Backyard plum trees often produce more plums than their owners can use. Here are 4 simple methods of preserving plums that I use to get the most from my plum harvest! We have a blood plum tree in our backyard that provides us with delicious plums each summer. It is not a huge tree but it can hold lots of fruit. This year we have had a particularly good plum harvest. The plums are nice and big thanks to some good spring rains we had last year! Even though we love eating plums and I love … [Read more...]
Using a Soaker Hose to Water Your Vegetable Garden
Watering the vegetable garden can be quite a time consuming job in the middle of summer. You can however save lots of time just by using a soaker hose! I have always preferred to water my vegetable garden underneath rather than spraying the leaves of the plants. I learned from my parents and grandparent that this gives the plants a much deeper watering. This in turn enables them to cope better with the hot summer days. It also saves water because it is delivers the water directly to where the … [Read more...]
How to Grow Cat Grass from a Surprisingly Simple Source of Seeds!
We adopted our two cats (Maddy and Wally) almost five year ago now and they have always been fond of eating some grass. Initially we didn’t have actual cat grass. Instead the cats would eat some of the grassy weeds that would inevitably pop up here and there. They also liked to munch on some of the longer buffalo grass in the lawn. A couple of years ago we purchased a pot of cat grass to give them another source of grass to munch on. But to say that it wasn’t very popular would be an … [Read more...]
My To-Do List of Spring Gardening Jobs
Spring is nearly upon us so it’s time to start planning for what spring gardening jobs we need to do. As the weather warms it’s a great time to get out in the garden and prepare for summer! It is not quite spring yet but there are already plenty of signs that the garden is starting to come to life again. Most noticeable is the blossom on the fruit trees. The almond tree as usual has been the first to burst into flower but our other fruit trees aren’t too far behind. Our ornamental pear trees … [Read more...]
Dainty Swallowtail Butterfly Update
It has been almost a year since I first learnt about the dainty swallowtail butterfly. Last summer this beautiful butterfly could be seen fluttering around our vegetable garden where we had planted some zinnias. The butterflies laid their eggs on our citrus trees and we were lucky enough to find several growing caterpillars. In an attempt to ensure their survival they were collected and kept in a large storage contain that I had set up to house them. You can read about it … [Read more...]
My To-Do List of Winter Gardening Jobs
Now that the cold weather is upon us I have been planning the list of winter gardening jobs that I need to complete! It’s a bit harder to get motivated to get out into the garden these days. Some days the wind is so icy that the last thing you feel like doing is digging around in the dirt – even with gloves on! We’ve planted lots of vegetables which helps draw us out into the garden. There is nothing better than checking the garden every day to see if your seeds have sprouted/grown! This … [Read more...]
Late Autumn Leads to Butternut Pumpkins Splitting!
We have had a really funny autumn this year. It is only a little over a week till winter but many of our trees have only just properly changed colour. Normally most would have lost their leaves by now! I am pretty sure that this late autumn is to blame for some of our butternut pumpkins splitting! We had a cool spell plus quite a bit of rain early in autumn but the last few weeks have been fairly mild. It seems that might have been enough to trick the butternut pumpkins into having a growth … [Read more...]
Dainty Swallowtail Butterflies in My Garden (And My House!)
Towards the end of this summer we were lucky enough to be visited by some beautiful dainty swallowtail butterflies. Actually I’m not sure how many there were because I only ever saw one. When we first saw them we were not sure what they were called. We just knew that they were very pretty! This was the first year that we had zinnias in the garden so maybe that is what attracted them - they seemed to love our zinnias! I haven’t got a good photo of the butterflies because they just didn’t sit … [Read more...]