Cottage Wood Hill

Being in California I never thought I could grow blackberries, but I was wrong! I came so close to ripping this out because it went a couple of years without producing anything and I ordered a thornless but this one has thorns. I’m so glad I wanted! Now it is producing delicious fruit.

I occasionally buy plants from Home Depot, and couldn’t pass this one up. This “Ultra” Dwarf D’Anjou pear tree was only $18 and will do well in a container. I didn’t even know they came in “ultra” dwarf. I already have a larger pear tree, but you can’t have too many pears in my book. [...]

Here’s my new fuzzy kiwi vine. Well, one of them…you have to plant a girl and a boy to get babies. The female is the Vincent variety, so I’ve dubbed her “Vinnie” and the male is the Tomuri variety…so, you guessed it, he wil be “Tom.” They both bloom at the same time, which makes [...]

We’ve added trellises to the arbor and will be adding one more for kiwi to grow on. The kiwi vines will be planted in the area next to the driveway, and will have their own trellis to climb. The front trellises are for the grapes.

The Meyer Lemon is doing better with my soap/oil spray…I sprayed it after removing all the leaves distorted by the Leaf Miner pest…and so far so good. Some aphids are making their way to the backs of the leaves, but so far I’ve been able to control them fairly well with this spray. I know [...]

I’d been wondering about setting up a strawberry bed with all the necessary bed lining etc to keep slugs away…then i saw this hanging basket at the nursery. I’m going to create several of these as I adore strawberries. These are incredibly fragrant and I can’t wait to sample one!

We decided to make our first peach pie tonight…they had lovely large peaches that were just right at the Farmer’s Market. We like things the old-fashioned way and so made a super simple crust with—gasp!— lard…just flour, salt and lard. The inside was pretty simple as well. Sugar, flour, cinnamon and a bit of butter. [...]