This Macintosh apple tree at Splatsin is struggling out of an infection of Horsehair Canker, with her nurses: two currant bushes (you can spot the one behind). It’s harder to spot the […]
Everybody Needs a Friend
One Hundred Years
A hundred years ago, it was the modern fashion in the US Okanogan to train two trunks from every apple root, at a narrow angle to each other. The practice died out […]
Time to Plant the 2023 Okanagan Garden
Yup. These lovely scallions were planted in 2019, and overwintered twice. The white onions were mature a month ago, as you can perhaps see, but the red onions are perfect right now. […]
Hazelnut-Cherry Hybrid
So, this is what you do. Plant a cherry tree. Leave it or fifty years. Over time, it is fifty feet high, and her daughters have formed a grove, around her. They […]
How People Learned to Stay Still: a Story Old and New
From many, one. From one, many. Just not all at once. Here is Siya? blooming: a cluster of white-petalled flowers catching the eye because so many are close together. Not all bloom […]
Settler Culture = Terroir
Here’s the grape terroir in the Similkameen Valley. That’s right. There are no grape plants. They would die here. Should one plant them (and someone has across the road behind us), one […]
Dancing in a Fur Coat
Sure, the picture is not precisely in focus, but what the heck. The bee is the star here. Look at her answer the call of the balsam root. Look at the balsam […]
New Apple Varieties Under Lights
Here they are. Hanging out with the sweet peppers. I have my eye on that little Spigold. She has such a giant mother, twice as big as anyone, yet is so tiny. […]
Of Wine, War and Peace
Wine is largely made in laboratories. What is grown in the field is grapes. The result is a decreased ability for the plant to distribute potassium where needed. The additional remove of […]
A Test to See if You are Indigenous or Not
The Okanagan is an industrialized landscape. Note the cloned apple trees, the herbicide to kill weeds (80% of the available space), the poisonous fence posts, the wire supports to hold the trees […]
Okanagan Okanogan 