so enjoy the white apple blossoms, white lilacs and most especially the… Read more »

2012 Vegetable Planting Schedule

The garden layout is finished, the seeds have arrived. It’s almost time to begin spring seed sowing. This year we are putting in over 50 different varieties of vegetables. Some are old favourites, many are new. Growing so many types and varieties of vegetables is a bit overwhelming so I once again created a detailed… Read more »

Great Vase For Starting Coleus Cuttings And More

I found this great small vase at our local grocery store a couple of months ago and thought how cute. Took it home and it sat on the counter for a while. This week it was put to good use holding my first set of spring coleus cuttings. These cuttings came from coleus overwintered from… Read more »

Stolen Website Content

This week I found a fairly large landscaping company using one of my images on their website, renamed in their content, without permission or any attribution back to my website. So, here’s the catch-22. I am both flattered and upset. I have put a lot of work over the years into making the content on… Read more »