Author Archives: Chrystal

The weather has been bipolar: a month of snow and ice, followed by unseasonably warm weather, more snow and ice, and now more sunshine. In late January, I took advantage of the dry sunny weather to spray dormant oil on all of my fruit … Continue reading →

  Snow has covered the garden since early December and temperatures have been persistently low. Complaining about -2° Celsius makes us Vancouverites sound like wimps (and I can hear the Albertans snicker), but so be it. This is definitely not … Continue reading →

The last few months have been busy – in the garden and in life – and I haven’t had time to blog. Our early wet spring has become an early dry summer (the calendar says May, but it feels like … Continue reading →

The gardening season is well underway in Vancouver. Already the snowdrops, daphne, camellia, cyclamens, hellebore and the first crocus are in bloom. Lupins and delphiniums are starting to sprout. We’ve been hard at work clearing out the dead foliage from … Continue reading →

Over-sized vegetables. When a seed name includes a size descriptor, I expect big things. GOLIATH parsnips and Oregon GIANT snap peas were the big winners this year. I will plant these same species again next year because they were awesome tasting and enormous. … Continue reading →

Now that the garden is rehydrated, everything is coming back to life. The black eyed Susans in the front are thriving. Their big bursts of yellow will soon be joined by the purples and blues of the chrysanthemums  which will … Continue reading →

Two weeks ago Bryn dropped by to collect all the honey boxes from the top of the hives. The original hive had one honey box  and the second hive -the one with the feisty bees -had two. The picture above shows one of … Continue reading →

On Friday we had our first real rain in months. This was not the evaporate-as-soon-as-it-hits-the-sidewalk rain that we are starting to get used to, but the type of downpour that Vancouverites used to experience on a regular basis. Right now we … Continue reading →

Last week when Bryn opened the lid of the hive, the wax in the top layer was saffron yellow. It was rather eye popping, as we are used to seeing a characteristic white or pale yellow honeycomb. I wish I had taken … Continue reading →