To cheer myself up last week, I lit the bonfire while I gardened. It was such a gloomy day. It was mid summer, and I was gardening in jeans. The fire lifted my spirits. For those of us out west and south, this is not a normal February in the garden. Normally we’d be drowning […]
How To Thin Fruit (And Why You Need To)
By | LastUpdated December 1, 2016
For top quality fruit and a better performing tree – thin your fruit this month! Thinning removes the excess to improve the remainder – and it’s a lovely job, so peaceful among the fruit trees (apart from Nellie the pig’s grunts for more!) I thin because thinning looks after my trees. It lightens their load. […]
Get Ready For Psyllids
By | LastUpdated May 5, 2021
Boy, did we panic about psyllids when they first arrived on our shores. And rightly so! Our tomato and potato crops got hammered as we figured out how to cope with them. And figure it out we did. We’ve got it sorted! So moving on from the panic, let’s make like a scout – Be Prepared. […]
From a Notch Springs a Branch
By | LastUpdated July 31, 2020
This time last year I wrote you about notching, an old fashioned technique that turns a bud into a branch, on a fruit tree. You do this when there’s a gap in the trees framework and you wish a branch to fill it. (Tree’s don’t always share our vision – a bit of coercion is […]
