A few pictures from traveling in Cuba!

We had the pleasure and a pure gift to travel and visit churches in Cuba belonging to our denomination Hermanos in Cristo!

While there I am always on the lookout for plants and flowers and paying attention to gardens. Much of what is being grown in yards is hard to see and we did not stop at any of the city gardens which are very large and usually well maintained. We stayed at the Rancho Luna Resort which also had many nice trees and plants on the grounds. More interesting to me than the Caribbean!

Here are a few of the plants I found on the grounds. It was just coming out of the winter season so not up to it's full potential for sure.

Some other plants we found were at a new farm the church is starting to help support the church and even sell to the neighbours! Growing field tomatoes, pineapple and melons or cucumbers. You can see a faded plant in the middle of the first picture as it was too dry right now.

In the Pastor's yard in Santa Clara i found a peach tree and a banana tree. I was told there were others there too like guava and mango.

Since it had been dry things were not as lush as other times we had been there.

Finally the first post of 2017!

Well the first two weeks have been difficult for sure. Came down with a cold of strange actions and fatigue so mostly home bound this past couple of weeks. Finally got out to work on Sunday and Monday at our University Hospital where I Porter for the Lab and the Blood Bank. So good to get out and walk and get my blood moving let alone the blood delivered! Aside from this my sister in law has been quite sick and in the hospital these last few days so that has added to the illness tension!

We have had several weeks of severe cold but today are at 0 C which I really do not like! Too warm!

This post will be a summary of interest on several of my blogs so here goes. There will be a note to come back here for the latest!

Plant stuff.

Seedy Saturdays are starting so check this link for the potential of one in your area or leave a comment below if you have one not listed!

A new source of plant materials which I have come to know is Alpine Plants out of Manitoba. Mandy has become a friend on Facebook and I look forward to meeting her in person someday soon! She also operates Mandy's Greenhouse! Be sure to drop by her sites. You can also find her on Facebook!


Another gardening friend with a vast and sometimes unusual seed collection is Kristl at Gardens North Seed! I have grown seeds from Kristl over the years and always appreciate her botanical knowledge! You can also follow here on Facebook!

Over the years we have tried seeds from many places including the commercial seed catalogues but lately we have stuck close to home and get our seeds from Early's Farm and Garden or the Peavey Mart! Early's is an all around plant and animal supply store!

A couple of other places we like are Prairie Garden Seeds! Jim Ternier has been a prairie seed supply fixture since 1986 and I think I started buying seeds from him very shortly after. He shows up at the Saskatoon Seedy Saturday so you can save the shipping by seeing them there.

Another source over the years was T & T Seeds on the edge of Winnipeg. Seeds and more available at the Garden Center! We quit buying seeds just because we were reducing what we grow but always a good product for the price.

There are many good garden seed and nursery supply places across the prairies but these just happen to be the ones we like!

I have been trying germination on some old beans and soybeans which I was hoping to give to a family member but so far not much luck. I tried the first batch in 3% peroxide as it will give a bit of a boost with the extra oxygen and also kill some of the bacteria but that was a total bust. It did although show one set had fungus which grew in spite and smelled bad.

Other plant stuff is the Clematis and lily seedlings growing in my workshop. Though the room is pretty cool as sometimes only 4 C, the plants are hanging on and the Clematis  (one in particular) are budding!

Birds!

The winter so far has been cold so I have been feeding lots of black sunflowers to Black capped Chickadees, a Red Breasted Nuthatch, and a small flock of sparrows! So nice to have the Nuthatch around as I do not remember there ever being any here before that I saw.






Others who drop in are the Black Billed Magpies and a pair of Hairy woodpeckers. OF course we see Ravens and the odd flock of Pigeons. Also heard and saw a small  flock of Snowbirds fly over last week. We saw a Snowy Owl earlier in fall on the way to Calgary and one coming home from Melfort in December. No pictures!

There has been a group of about 6 Starlings hanging around and they have moved into our Purple Martin house which I do not like but I will deal with them soon! I need to mention as well the small flock of Prairie Chickens we see from time to time, sometimes in our year! We hope the foxes and coyotes don't get them!

The Starlings coming in for the night!

Fruit and General Tree Stuff!

Well the Edible Blue Honeysuckle Orchard is sitting waiting for spring and a bit of a clean up, posts for screen and then we will see.

The other big issue is a group of Green Ash which will need to be brought down in the general garden area. They were planted as seedlings and now are 25 - 30 ft. tall. Out of the 5, 4 of them are female seed bearing trees and are a disaster  with all the seeds they are shedding as well as the fact that they have gotten so big as to take too much moisture out of the garden so the seeded ones will be cut down in the late winter. Seems sad here to begin cutting down what we planted but there are better things to grow so I am not sad about it at all. Female trees in the landscape are a real issue but in some cases we have no choices as the select males trees of many species are very expensive.

As you can see in the picture, the ground is going to be covered with Greenash seeds and added to the mix are Manitoba Maple as well as Tatarian Maple and all the chokecherries we did not pick and the birds spread around!

Other stuff!
Well I am pleased with the new to us snowblower which we have used some but not much. We certainly could use another 4 to 6 inches of snow but will have lots of moisture as things are. Thanks to my wife's sewing skills we were able to replace the old plastic windows in the snowblower can and now can see very clearly while being mostly free of the snow blowing into our face. Nice.

I noticed today that there were many fresh deer tracks in the yard so we need to watch out for them damaging top branches on shrubs and fruit bushes. They tend not to be a big problem but can be from time to time. We have only seen the Jack Rabbit a couple of times this winter but do see fresh tracks from time to time as well. They really are not bad a damaging plant material so not a problem. What I an seeing is evidence of Voles and they are not good news as they chew bark below the surface  of the snow and can decimate your fruit shrubs by girdling the stems. Not good and we have had some pretty severe damage over the years. Hope for a weasel or two to combat the voles!

Until next time!

Clayton

Addendum!
Reorganized the lights and plants in my workshop!