Garden 2026 Update #2 Fruit Trees, Spring Projects & Painting the Garden

My latest garden update for 2026 here in zone 6a in southwestern Ontario Canada.

Year #3 with blossoms but no fruit visible at all for Harry, my Italian Plum Tree. 

Maybe next year is the year everyone's hoping for!

The Honey Crisp apple blossoms look promising. 

I did a pretty hard prune last season with all fruit trees and berry bushes 

so we'll just have to wait & see how well they bounce back this year. 

 Potted Bleeding Hearts at the back garden pond. 

Beautiful pansies that self-seeded and survived the harsh Southern Ontario winter. 

Beautiful Forget Me Nots are all over my yard. In Pink, blue and white. 

Lovely spring strawberry blossoms throughout the strawberry beds. 

Felix & Oscar, the Odd Musical Tin Rooster Duo standing guard over Victoria, the rhubarb that over-wintered in the massive compost bin after I pulled her and tossed her out. Victoria has been re-homed back into the garden between grape vines, and next to the strawberries. 

I've finally repainted my DIY raised metal bed (it's 2 window wells I bought on FB marketplace years ago) with the same paint I re-painted the garden cottage. I think it's called Misty Green. Somehow, the camera at this angle picks up some sort of muted yellow? 😄 In any case, it's a fresh new upgrade from the battleship gray the metal bed used to be. 

This might be the worst "before/after" image ever 😂 but it's only because the camera really didn't capture the HUGE difference in color. On the left the metal bed is classic gray. On the right, it's a soft green.  In real life, it's a 10 million percent improvement in how the garden looks. Also, the bright green and purple pots seen here have been part of a project to "Paint the Garden", to beautify the space, and add a wonderful pop of color to every area of the growing spaces. 

We inherited my father in law's park bench after he passed away in 2020, and it's been in need of some real TLC for a long time. That happened recently, with a quick pressure wash.  

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you've enjoyed what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or questions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊

Garden Update 2025 #8: End of The Outdoor Season 2025

My garden updates are a fun little way for me to keep visual track of what's working for me (and what failed miserably! Because that's all a part of the gardening journey as well.) in the garden.  I share these publicly and just hope they bless you as much as they help me.

I haven't been very regular in my garden updates this year. This one is 8 weeks after the last one, and that was 8 weeks after the one before that. 😁 I've just been busy in the garden and haven't really set much time aside to update my garden journal minus a few scribbled notes here and there. 

One of the biggest learning curves this year was, cucumbers and heat. 

I've planted cucumber seeds indoors on heat mats & under grow lights, for years. They always work out.  Until they don't. That was this year. We had an unseasonably cold spring.  What I learned this year was, no matter what may have worked before, wait until June 1st at least, before planting out the cucumbers. I planted all of mine out in early May (with all of my tomatoes and peppers, like I always do) and all but one died. I then re-planted several more in mid-May from local nurseries and they all died as well. Between trips to local farmer's markets and local grower's farms I'd spoken to a good number of gardeners who were all having the same problem. Refusing to give up (because we're a HUGE pickle eating family!) I bought a third round of seedlings from a local grower at the end of May, and planted those out at the first of June.

The growing conditions were finally optimum and all of those plants thrived for the entirety of June, July and August. I was able to can multiple batches of pickles for our family's pantry for the winter. My plan for next year is to keep it the same as this year:  if you're in zone 6a (or colder), WAIT and plant out your cucumbers no earlier than June 1st. You'll save yourself a load of headaches and the cost of replacing all your plants. 

2025 is my  first year with Elderberries. I have two plants, and both produced about the same amount of berry clusters seen here on this one. They've all been harvested and are currently sitting in a brown paper bag in the freezer.  I have just enough to make 1 recipe of Elderberry syrup for a fully natural way of fighting off winter colds & viruses. 

A brand new challenge to me this year was... propagation. 

I've tried this many times before and never had much success with it minus one small Basil plant. This year, that finally changed with 2 small plants (Trumpet Vine & Strawberries) that I was able to facilitate into multiple brand new plants!

Both plants did really well over the summer and fall so we'll just wait & see how they do over winter, and into next spring. I'm hoping for great things for them both!

This winter sown sunflower grew to about 16 feet tall. 

Both my winter sown sunflowers and chamomile plants did remarklably well.  I may do this again over winter to see how more plants do. 

2025's batch of pasta sauce from (mostly) home grown tomatoes. I need about 30 pounds of tomatoes for my homemade ketchup, and another 30 pounds for my pasta sauce for an entire year of product of each. I'm currently only getting about half of that from my garden, so I supplement with the incredible produce from my local farmer's market, for both products for my family pantry. 

My goal for the 2026 garden is to double my tomato plants, and hope I can grow enough to cover all the ketchup and all the pasta sauce for an entire year. I've been working on this for several years now and each year the garden produces a wee bit more than the previous year so I'm happy it's increasing each year. 

DAMAGE CONTROL: This was the first raised bed I ever built of this size, and looking back it's easy to see everything I did wrong. In 2021 I built 2 of these 8'x4'x10" raised beds and just used deck screws to attach the end cap 4' (untreated) boards. 

What I didn't know then and what I know now is, I should have used outdoor treated wood (perfectly safe for edible plants) and maybe even these Oldcastle Planter Blocks I originally bought to construct a simple "tool free" sand box for all my little people.  I had 4 of these on hand from an old sandbox and when I saw the joints giving way to far too much soil/water pressure I did this simple repair. 

My plan going forward for spring 2026 is to replace all corners with these blocks (that I already have) and with 6 inch width pressure treated lumber for each side & end. I'll be losing 4" of overall height but that's okay since this is my pepper bed and they don't need that much depth anyway so it really all works out. I've since learned to raise the bed for those with mobility issues, you can easily double up the planter blocks to a 12 inch depth, drive a stake of rebar in to secure them in place and use 12" tall side & end cap lumber for 1 foot deep beds. I really love how easily this building style is so versatile depending on personal needs and mobility. 

Aside from what I've learned with each plant this year, I've also learned much more about fertilization & soil amendments. Both of which I've unintentionally neglected for a few years so another big improvement for spring 2026 will be the much needed soil amendments of some nutrient rich compost as well as some liquid fish fertilizer. I've used both randomly but never intentionally, so spring 2026 will be a much more intentional gardening plan with richer soil than ever before. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you're encouraged by what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions or questions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊

Garden 2024 Update #11

With the end of July this brings us into mid-season for my growing area here in 6a. All of August, September and roughly half of October are left until our last frost date. It almost seems hard to believe we're already at the mid-season point but so far the garden has been mostly successful.  

Here's how things are shaping mid-season:

A common sight first thing in the morning. 

As I always say, it was really nice of me to buy an inflatable hot tub for my cats. 😂

Some of this year's potato harvest went toward one of my favorite freeze dried items: instant potatoes. Such a great way to put up food for long term or even short term.  

I make my mashed potatoes (skins on) with just milk, then freeze dry.  

These three small trays were just over 6 pounds and it all fits into a quart jar. Wild, eh? 😄 

To make mashed potatoes, I add 1/2 cup boiling water to just 3 tablespoons of mashed potato powder, a little butter & salt and pepper.   Mix well and let sit for 2-3 minutes to fully redydrate.

Last week's Mutant Tomato (has been seriously upstaged)

My single surviving cucumber vine is still producing incredibly well.  

This is part 1 of a 2 part experiment.  The old wives tales tell us you cannot clip off strawberry runners and plant them, you have to leave them attached to the mother plant and allow them to root naturally where they are.  Well, that's part 2 down below.  I clipped all of these off about 2 weeks ago and they're doing just fine so far.

My landscaping staples were far too long for this, so I improvised and used the handle ends of clothes pins to pin the runners into place inside the little pots. 

My sweet potatoes had really been stuggling until about 2 weeks ago when they finally starting taking off. I can only guess that it has something to do with the heat & humidity, which we've had in abundance over the last few weeks.  So far they're doing better than sweet potatoes have ever done in my garden so I'm happy with these results so far. 

Last year this Honey Crisp had 2 apples.  This year it has 10! 

In this area of the garden there are elderberries, rhubarb, hazelnuts, blackberries, lilacs, dill, cilantro, basil, lemon balm, butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, raspberries and hibiscus.  My goal in turning my wee piece of property into a thriving Food Forest means using every available space for growing something edible, medicinal, herbal, or all of the above.  

This Musk Mallow grows wile alongside the garage in full shade all day. 

It's not only beautiful, it attracts loads of bees and it's beneficial for a variety of medicinal uses.  

My first ripe Pink Ponderosa tomato this year.  

I thought last week's Mutant Tomato was wild, but it's got nuthin' on this week's specimen.

My raised bed runneth over. With carrots that surround the peppers. 💖

Ed says, he approves.  😁

Thanks for stopping by and taking a stroll through the garden with me. I hope this encourages you to get out there and grow your own as well!