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Our peaches got hit by the June frost. Though the leaves look healthy this year (sprayed with dormant oil in the spring), there are very few fruit growing. One apple tree is doing okay. We cut down the other, which was not healthy, to make room for future new apple trees. We planted a pair of new ap...

The island where I used to live had poor groundwater, and a lot of people had rainwater collection systems to supplement their wells. Rainwater can be used for drinking, but the system has to be designed with that in mind. They put a sediment collection tank in the line to collect the first few gall...

Not likely rabbits Kath - they ususally take them off at stem first (45 degree cut) and then eat them. Well, the stems are pretty woody. They nipped off the branches at their bases, ate most of the greenery, and left a couple of leaves on the ground. It didn't look like the work of slugs, our other...

Well, surprisingly, all the tomato plants recovered. This was due to my practice of NOT pinching off the suckers. I have learned in the past, from previous unseasonably late frosts, that the suckers are your insurance. So, although the early June frost killed all the leaves and branches of several o...

In a lot of places here, the use of herbicides for cosmetic purposes (i.e. killing weeds in a lawn) is not permitted. We like a "lawn" that looks like reclaimed forest floor. When we have bare patches, we seed them with a mix of grass and clover seed.

I used to live in an area that had routine summertime droughts. It was not uncommon to go from May to October with only a millimetre or two of rain. We installed three large tanks to collect rainwater in the spring, with a total of 20,000 litres of storage capacity, and filled them with water collec...

I decided to try tomatoes again this year. Last year I grew them in pots, and they all got blight. Not suggesting that was cause and effect, but this year I planted them in the garden. I thought that waiting a week after the Victoria Day long weekend (May 21st) would be safe from frost. Well, not th...

We haven't had a telly for about 13 years. We've got the hardware, but we only use it for watching movies, initially on VHS or DVD, and more recently on Netflix. I like music, but I was brought up to be considerate of other people. I don't like it loud anyway, but if I'm where people would find it a...

As a former military pilot, I love flying. But I really can't justify it, especially not for recreational purposes. I fear you are truly in a minority . Most feel perfectly justified in taking flights just to sit on a beach achieving nothing except the reduction in world booze stocks " because...

As a former military pilot, I love flying. But I really can't justify it, especially not for recreational purposes. The last time I flew, it was for a move across the country. We'd thought about driving, but that would have been too hard on the dog and cat. Time before that, it was to see my dad on ...

We have finally caught up, and spring is here. Sorry to hear you folks on that side of the pond are still looking for it. We have daffodils starting to flower. The dandelions have been out along the roadsides for a while. Grass is turning green, and, when we let the hound out to pee, there is usuall...

Hi, Kiwi Bloke. Thanks! We have used the woodshed for a couple of winters now, and it is working well. The size is right: last year, we used half a row more than one bay; this year, we used half a row less than one bay. I had to do some structural adjustments because the weight of the wood was bendi...

We have icing sugar snow rather thick and lying with a wicked east north east wind adding a chill factor of -8 or thereabouts today. Underneath the soil is sodden from previous heavy rain and snow. KL I think that we both have the remnants of winter hanging on. Planting may well be April outside. I...

Oh, how I miss living on the west coast with its British-like climate! By now, out there, the snowdrops would have been and gone, the crocuses would be flowering, and the daffodils would be up and starting to set buds. Here, we had 33cm of heavy, wet snow last week. It took me four tanks of fuel in ...

Hi, Bubblefamily. I'm kind of an Ish wanna-be. I am not really successful at it, though. I have one thing in common with you: I was born in Northern Ireland. I live in Canada now. For a while we lived on an island on the west coast of Canada where the climate was very similar to that of the British ...