A perfect use for those water bottles...

Horizontal branches bear more fruit than lateral. So a lot of people pull their dwarf tree branches down using stakes. I recently saw a picture in Pinterest of someone using water bottles instead of stakes. I got my hands on some bottles and and here is the result. I also pruned my cherry tree slightly. I plan to use Paul Gautschi's pruning technique, but it requires the weight of the fruit to pull the branches down. I can't imagine a cherry crop that heavy. I hope I'm wrong!!

By the way, look how most of the back yard is wood chips now. I have had to take a breather, literally. I'm not sure but I think maybe the wood chip pile steam I've been breathing in may actually be mold spores or something like it, and the cough I can't shake may not be a summer cold. It hasn't stopped me completely, but I really watch the wind direction and am never downwind. 

Dinter Nursery...I cannot get out without buying something!!

Allan and I recently went to Gabriola Island. If you haven't been there, it is really worth the trip. Beautiful. On our way home we pass through Duncan. Just south of Duncan...Dinter Nursery. I always stop there. I got a beautiful pink and a purple phlox. I am always looking for pretty plants for the bees. I have been looking for a heavily fringed Shasta Daisy. They only had a couple, but now I have it. I'm usually quite a purist with my plant choices, but this is a Daisy I cannot resist.

Super cool mulch moving tool...thank you Dad

As you know I've been moving about 24 yards of wood chips. I've discovered certain things about shovelling wood chips. You can't jam a shovel into a pile of chips. You need to slide the shovel along the ground. If it's packed down, it can be too heavy to move. So I needed something to pull the mulch from the top over the front. Then loose and fluffy, it is easy to pick up. I tried every tool but settled on my garden rake. Then PING a light went on and I remembered this beautiful old potato rake I was given for Christmas this past year by my Dad. It was his fathers. I brought it out. I had forgotten how heavy it was. And the tines are sharp. It is the PERFECT mulch moving tool. Thank you Dad, I will cherish it for the rest of my life. 

Weighing down your fruit tree branches.

I was on Pinterest recently, my guilty pleasure, and saw this picture. I have been looking everywhere for something to weigh down my fruit tree branches, as apparently horizontal branches bear way more fruit. You can totally adjust the weight of the....well, weights. You're welcome.

It's not a farm...but my gardens/yard just doubled in size.

It has been quite a month. My gardeners assistant and I have lived in the same house since 1979. 35 years!!! So we are pretty new to buying houses in this millennium. Well, we've done it. We are going to miss our next door neighbour terribly, but we did buy her house. It is to provide rental income when we fully retire. An added bonus is that my yard size just doubled. We are taking down part of our fence and making a walkthrough area. I guess I need to explain that. In September, my son Noel and his wife Amanda and her father are going to rent it. Amanda is a gardener too and great lover of blueberry plants. I am going to carve the nice sunny back yard up to put in a large garden. Not in raised beds just an 'old school' large garden with rows, like my grandparents had. Once it is perfect, I'm going to carve off a garden for Jess and Amanda, and of course they can have some of our veggies. I am pretty excited!!