It's pruning time and you need sharp tools for the job. The best pruners for cutting small branches on trees and shrubs are by-pass pruners, which means they are a bit like scissors in that the blades pass each other.

Making a clean cut helps the the plant "heal" the wound and it's easier on your hand. I finally purchased a sharpening tool that works like a charm! With a few strokes along the blade, the pruners cut through wood very smoothly. I purchased the Corona Sharpening Tool at a local garden centre, but there are other brands that do the trick. Here are some easy instructions on how to use the tool and my blog post about cleaning your pruners.

Protecting your trees from wildlife damage is an important fall activity but what you might not realize is that trees can also get damage from winter sun and fluctuating temperatures.

Intense winter sun warms up the tree trunk, especially on the southwest side. The sun warms the bark and apparently the living tissue called cambium is fooled into waking up. When the temperature drops again suddenly, this tissue dies and we notice dry, ridged areas or cracks. While this doesn’t kill the tree, the area is weakened and the tree is more susceptible to disease.

What can you do to prevent sunscald? Purchase pieces of white tree wrap and cover the trunk, especially the lower southwest side. You can do this even now and remove the wrap once the snow is gone.
For more info and photos, check out this link.

Every garden and edible landscape evolves and follows the patterns of succession, a natural change in the biological community over time. As trees and shrubs grow, the amount of light on the ground decreases. The herbaceous layer or ground cover plants may thin out or if they self-seed, the seedlings may pop up in sunnier spaces. More shade-loving species will start to grow more vigorously. The amount of rain and heat is also an important factor in how productive the plants are.

What I love about a natural and edible landscape is the experimentation it allows us to do and the observation, learning and pleasure we derive from interacting with an evolving ecosystem. When you spend some time observing the changes and taking stock of what’s happening in your yard, you can make some interesting discoveries. Here are some things that have captured my interest in my yard this summer.
 
Arctic Beauty Kiwi is Growing Fruit!
I purchased a pot with a male and female kiwi and planted it in a fairly dry spot in almost full sun about 7 years ago. Some sources recommend that it be grown in part shade, in well-drained soil that should not be allowed to completely dry out. My kiwi certainly does not have the benefit of perfect conditions and while it has grown a little bit every year, it’s still only about 4 feet high. It now receives a little bit more shade from spruce trees in the area, and in April the temperature barely dipped below freezing. These conditions were favourable and for the first time, the vine is growing a few kiwis. They are still very small and I don't think there is more than a handful, but it’s exciting to see this exotic fruit develop into a berry-sized treat in our cold climate! Scroll down for a photo.
 
Wild Strawberry Bounty
Another sweet little treat is the wild strawberries that have been producing with abundance this early summer. I dug them up in a quarter of land that was being developed. Over the years, they have spread to cover bare soil, moving to sunnier spots but also doing well under the apple tree and other partially shaded areas. For many years, I rarely saw any fruit, especially in very dry areas. However, in the last couple of years, maybe due to warmer weather in April, I have been able to pick small handfuls of what I call “edible sunshine”.
 
Sea Kale Here to Stay?
Permaculture aficionados love to find unusual edible plants, especially when they are a perennial, reducing the amount of work it takes to plant every year. Sea Kale is an edible perennial listed in “Perennial Vegetables” by Eric Toensmeier and other sources. Many years ago, I met some friendly folks from the Devonian Botanic Garden who were selling seeds, and I was excited to discover sea kale. I planted the seeds but only a couple of them grew. Outdoors, they did not thrive and I lost one to a pest. After moving the remaining plant once, it seemed to be doing better, but the plant was small and I almost forgot about it. However, to my delight, it has almost doubled in size this year! Sea kale is listed in some sources as a Zone 5 or Zone 4 plant. So that’s a bit of a stretch for our gardens, but with a warming climate, we should be able to grow it in Edmonton. My spot in my Edmonton front yard is proving to be pretty good. It receives almost full sun and in winter, the plant is under a pile of snow from the driveway. I have renewed hope that it’s here to stay, and next year I may be able to harvest some leaves in early spring. For more info, visit this online info.

To grow your own sea kale, you can contact a local garden centre to ask if seeds or plants can be ordered in. Apache Seeds had some seeds this spring from Sutton (UK), but you’ll have to put this on the list and make some calls for 2017. If you want to order your own, this Canadian company has it listed.

Fruit trees and berry bushes are the key species of a food forest. They are an investment for the long term and are worth a bit of money and care to keep them healthy. It is rather tragic when wildlife causes major damage that leaves the plant susceptible to stress and disease.

An easy way to protect trees and small shrub is with a wire fence. Here are some tips on what to buy and how to get extra mileage out of this product. I am a big proponent of the permaculture principle to “stack functions”, so I like to find many uses for an item or materials I purchase.
 
Materials
You will have to look, google or ask for the following terms, depending on the hardware store you visit: Welded Wire Fabric or Fence, Garden Fence, Rabbit Garden Fence
The gauge of these products is around 14. The larger the gauge, the thinner the wire and the floppier or weaker the fence is.
Suppliers in Edmonton and Area: Home Hardware, Home Depot, Lowe’s and maybe others.
 
Mesh Size
Ideally, you can find a sturdy product with a mesh size 2 inches by 2 inches or 2 inches by 1 inch. Larger mesh size is available, but you need to be careful – if you have small children, their hands may get trapped. A mesh size of 1 inch or smaller is usually a less sturdy product as well. It will work, but you will need to support it with stakes.
 
Poultry Netting, Chicken Wire or Hardware Cloth or most plastic products are generally very floppy and will not work without a frame. If you have lots of mice, you may need to use hardware cloth, which has a finer mesh to keep them from chewing all the way around the trunk of a tree.

Creating a Cage
For trees, create a sturdy wire cylinder around the trunk that has a diameter at least twice the size of the trunk. That way you don’t have to cut a new piece as the tree grows.
The height of the cage should be about 2 feet minimum. You want to be sure that a hare or jackrabbit cannot reach the lower branches or reach above the fence when we have a winter with lots of snow.
The rolls of fence are usually around 2 feet to 4 feet tall. I cut my wire closer to 3 feet tall, as I also use the cages for temporary compost bins when I don’t need them for plants (see more info below)
 
Shrubs grow much faster and you really only need to protect them for the first couple of years. Once the shrub is 2-3 feet tall and well branched, even heavy pruning by a rabbit will not kill the shrub.
 
With the welded wire fence, you will need to wear thick gloves and wire cutters. Place the fence around the trees and shrubs and use a pair of pliers to bend the cut wires and connect the fence into a cylinder. You can also use twist ties or plastic zap straps to connect the ends.
 
Stacking Functions – Using the Cages for Composting
The wire cages are really important when trees and shrubs are young, and during the winter when our local Jackrabbits have nothing else to eat. So eventually, you may not need all your cages or you only need them during the winter.
 
I like to connect together some extra welded wire fence to create larger cylinders (2.5-3.5 feet in diameter) for storing dry leaves or extra compost, and I have even used a cage with extra compost that needed more curing as a growing bed for cucumbers, melons and potatoes. Check out this blog post and photos below.

After 3 years of impressive growth, I’m very happy with my Borealis and Cinderella haskap (honeyberry) bushes. The shrubs are now 4 feet tall and wide, and will likely grow another foot or so. This year I was able to harvest about 3 litres of fruit, most of which I spread out on cookie sheets to freeze. I have made a few mini-tarts and we have also enjoyed them fresh with ice cream and mixed into pancake batter.

It’s a good idea to protect young plants in the winter with wire cages as hungry rabbits go after the stems. Another critter that loves the shrubs this summer is the Wee Harlequin Bug, aka Twice-stabbed Stink Bug.

When picking berries, I ended up with bugs in my hands and noticed that many berries were soft, indicating the bugs had been sucking out the juice. I have also been finding Wee Harlequin Bugs (see photo above) on many flowers, often breeding back to back. Apparently they love seeds but from what I have observed, it seems that they cause damage to developing flowers, which then dry up very quickly.

A while ago, I found eggs on my tomato stems – they are yellow, hard and in neat rows. On some of the developing flowers, I found tiny larvae in search of food and again, the flowers have already dried up. Some of my ripening tomatoes have a yellow, soft patch, more evidence of Wee Harlequin Bugs sucking juice.

So what can we do? When I catch a few bugs while doing watering or other garden care, I place them on a hard surface and squish them with my shoe. I have also gone out with a bucket of soapy water and tried to collect them en masse. (One of my organic gardening students took the shop vac to suck them off the raspberry bushes – pretty creative).

According to online info (see Rob Sproule’s article), the bugs will try to overwinter under leaf litter and mulch. As a strong advocate of mulching (since it does wonders in drought years and to feed the soil!), I’m not sure that I will have the heart to “remove plant litter” from my entire yard. It’s likely a good idea to dispose of any heavily infested plants and cut off seed heads that are not being saved.

This spring one of our apple trees finally gave up its ghost. It was a wonderful tree that gave me lots of apples for dried apple rings, sauce and pies. Unfortunately, it suffered for the last few years. The previous owners did not give much thought about its mature size and exposure to harsh winds when they planted it. I built a raised bed over part of the root system because my yard is small and the prime vegetable garden location also had trees, so I took the risk. All of these factors likely contributed to the apple tree’s early demise.

I felt bad about cutting the dead tree down. Amanda from Sprout Farms mentioned mentioned her idea about using it as a birdbath or feeder. So that’s what I did. I trimmed back the dead branches, looking at it from all sides and considering a location for a saucer that would make a good birdbath. After trimming just enough to support the saucer, I inserted an old stick to hold up the saucer, then I secured it with some wire. I also drilled holes into it for pollinators.

Voilà! My dead tree has a new purpose and in permaculture terms, I’m stacking functions.
The tree now serves the following purposes:

·      It’s a trellis for clematis or other vining plants.
·      It holds up a saucer for a birdbath or bird feeder.
·      It’s a support for the hummingbird feeder.
·      It is potentially a home for pollinators.
·      Birds use it as a perch.

Have I missed any other functions or ideas? I’d love to hear from you!