Spring has Sprung

Well at least I think Spring has come.  Where there was one bunny

Now there are two more, one of which is a baby.

The guy at the shop did warn us they multiplied.  I guess cold weather doesn't deter them.

It hasn't been a warm spring, that's for sure.  Just last week we had a frost warning.  Frost, in mid-June!!!  I have struggled getting the vegetable garden in because I was afraid to plant out the warm weather plants like basil, peppers and pumpkins.

It was a good year for tulips though.  They like it cold.

Last summer I moved all of my spring flowering bulbs and plants to one side of my flower bed and grouped them together.  I was looking for impact and the results were beautiful.

Just as I had hoped, cushion spurge mixed well with pink and white tulips, the hostas opened up and complemented the daffodils.

The anemone has finally spread into a considerable mound and provided a fantastic backdrop to pink and purple tulips.

Of course, there's always a few hiccups along the way.  The late frosts killed off the majority of our apple blossoms.  and the daffodils appear to be dwindling.  Usually daffodils multiply and expand but this variety seems to be dying off.  So I will need to try a different variety next year.  Something a little more robust.  Any suggestions for a favourite daffodil and where to buy them?

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm not sure where the time has gone but it's long past the end of summer and we're deep into fall.

The leaves have begun to turn, the apples are ripe and there's a chill in the air.

I spent some time thinking about Thanksgiving this weekend and what it means to me.  I thought about it while I sat in the orchard munching on fallen apples.

I thought about it some more while I worked in the kitchen to make salsa and tomato soup.

I thought about it as I pulled carrots and parsnips out of the ground for our Thanksgiving dinner.

I grew some pretty stunted parsnips this year

I thought some more while I placed bags of apples in the freezer next to containers of homemade pesto and soup.  Then again while I cleaned onions for storage.

What I realized is that I spent my whole Thanksgiving weekend gathering, preparing and storing food from my garden.  And that realization was pretty darn nice.  It's no coincidence that Thanksgiving falls at the time of year when harvests are being brought indoors.  It's a time when food is suddenly so plentiful that you can literally see your freezer go from empty to full in the space of one month.  Knowing that we have food for the winter and that it came to us through an enjoyable chore like gardening is pretty special indeed.  There are times when gardening can be tiring and endless but it can also be therapeutic and incredibly rewarding.  This is one of those days where I'm remembering the rewarding bit.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  I hope you had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed many rewards from your garden.

Triumphs and Tragedies

It's been too long since I've posted and there's so much to cover!  Things both good and bad so.... triumphs and tragedies seems like the right kind of post.

There's been a lot of stress lately.  I came down with a miserable cold right before my first exam.  I forgot how stressful school is for me, and what that does to my immune system.  Add in some tight deadlines at work and a garden neglected... a few tears have been shed these last weeks.

Despite a few setbacks there is always a positive to be found.  Flowers have begun to bloom in earnest.

It's a relief to come home at the end of the day and spend a few minutes walking around my garden.  I haven't always got the time to do the garden work I would like (sadly my vegetable garden still isn't fully planted) but walking through and watching the trees leaf out and the flowers bloom makes me feel so much better.

New trees were added to the garden this year including this Copper Beech

Tragically some blooms that I normally look forward to each year have been a huge disappointment.  I'm talking about apples.

This photo is from last year when blooms were abundant

The buds were visible last week and I was expecting the annual explosion of blooms this week but nothing happened?  A closer inspection revealed blooms on the lower branches but all the buds on the tops of the trees are dead.  I hadn't inspected the higher buds previously so I'm not sure if there were problems to start.  The first reason off the top of my head was frost but we haven't had a hard frost recently that would do this kind of damage.  The other option is the drought we had last summer could possibly still be affecting the trees.  It certainly put a strain on the apples and it's entirely possible this could be the result.  Either way, our apple crop will be a poor one again this year.

On a positive note, you might recall our community hosted it's annual Plant Sale on May 25 (was it really just 2 weeks ago?).  Despite heavy rain, resilient gardeners donned their best raingear and came out in droves to gather up as many garden goodies as they could fit in their cars.

Luckily the venue has plenty of space undercover so there were dry spots to congregate, socialize and shop for plants.  I swore this year that I wouldn't take home any plants as I haven't the time to plant anything.  However, despite my best intentions I started gathering up new plants for the garden before the sale even began!  The week before several of us gathered at a neighbour's house to help dig out some plants for the sale.

It was a beautiful afternoon to do some digging

A couple hours digging, a plant sale later and now I have numerous pots sitting in a shady spot next to the garage waiting for me to plant them.  Culver's root, native purple iris, siberian iris, false solomon's seal, and delphinium are all new additions for the flower garden.

Another positive to keep my spirits up came in the form of an email from Jennifer @ Three Dogs in a Garden.  I was the lucky winner of Jennifer's contest for the book, Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener by Joseph Tychonievich.  It's the perfect gift as my columbines are starting to bloom and I have spent more than a little time analyzing how this permiscuous plant has cross bred to produce an array of different sized and coloured blossoms.  The only downside is that I haven't time to read it right now.  I've set it aside to read in July when my course is finished.

One last bit of great news came this week.  Walking through the grocery store I spied this on the shelf.

Saltscapes magazine is published in the Canadian maritime provinces and features the musings of fellow garden blogger Jodi Delong.  Jodi asked me to participate in a garden series regarding young gardeners a few months ago.  I'm happy to say the May/June issue is on stands now and features yours truly in the article "Growing a Green Thumb".  I'm incredibly flattered to be in a magazine but even more flattered that Jodi thinks of me as young!

Here's hoping this post finds you all enjoying a bit of sunshine, covered in dirt and smelling of lilacs.  take care ~M

Spring Photos

Since moving to our  new home and taking up blogging my interest in photography has increased significantly.  And with that interest the actual number of photographs.

Siberian squill emerging in May

So each year now I am trying to make it an annual winter chore to sort through the previous years photographs, deleting the extras that inevitably happen with digital photography (why take just one shot?  take ten!) and sorting through photos that I like but somehow didn't make it into the blog.

Each year I plant more squill bulbs in the lawn.  This past year I finally

started to notice the blue showing up at a distance

Not sure why this happens but each year I take photos that don't fit into my posts and this is the time to share them.  Like these red elderberry buds in spring.  They start off looking very pink but the flowers that emerge are white and fluffy as snow.

Bulbs were a major feature this past spring.  Tulips, hyacinths, and squill all made an appearance.

This emerging tulip reminded me of a dancer
peaking through the folds of a scarf

This coming year I have added daffodils, allium and more varieties of tulips to the ever growing list.

Spring photos of course always include apple blossoms.  Although we collected no apples at all this season due to drought I still got to enjoy the beauty of the blooms.  And each year I take more photos than I can possibly use.

They are awful pretty though.

Spring also means house cleaning after a long winter.  Windows are opened, rooms aired out and the wash is put out on the line to dry in the warm breeze.

Why are my Apples Falling Off the Tree?

I returned home from my vacation in mid-August and was surprised to see apples on the ground.

Why are those apples on the ground in August?

While it is close to apple harvest season, most of our crop doesn't start to ripen until late September.  This was a full month ahead of schedule.  A quick check confirmed it wasn't just one tree either.  It seems every tree in the orchard (over 20 trees) were losing their loads.

It's been a funny summer, hot and desperately dry.  Was it possible the apples had actually matured earlier than normal and were dropping off due to ripeness?

These apples are bright red and LOOK ripe

Taste tests revealed otherwise.  They are hard and bitter and suitable only for the compost heap.  Close inspection revealed a few other details.

If you take a close look at the photo above you'll note some issues.  This apple is small and lumpy with odd blackish streaks on the skin.  Others were mishapen.

So why are almost full size unripened apples falling right before harvest time?  and why do they look so deformed?

I had a suspicion but I needed to check the internet first to be sure.  I have noticed other plants, most obviously the dahlias, were not producing flowers this year.  The only difference from other years is lack of water.

And sure enough the internet confirmed my instincts.

Apple trees often drop their fruit in June (see my post on June Drop), dropping any excess fruit the tree cannot support throughout the season.  Back in June this year things were proceeding along quickly but normally.  The trees had bloomed in May and by June fruit was forming.  The weather was warm but there was still some rain in the forecasts.

Blooms in May

That changed though.  By July the temperatures were consistently in the mid to high twenties (celsius) and no rain was coming at all.  That got worse in August as the temperatures climbed higher and humidity set in, still with no rain.

What has happened to our flowering plants and our apple trees is that flowers and fruit require water to form.  In the case of fruit it requires a lot of water.  When you bite into an apple what is it you first taste?  Juice.  Juice that is derived from water.  But plants also require water in order to survive.  Similar to June Drop, the trees have chosen to keep water sources to save themselves and are dropping fruit they cannot support.

Cleaning up the fallen fruit

But why is this happening so late in the year?  What the internet confirmed for me was that apple drop, just before harvest, is common on trees affected by water stress.  The trees don't know when it will rain again so they hold out, producing fruit and only dropping it when it becomes clear they can no longer support it.

As for those small, awkward looking, lumpy apples.  I discovered that orchardists check fruit circumference and condition throughout the season as a measurement of water stress.  Had I bothered to look earlier I would have noticed this as a clear indicator of water stress.  Something for me to note in future years.

How Quickly They Come

It feels like just yesterday I was posting about blooms on apple trees. 

I wondered in May if the sudden cold temperatures we experienced would affect the crop this year and now suddenly there they are.

It's hard to tell for certain at this point if it's a smaller crop or not as the apples on some trees are still forming so they're easy to overlook.  But other apples are already big enough that it's time for that annual chore of thinning.  The small apple tree in my flower bed loves all the added compost I put in for flowers and the apples are quite sizable already.  I'm busy thinning it as much as possible since last year part of this tree broke off in a storm when it was loaded with heavy apples.  The base is still unstable and likely always will be, so I need to remove as much weight as I can.  I do want to leave a few apples though as these are large beautiful apples with great taste and don't have any disease.  There I go!  With so many apple trees we really don't need any extra at all but I can never resist just one more.

Apple Blossoms in May

This year everything is on a fast track it seems.  The weather grew hotter earlier, the bulbs began to bloom weeks ahead of schedule and the apple blossoms followed closely behind.  In mid-May the pink buds were already starting to appear.

By the last week of May several of the trees were in full bloom.

As I checked back through the blog I realized that last year the apple trees weren't fully blooming until mid-June (see the post I Spy).  We are at least two weeks ahead of schedule this year.

Because of the variety of trees here not every tree blooms at the same time.

This yellow transparent apple tree is an early bloomer and it produces apples very early in the season as well.

Other trees follow in succession.

The pink buds slowly unfurling to reveal soft white blooms.

Normally we would get a couple weeks of blooms as each tree opens up.

But this year they faded quickly.  A cold wind blew in and the temperatures have gone unseasonably low.  We went from branches laden with flowers.

To the ground littered with petals

It's only the beginning of June and already the blooms are gone for the season.  I'm hoping the pollinators had enough time to do their work.  Only time will tell as the fruit begins to form in the coming months.

When to Prune Apple Trees

Even though it is mid-winter there really is no time you can forget about your apple trees.  This is the perfect time of year to get outside and get pruning.

Last year we did our first pruning in the orchard.  Once again this year we decided to prune off lower limbs from the trees to make it easier to cut the grass beneath them.  There are a lot of weeds in and around our orchard and if we don't get in to trim what's on the ground it can sometimes threaten to take over.

This is what the orchard looked like when we first bought the property

Climbing nightshade is a problem for us and we need to keep those vines from growing and climbing up into the apple trees.  We also like to keep things trim for apple picking season in the fall.  It can become quite a headache trying to find apples in amongst the weeds on the ground.

Despite our best efforts the wind always takes down fruit for us.

So more low hanging branches were removed this year but we also did a little spacing of branches.  In some places the branches are so thick that it's hard for air and sun to reach inside and get to the leaves and fruit that need it.  

This waterfall of blooms was gorgeous in spring but the
branches needed to be thinned so fruit has more breathing room.

At this time of year it is easy to view the branches themselves without their green cloak and see any irregularities that might otherwise be missed. 

Numerous lower branches were removed right at
the trunk (*can you spot the mistake?*)

Before removing any branches it is important to follow the branch along its length.  Start where the branch grows out from the trunk and follow along to see where it crosses other branches or perhaps parallels them.  Some branches might appear dead toward the interior of the tree but sport lush growth at their tips.  You can see if the branch is thick or thin.  Does it look like a strong branch that would support a load of fruit or is it small and weak?  The number of buds will also be apparent giving you an idea of the branches health.  By viewing the branches as a whole you also get a sense of the structure of the tree.  

We cut back a number of branches as you can see from the debris littering the ground of the orchard.

Our main goal this year was creating some breathing room on trees that were overly crowded.  While last year we used a chainsaw and removed some major branches this year we used only a handsaw and loppers as we were working on smaller limbs in the interior of the trees.  

* When cutting branches back to the trunk you should make sure to cut them just outside the branch collar where the branch connects to the trunk.  It takes more time for a tree to seal the wound on a long stub than one that is flush with the collar.  In the picture above you can see where that wasn't done.  I'll obviously need to go back and check our work!