Summer is here and the vegetable garden is really in full swing. After enjoying much of our early season harvest of peas, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard and kholrabi we are now enjoying the bounty from our summer garden. We picked all of the vegetables in the above picture today and still have a red cabbage… Read more »
Fall Webworm
The Fall Webworm (Hypantria cunea), a native pest found throughout North America, is now upon us. The fall webworm forms a large web sometimes one metre long over the ends of branches of birch, ash, Manitoba maple, flowering crab, and many other deciduous trees. The webs are can easily be seen during August and September… Read more »
Japanese Beetle Peak Season Arriving
We are definitely approaching the peak of the Japanese Beetle season. In our area, just north of Brantford, Ontario adult Japanese Beetles start appearing in early July but their peak season is from around the last week in July to mid-August. The Japanese Beetle is a serious problem for both turf and ornamental plants. Grubs… Read more »
When It Rains, It Pours!
As a gardener I often get very frustrated with the weatherman. I mean really, sometimes they can’t even get the weather prediction correct a day ahead. Saturday’s weather though made it very apparent why predicting the weather can be so difficult. The forecast called for a chance of thunderstorms with rain predicted in the 2-5mm… Read more »
Sulphur To Control Blackspot
Rosa ‘Lilli Marlene’ is another healthy rose that has stayed in my garden. Lilli Marlene is a floribunda rose with clusters of deep red blooms among dark green foliage. In order to help combat black spot during the hotter weather I have been using lime-sulfur this year as a preventative. I also removed a large… Read more »
Rose Season
Rose season has arrived and those roses that do well certainly do look great when in bloom. Unfortunately between the heat and humidity causing black spot and powdery mildew and the japanese beetles attacking blooms I find it just too frustrating to grow roses successfully in the country. I have over the last two years… Read more »
Lazy Man’s Composting
We compost everything at our house from garden waste to table scraps, unfortunately we are lazy composters. Given the size of our gardens I produce a lot of garden waste and my method is basically to keep piling it up on top of the compost pile. Unfortunately I never seem to get around to turning… Read more »
Peonies and Rain
One of my favourite times of year is early to mid-June due in large part to peonies. This year it seems we have had a lot of rain and thunderstorms in June, making for a lot of floppy peonies. This picture was taken just a day before a heavy rain. By the next day all… Read more »
Baffled Chipmunk
I came home today to my new Kitchen Patio garden and looked out hoping to find some birds on the feeder only to find our resident chipmunks chowing down on the new bird seed I just put in. Now don’t get me wrong, these guys are cute and relatively harmless. However I put up the… Read more »
More Garden Changes
While I am very happy with my overall garden plan, I am forever tweaking spots that, despite good planning, just don’t work. In 2006 I planned and planted my Kitchen Garden Patio. Part of the plan called for some Little Henry Sweetspire (Itea Virginica) to surround part of the Kitchen Patio. I was attracted by… Read more »