My dear gardening friends,

We were all trying to keep warm this winter, and now that summer is here, I keep hearing folk complaining still. Can you believe that they do not like this heat??? At least the gardens are growing other than the grass!

I have finished working at Loblaws for another season – the time passed by so quickly this year. Thank you dear Deborah – I will miss you all. At least I have all those lovely plants planted. The ones that I couldn’t bear to leave on the tables for anyone to purchase! We will see each other often. Be happy the rest of the time the garden centre is open – another two weeks??

I know that a lot of you are off to the pick-your-own strawberry fields (shades of the Beatles). I just read this little piece of “Strawberry lore” From the Good Food Guide:

In parts of Bavaria, country folk still practice the annual spring tradition of tying small baskets of wild strawberries to the horns of their cattle as an offering to the elves. Thus the elves, who are passionately fond of strawberries, will help produce not only healthy calves, but an abundance of milk in return.

The ancient Romans believed that the berries alleviated symptoms of melancholy, fainting, all inflammations, fevers, throat infections, kidney stones, halitosis, attacks of gout, and diseases of the blood, liver and spleen. Whilst I cannot verify any of this I can attest to the fact that freshly picked strawberries in season taste wonderful, especially with thick cream (mmmmm!!).

When you are picking or even just choosing berries at the market look for bright red berries wearing fresh green caps. Visually check each package if you are buying from a store, making quite sure there are no signs of mold growth. If one berry is moldy, the mold spores will have travelled throughout the entire package.

Eat your strawberries soon after either harvesting or purchasing them. Refrigerator storage does not improve the quality of fresh strawberries. Do not leave them at room temperature for more than a few hours. Warm temperatures will cause a browning effect in strawberries. The pigments that make them red, anthocyanin, are heat sensitive; they break apart and turn brown when exposed to heat. Strawberries also lose heat-sensitive Vitamin C during browning, heating and cooking.

Store unwashed berries loosely covered with plastic wrap in the coldest part of the fridge for two to three days at the most. Do not wash the berries until you are ready to eat them. To wash, place in a colander and rinse under cold running water. Do not let them sit in water – if so, they will lose their colour and flavour. After washing, remove the green cap with a plastic - tipped vegetable peeler or paring knife without removing any of the fruit.

Tips for Picking

Be careful that your knees and feet do not damage plants or fruit in or along the edge of the row.

At a pick-your-own it is important that you pick where you are assigned.

If you take your own containers remember that by heaping strawberries more than 5 inches deep will bruise the lower berries.

Pick only berries that are fully red, parting the leaves with your hands, looking for hidden berries that are ready to be harvested.

Pick the row clean. Remove from the plant any berries that are showing rot, sunburn, insect damage or any other defect and place them between the rows behind you.

Berries to be used immediately may be picked anytime, but if you plan to hold the fruit for a few days, try to pick in the early morning or on cool cloudy days. Berries picked during the heat of the day become soft, easily bruised and will not keep well.

Avoid placing the picked berries in the sun any longer than necessary. It is better to put them in the shade of a tree or any other shade rather than in the car trunk or even on the car seat. Take along a cooler.

Cool them off as soon as possible, they will keep in the fridge for three or more days depending upon the quality of the berries.

When you are buying strawberries by the pound, one and a half pounds equal one quart, or about 4 cups of sliced strawberries. All berries may be placed on flat trays (cookie sheets work well) and frozen, when they are frozen place in freezer bags, name and date them. Do not forget to hull the berries before you freeze them. I am sure that is as much as you ever wanted to know about picking strawberries. Wait until the raspberries arrive!!

Whilst we are on the subject of food, Peterborough is celebrating Canada Day –with an international feast, tents are going to be erected at Del Crary Park so you can enjoy the foods coming from Russia, India, China, Poland and many other countries, especially Greece. It runs from 1-4 pm, and in addition to the food, there will be live music and games. With the centennial this year Peterborough celebrates 100 years of multiculturalism.

On the 2nd of July the Downtown Street party and barbecue will be held. A section of George St. will be closed for this big event – come and eat ribs, listen to the music that is occurring on four separate stages. A good time will be had by everyone.

If you are from out of town and wish to stay over there are a number of bed and breakfast homes available. One that springs to mind is the Golden Path just off Northeys Bay Rd. – very quiet, good for a romantic getaway. Available on the internet.

What has all this to do with gardening? I digressed as I am wont to do – so, as July approaches what do I have in store for you this month? Deadheading for sure – go around with your clippers and clip away to your hearts content. If you must cut your grass for the few of you who still have lawns, raise the lawnmower so that it is not cut too short, the sun is taking care of most of it right now. Check your roses, and with regards to your lilies, make sure that you do not have the dreaded lily beetle in your garden – I did find one in a garden centre and made sure that I squeezed it – with great relish.

This is my letter to the World
By: Emily Dickson (1830-1886)

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty

Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see,
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me.

This is also a good month to fertilise your trees. Trees continue to survive in spite of neglect and the universally unsatisfactory conditions for tree growth that exist in our towns and cities. It is a clear indication of the power of all living things triumphanting (is there such a word?) over our unfriendly environments. And the dreaded snow ploughs, which do about as much damage as anything else. Although the Horticultural Society went before the Lakefield Council to plead for the life of an oak tree that was at least a hundred years old, and received permission to have it spared, the tree was cut down that very night. Why? It was in the way of the snow plough!!!!!

When allowed to grow naturally trees form dense communities of their own, within which they build a heavy layer of porous leaf-mold that enriches the soil and makes an excellent medium for the roots. On lawns, however, the roots must travel through coarse, tightly packed soils and carry on an unequal competition for water and minerals with grass roots, that because of their position, greedily soak up most of these materials. The fastidious gardener who sweeps away the grass clippings in order to preserve the charm of the lawn does not help to build a more congenial bed for the roots of his trees. It is no wonder that trees fade in their prime, their loss of vigor indicated by baldness or patchy meagre foliage made up of leaves that are a sickly yellow or brown.

Any home gardener can carry out tree feeding successfully if he understands the nature of the underground structures of his plants. The root system is confined to the upper eighteen inches of soil, extending slightly beyond the spread of the overhead branch system. Careful experiments have shown that the absorbing area of the root is just at the tip; the greater part of its length, covered with an impermeable bark, serves only to conduct.

If you do decide to fertilise your trees, trace a circle on the lawn under the tree so that its circumference is just beyond the expanse covered by the boughs. Along the perimeter of this circle punch holes 2 feet apart and eighteen inches deep. Make similar rings inside and outside this circle, placing them so that they are not in a straight line. Fill the holes to within three inches of the top with any good quality commercial fertiliser (not spikes, unless you grind them up - they do not break down quickly), and water thoroughly by allowing the hose to run into each hole for a few minutes.

Frequent light sprinklings are of no value to the tree (or any other plants). This kind of watering is all too common, and merely makes the roots grow closer to the surface, where not only do they become a hazard to the lawn mower, but they are more susceptible to desiccation!

Do not treat after the 15th of July, because it may stimulate the roots into producing suckers. You will not be surprised to learn that most true arboriculturists think that trees, like animals and children, when supplied with the right quantities of moisture and nutriments, will be so healthy that they will have a natural resistance to the attacks of parasitic bacteria, fungi and insects. They will all grow straight, tall and healthy.

"Where trees are ill-kept, dying, or diminishing, we often find a community that feels run down, although trees are seldom recognised as either part of the cause or a symptom of the community's woes. But the truth stands clear - trees symbolise permanence and stability – where they thrive, a community feels good about itself…" R. Neil Sampson, in Shading our Cities.

There is a group in Toronto called Grass Roots Albany. This group decided to do a tree inventory of the Annex area right in downtown Toronto. It was discovered that within the thirty study acres there were approximately sixteen hundred trees of one hundred different species (with the Maple genus comprising about one third). They came to a number of distressing conclusions:

- There is low species diversity among mature trees, with the Silver and Norway maples accounting for 66 percent of the trees that are older than thirty years.

- There is a fifty year gap between mature trees and the next generation of urban forest. It is time that we started to plant more trees in all our neighbourhoods, as Donald C. Willeke puts it in the book Shading Our Cities, "…the planting and caring for trees represents a symbolic dedication to the future, an act of faith, an act of renewal, ritual confirmation of continuity."

The effects of global warming on tree populations is particularly worrisome given that the rate of climate change is generally predicted to be too fast for trees to adapt to new conditions, and also because of the disconnected nature of North America's forests. As John Ambrose has written in "Wildflower" (Winter 1990), “We have left the "islands" of forests dis-connected and out of genetic communication with other forests. Such genetic communication would allow for adoptions to occur within the tree population in response to the changing climate. Thus, knitting together the forest community once again by making room for trees in our cities is all the more important given the scientific consensus about global warming.”

I have been asked many times, why are my trees not doing well? I personally think that the ozone layer is so depleted that we are already seeing the effects that are really happening to the world. Be one of the people who indulge in the "ritual confirmation of continuity" - plant a tree, at least one!

The book that I have quoted from: Shading Our Cities: A Resource Guide for Urban and Community Forests, Gary Moll and Sara Ebenreck, eds. Washington Island Press, 1989.

All That’s Past

Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the briar’s boughs
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are-----
Oh no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.Very old are the brooks’
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden

By: Eve’s nightingales

We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.

By: Walter de la Mare

This is the season for weddings, congratulations to Ben Whatley and family. Ben was married last Saturday to Sarah, I wish them a long loving life together - do not forget to be kind to each other!

This raises the question of gifts. We are often invited to a gardening friends home and are stuck as to what to take for a small gift. I just found lovely ceramic citronella candles in pottery containers, but another idea is a recycled galvanised container, either paint a flower or paste daisies on it, then fill it with wonderful things to pamper the gardeners hands. A wooden nail brush, gardeners hand scrub with pumice (Crabtree and Evelyn), nylon knit gardening gloves, hand salve by Burt’s Bees – this is wonderful stuff – then there is Moo, somewhat like bag balm but oh so much cheaper and you can lather it on without feeling guilty. Things that we always buy for others and never ourselves.

Michael (my cousin who visits each year) will be here from England at the end of July. He was speaking to his daughter’s girl friend, who said that she was coming to Canada for her holidays. Where in Canada? Oh three days in Toronto and then going very far north – to a little town near Lakefield, called Young's Point. When Michael picked himself up off the floor with laughter, he announced that he would be “up the road” at the same time – small world indeed! I was intrigued to think that I live very far north. People in England have no concept as to the size of this country - actually neither did I, until it took Jack and I three days to get out of Ontario!

Well my dears, if you are outside remember to drink lots and lots of water. Hats, gloves, and perhaps a sunshade, sun screen and lots of it, insect repellent - the mosquitoes are unrelenting. Do go inside and out of the sun every now and again. Good gardening to us all and do not overdo it in this heat.

Lovingly, Beryl