Fall "Flower" Arrangement

Although my parents live only 7 minutes away, they don't often come for dinner.  So when they do, it is reason for celebration, and a good excuse to cut something from my garden to create a centerpiece.  This was the one we enjoyed this weekend :

Here's a closeup:

The purple berries in the center are from my Callicarpa (beauty berry) bush.  They are accompanied by bright red rose hips from my wild rose bush, and the purple leaves from a purple Cotinus (smoke bush).  It seemed to be the only bush which didn't drop its leaves as I tried to cut a branch.  The leaves placed around the arrangement are from my Liquidambar (sweet gum) tree.  The little rings around the candleholders are not from the garden, they are a wood and silk set I received from my neighbor Helen a few years ago.  They matched the fall colours well.

Fall Gold Indeed

My Fall Gold raspberries started ripening just before we left on vacation a week ago.  I'm glad my Mom, who faithfully looked after our house and garden while we were away, had a chance to enjoy some of them this past week.  They are nice raspberries in the summer, with a surprisingly mild flavor.  But during their second crop this time of year, words don't express enough the amazing sweetness of these raspberries - truly gold, in both color and flavor!

PS. The raspberries in the photo are surrounded by some of our Asian pears from our delightful espalier tree, which are also nice and crisp and sweet.

Radishes and Raspberries

I am growing radishes this year, for the first time.  It is almost 4 weeks since I planted them, so today I finally remembered to check if any radishes are forming.  I was pleased to find some nicely formed radishes :

The one I tasted was quite peppery, so does that mean I should water them more often?  Or is it the variety?  I hear that the greens make a nice vegetable, but they are a bit prickly, so I won't try them raw, but I may collect some up and try sautéing/steaming them.

The raspberries continue to bear very nicely.  I am picking about 2 liters every 2 or 3 days.  I probably need to water them a bit more than I am doing, also.  It has been a heat wave here in Vancouver for the past 3 or 4 days.

More Raspberries

Since the raspberry season started about a week ago, it has been raining on and off, and I haven't been out much to pick more.  So today when it cleared and I went out, I was sad to see many berries have already gone mouldy.  But the ones which hadn't sure made it worth my while :

It's interesting that this year, the red berries seem to have overtaken the golden ones.  I'm pretty sure last year, the golden berries were a higher proportion than they are this year.  But then again, maybe I'm thinking of the fall crop, in which the golden berries are very large and sweet (see this post from Sept 2011).

I had a little adventure in the raspberry patch last week, a couple days after my first raspberry post.  I was going to pick some berries, and discovered a wasp nest in the branches.  It was already a couple inches across.  I am a "live and let live" person as much as possible, but that would not end well for everyone involved.  

At first, I tried just cutting the 3 branches which it was suspended from, in hope that it would fall to the ground, and the wasps would abandon it.  But when I clipped the branches (3 black wasps flew out as I was clipping it!), it fell a bit and got suspended in some other branches.  Then I decided to shower it with water, to discourage the wasps, but that didn't seem to work.  They seemed a bit agitated, but continued to fly in and out of the nest.  So finally I realized that I could blast it hard with the water, and break the nest apart.  Hopefully that is the end of that, and the wasps pick a much more suitable location for their next nest.  I will need to be vigilant, in case they try to rebuild there.

Start of Raspberry Season

I was reminded by Google, that it is the first day of summer.  This was their cute Google logo today to celebrate the occasion :

For my garden, it was also an important event : first day of raspberry season.  It has been a bit rainy, and I haven't gone out to check them the past couple of days, so I was pleased that there was quite a few ripe berries waiting for me when I went out today :

Happy gardening & harvesting, everyone!

Peach Harvest and other Edibles

This is my peach harvest this year:

One delicious "Frost" peach is pretty good, considering we only bought the peach tree last year.  I am glad I picked the peach before the squirrel got to it.  When I cut it open, I found that the stone was split, and some sort of bug had gotten to the seed before I did, but that was fine, I just cut the stone away, and the peach was very nice.

After fighting the blackberry vines for some 6 years now, which invade from two sides of my yard, this year I finally had quite a few bunches of berries hanging over the fence into my yard.  I was looking forward to picking them when the neighbour at the back suddenly cut out all the vines.   On one hand, I was happy to see him finally cleaning up the yard (it is a rental house, and I never see anyone in the back yard except the owner a couple times per year).  But on the other hand, I was sad that his timing was off - if he had left them for another month, I would have picked quite a few berries.

But I am picking a few blackberries from the ravine side, behind my espalier trees.  I enjoyed some more berries tonight:

On the other side, where my upper neighbours have a 4' retaining wall with a 5' fence on top, I see that they also have a zucchini growing into my yard:

If they don't pull up the vine any time soon, I may end up with a small harvest of zucchinis:

That would be a nice bonus.

On a sobering note, the virginia creeper on that wall tells me that Fall is just around the corner:

I'm not ready for Summer to end yet.  But I believe there is just over 3 weeks left before school starts again.  Yikes!

Fraser Foreshore Park

Since we were all home for Remembrance Day today, we decided to take a walk in the afternoon, between rain showers. We haven't been to Fraser Foreshore Park in Burnaby (BC) for some while, and had forgotten how peaceful it is, to walk along the trail next to the Fraser River, under tall cottonwood trees, which have turned quite yellow this time of year.

The snowberries (Symphoricarpos albus) in the underbrush along the sides of the trail caught my attention, and I snapped a number of photos of them.




When the kids were small, there was a very large snowberry bush / thicket in the neighbourhood, and the kids were delighted at the popping sound the berries made when stepped on. I guess those fond memories are one of the reasons I kept two snowberry bushes in our yard, which popped up on their own, even though they sucker terribly, and I keep wondering why I keep them. (Actually, I had 3 originally, but the one in the center of my upper yard became unmanageable, and a year or so after removing it, I am still chasing down suckers and removing them.) So when we reminded the kids today, they rediscovered the joy of popping the berries, and we had a hard time stopping them from collecting berries once they got started.

Finally, I reminded them that this is a food source for birds in winter, and we'd better leave some for the birds. They respected that. The start of the rain also helped to focus our attention on getting back to the car.

There were also a noticeable number of red osier dogwood, their leaves turning yellows and reds (sorry, no photo), and these bright red rose hips:

I had taken only my daughter's Kodak Easyshare camera, since it fit in my pocket, unlike our Canon EOS, and anyhow I expected it to start to rain while we were there (which it did, but only as we were leaving). Then we encountered some chickadees along the path, and I suddenly wished I had brought the Canon.

Later when I heard an eagle's call high up in the cottonwood trees, I really wished I had the Canon. So I did my best, but the zoom on the Kodak was quite inadequate, and these are the best I could manage, of the pair of bald eagles:


I was lucky that as I was snapping photos, they flew off, and I caught this one as it took flight:

I hope you all had a relaxing and reflective Remembrance Day or Veterans Day today.

What's Up With That Apple Tree?

My little apple tree which bore only 1 fruit in 2006, and has slowly been adding a fruit or two each year, is bearing a number of apples this year:


In fact, a few apples have already fallen, and I've enjoyed sampling them. But a few days ago, I noticed.... blossoms?

In fact there are a number of blossoms, right alongside the fruit which is nearly ripe:


This next photo shows apple blossoms (at bottom, a bit washed out by the camera's flash) with near-ripe apples, and a number of green raspberries overhead:

Yes, the golden raspberries are putting out another crop:

But that's nothing new, they seem to put out a summer & a fall crop each year, yielding a nice sweet surprise as late as October and November.

Anyhow, this is not about the raspberries.... or is it? I now remember that about a month or so ago, I decided to cut back some of the apple branches, since they were colliding with the raspberry patch along the fence, making it hard to walk through that area. Also, I figured it would be better to have shorter stronger branches rather than longer weaker ones. But looking closer tonight, I realize that it is each of the branches which I cut back, which put out the blossoms. So maybe some magical combination of a dip in temperature followed by more warm weather, and the cutting back of the branches, seemed to trigger the blossoms.

I hope this will not affect the tree's ability to respond to the REAL spring when it comes. I'll see if any fruit sets from these blossoms. I think it would be wise to remove any fruit before the winter.

I suppose this illustrates why my espalier apples are always very efficient at producing fruit (and each year I need to prune back the fruits very aggressively). Since the tree's upward growth is continually impaired, more energy is directed to bearing fruit:

The same with my espalier asian pear, which I didn't prune aggressively enough this year (and I also need to tie up the branch tips):

While I'm shamelessly showing off my fruit, here is my italian plum tree this year, which bore exactly 5 fruit last year. The fruits are very sweet, and freestone.


I don't know what causes the scars on most of the plums, could that be a disease? Does anyone recognize it?

The grapes have finally established on the side of the shed, and this is the first year we've had fruit. So I'll be able to find out what types of grapes I've been trying to grow these past few years (since I didn't pay enough attention at the time - they were a gift of cuttings):

Berry Season

Every year the strawberries send out new runners, and last year I relocated many of the offshoots to the edges of my garden, where we can find and pick the berries. So this year, we were blessed with lots of strawberries for the month of June. I think they're pretty much done, now, but for a while I was picking a big bowl about every 2nd day.

Now the raspberries are in full swing. My golden raspberries are especially sweet and delicious, not quite as tart as the red ones.

Since we hosted a BBQ yesterday, I didn't pick the raspberries for a few days, so there would be lots for the visiting kids to pick. But even though I saw some kids picking, there were still lots for me to find today:

My Morello sour cherry had an impressive display of fruit this year, considering we only bought him last year:

The birds don't seem to touch the sour cherries. And surprisingly, I was able to pick three ripe Rainier cherries this year (I ate one before thinking to take the photo below). The Lapin cherry at the back of the yard was stripped clean by birds, or possibly even a raccoon again (although thankfully, no broken branches this year).

We also have grapes for the first time this year. It has taken a few years for the vines (which started from a cutting) to establish. I hope that the grapes will be good for eating, but the garden trading friend who gave them to me wasn't sure what variety they were. So we'll see.

Gardening is always full of surprises. I had a single raspberry plant appear (unintentionally) in the wild area of my upper garden (stay tuned for my garden renovation project which hopefully will take place this summer...). I guess it showed up last year. Of course, I planned to relocate it with the other raspberries, or give it away, but still haven't gotten around to it yet. So I was very pleasantly surprised by the huge and sweet berries it is bearing this year. See photo below, where the huge berries are on the right, and my other red raspberries on the left, for comparison. It would seem that this raspberry which sprung up, is of a commercial variety. The berries are also more firm.

I hope to renovate my raspberry area later this year also, now that I see how much fruit it is bearing. The way it is overgrown now with other plants (such as my chocolate mint), it is hard to get in to pick the berries, and many of the smaller canes have fallen forward onto the lawn. There is certainly never a shortage of projects to do in the garden, but that's quite fine by me.

Fairy House and Hot Tub - Why Not?

I am still having fun expanding on our fairy garden, and recently installed a "pool" and "hot tub". I found some blue acrylic dishes which serve the purpose, and filled them with water. What do you think?

To see more photos of the fairy house, including its construction, click the "fairy house" link on the left margin on the blog or click here.

Lately, whenever I have a chance, even if its late in the evening or on Saturday mornings, I find myself in the garden pulling weeds. But please don't feel sorry for me, I love pulling weeds, and find it very therapeutic. I wish I remembered to take a few more "before" photos, because I love to see my progress. Recently, it was clearing under the fruit trees again, here is a "before" of the base of my apple tree:

...and an "after" photo:

The trick with weeding is not to try to do it all in one day. For me, I just tackle one spot at a time, and do what I can, enjoying the hard work, and the satisfaction of seeing the improvement. I'm not worried that I will never "keep up". There will always be lots to do, which is not a problem for me.

Of course, there are other rewards of gardening along the way. The strawberries are just starting to get ripe, and I have lots of strawberry plants this year:

I started last week to sample the occasional one while gardening. But tonight when I went out to put on a sprinkler, I found enough to bring in a handful for the kids:

The raspberries will also not be long now, I can see the green berries forming. Sweet!

Garden Surprises to Cheer Me

It is my faith in God and my sweet kids who give me hope and perspective in times of despair, but it is my garden which really helps to cheer me, with its unexpected surprises.

Lately I have not had much time to spend in the garden, being quite overwhelmed by my work, overwhelmed by my husband being so overwhelmed by his work that he is seldom around and when he is, not available for conversation, and starting to be busy with kid's schedules starting up also. But whenever I have a chance to spend even 10 minutes walking to the compost and back (yes, it really does take that long, since the path is never a direct one), I always come back feeling refreshed (albeit longing for more).

On the weekend, I tackled a small weeding project, trimming and pulling some lemon balm which has taken over too much of an area behind my italian plum tree. The tree finally showed blossoms this year for the first time, but I had been disappointed not to see any fruit follow. But while down on my knees in the dirt, I looked up, and saw 5 beautiful blue/purple fruits hanging in the tree. They were just hiding under the leaves, that's all. My 7 year old son, on hearing the news, climbed in there with me, and spotted a 6th fruit. The two I took inside to sample (one because I had accidentally knocked it down, and the second I had picked) were a bit too tangy to the tastebuds, but very sweet to my imagination.

Today, while visiting the compost, I passed by the raspberry patch, and my golden raspberries (I have the name of them somewhere) were showing a great second crop of fruit. They have done this consistently in the past, but each time it is a sweet surprise, to get raspberries in mid-Sept and beyond. So I picked this small basket for the family to sample:


The blackberries which are sending long thorny branches over the fence in a continual assault, also sent across two bunches of ripe black fruit, which I enjoyed on the spot.

I also picked one more of our asian pears on the way inside, to share with the kids after school. The top row of our asian pear espalier has borne us 3 ripe pears, now. The second row is heavy with fruit, but that variety is not quite ripe (I've already sampled). The bottom row shows no fruit this year (and I can't remember if we had any last year, either - I'll need to look back in my blog!).

The espalier apple is full of beautiful red fruit on the top row (I think it's a Liberty), but not quite ripe yet. Would make some nice photos, when I get a chance. The middle didn't bear, and the bottom was stripped clean by the squirrels this year!

Sweet Surprise in November

Late in October, I had a delightful surprise, when cleaning up my garden for winter, I lifted a raspberry branch, and was greeted by a cluster of red raspberries (and a spider, which I didn't even notice, until I looked at the photo later).

I also found a number of my golden raspberries were ripe also. So after taking a photo, I carefully carried in a handful of the sweet little treasures...

...and prepared a small bowl to share with the children:

Because after all, the only thing better than discovering treasure is having someone to share it with. :-)

Now, this is already mid-November, we have had a number of mornings of frost (at least visible on the roof), and there is snow in the local mountains. So when I made a trip into the yard with the kids (they were home today in lieu of Remembrance Day) to do some more garden cleanup, I was not expecting to again discover a number of ripe gold & red raspberries.

There were probably 2 dozen berries I picked today, and the kids were very happy to share them with me. There are still a number of green berries coming, too. I wonder what those raspberry canes could possibly be thinking!!