Fall Production and some not!

We have had a very active fall season harvesting berries and apples and converting them to edible products. The apples are September Ruby and a seedling we are calling Fehr Green (he gave us the tree but forgot if it had a name). So the apples have been made into many pies, apple butter, and even apple juice with pulp included. Very good juice and the pies are pretty good too. There were also a number of pies from Saskatoons (Heavenly Hills Orchards), pumpkin, and our own Blue Honeysuckles. (About 70 in total) Jam variety from saskatoon, chokecherry, blue honeysuckle, pin cherry, English Marrow marmalade, Nanking cherry, peaches(not grown here), apricot(also not grown here although we did have some last year), rhubarb, and ????? A good season. From the pies and the jams we were able to raise about $1000 clear for our Cuba church building trip in November. Amazing! Each of us will take about $400 as our contribution to the building so that is right on!

There has been a lot of last minute planting as well as I had many plants sitting around in pots. So there are Clematis, mountain ash, blue honeysuckles(not yet planted and there are about 75-80 pots), daylilies, and Hepaticas as well as a few other things which were still in pots. The leftovers will be set behind a building and surrounded with peat moss for the winter.

I have also been building decks to replace the deteriorating concrete steps at our doors. This has gone well for someone who has not built a deck before. Stuff happens though and yesterday when I was trying to move the last step out, the tractor did a no-no! The clutch has somehow seized and I cannot get it out of gear so that I can move it. What a pain! Looks like this.

Not sure how I will get it loose and away so I can get someone else in to finish - maybe they can pull it back and then the clutch will release.

Anyway this project needs to get done this week. Winter is on the way so things need to get put away.







I forgot to put up a picture of the apple juice. This is just the apples boiled in a bit of water and then pressed through a colander. So there is pulp and we have stored the canned jars in the fridge so they can be taken at any time and opened. Very good!

Here is one of the finished decks. Not fancy but functional. Needs a coat of something on the railing to make it smoother and prevent slivers so we will wait till spring and sand down and varnish/stain or whatever then. NO. 2 deck platform is built and ready to move into place when we can get the tractor away and some gravel moved in to make a base.

Until next time.

October days

We were privileged to have Craig and Carol Larson stop for the night last Friday. They were on their way to visit family in Edmonton and it was very nice to get better acquainted. Craig is the author of a number of good blogs, not the least of which is his Haskap Wine Blog for which you can find the link on my Blue Honeysuckle Blog. We had a very good visit and a short walk about in the plant areas on Saturday morning. We both have a lot of respect for this little berry which is making its way into the fruit markets of the prairies. My plants include several of the Haskap which are licensed varieties from the University of Saskatchewan but the larger part of my plantation are seedlings from various sources and are simply Edible Blue Honeysuckle. I am looking forward to more conversations on this and other topics in the future.

Saturday I was fortunate to pick up a couple of suckers from Carmine Jewel Cherry as well as seeds from Clematis hirsutissima and Clematis Pamiat Serdtsa. The Clematis seeds are from Sara Williams who is well known for her books on prairie horticultural topics.

And speaking of Clematis, I still have a number to try and get into the ground! But I got a new book so that will be interesting for winter reading. The book is on the right margin and links you to the Indigo Books web sight with information about the book. I saw one of Raymond Evison's hybrids at some friends in Ontario and really liked it but it is not hardy here unless you grow it in a pot and bring it in for the winter. I am very pleased to have a little Clematis blooming in my terrarium. It is a Clematis crispa and this is it's third blossom in captivity. So cute and very nice form. It is very pale though and I am not sure if this is the soil or lack of light or natural as the ones I see on the internet tend to be more pink.

Well these days it is deck building, flower pot dumping and general cleanup. Lets hope it stays reasonably nice.

October snow.................

Well we were away for a few days to Ontario and were glad to get home. On the other hand we could do without the snow and frost. So many tasks to be completed yet before we really settle in for winter. Ontario was really no better as it rained every day and some days all day! It was still green and flowers were blooming though.

Left outside to plant are many things in pots; they really would have had time to get rooted in a normal year when snow does not come till after Halloween. I wanted to plant blue honeysuckles, mountain ash, Evans Cherry (3 - 5ft. tall),  and clematis. Probably some others I have forgotten. I also wanted to collect cuttings from my fuschias but they are quite burned off by frost.

There are 10 Clematis cirrhosa moved to the basement under lights (aphids and fungus gnats included) along with 2 Clematis montana. While in Ontario I bought a Clematis Vancouver "Morning Mist". It looks like a beauty from the information and picture. Might have to keep it indoors for the winter though as planting is looking a little sketchy. We stayed with some friends and they had bought a pot or patio Clematis which I did not write the name down for but it looked like a very good compact plant. I think it was Picardy which is a Ray Evison introduction. They also have a very nice fish pond in their back yard.

Outside of the Picard's Peanuts Store on Dundas Street was this very nice John Deere tractor with a single bottom plow. We picked up a few nut treats here.  The Picard's Peanut stores are  a common site around the south at least in Ontario.

Finally my rant for the day!
Sadly so many people are filling their blogs with commercials that you can't find the posts. I have quit visiting some blogs because I really don't have time to try and fish out the information or the posting that they have made. Too bad commerce always steals the natural things we do for fun.