The next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be held on Wednesday, September 16 at 7:00 p.m. in the Sunshine Room at SIGN on North Street. Our special guest speaker will be Stacy Tress from Garden Therapy Yorkton (www.gardenherapyyorkton.ca) speaking to us about “Food Preservation”. This is a very timely topic as our gardening year is heading to its conclusion. Everyone is welcome! And remember, you don’t have to be a member to come to the meetings!
If you have been looking at your yard and you’ve decided you need some extra perennials to fill in the occasional gap in your flowerbeds, then be sure to come to the Fall Plant and Bulb Sale from 9:30 a.m. till 5 p.m. on Friday, September 25 at the Parkland Mall. This is a one day sale, and if we run out of plants, the sale is over! So if you have a specific plant in mind, my advice is to be there when the sale begins for the very best selection! That’s Friday, September 25.
And while we’re talking dates, let’s skip ahead to October, when our local horticultural society will be hosting the Saskatchewan Horticultural Association (SHA) Provincial Convention and AGM, on October 23 and 24 in Yorkton: an exciting event bringing members from hort societies throughout the province together. Just log on to www.yorktonhort.ca for all the details and plan to join us!
If you are looking for prairie-hardy fruit trees for your yard, log on to the University of Saskatchewan fruit program website (www.fruit.usask.ca) and find out what the university has been working on to provide us with better and more varied fruit selection. After being gifted with absolutely delicious cherries this summer, a cherry tree would be high on my wish list! Their site says “The breeding of dwarf sour cherries began in the 1940’s by Dr. Les Kerr. The past 50 years of breeding have combined cold hardiness, dwarf stature and good fruit quality into the final product. The cherry releases by the University of Saskatchewan are a great tasting cherry with a high sugar content. They also have very good potential for mechanical harvesting which is necessary for commercial fruit production.”
What to look for? For just a couple examples, Carmine Jewel is a black cherry that has small pits (which means a good proportion of fruit flesh), few suckers, and produces consistently and well. Mr. Bob Bors at the U of S filed a report that said “many growers reported getting 20 or 30lbs/bush in the fourth or fifth year! Imagine that — right now all I can think of is that delicious jam on toast!
And if you go by interesting names to choose your trees, then you’ll take notice of the “Romance” series of dwarf sour cherries which was released in 2004. Included in the Romance series are Romeo, Juliet (we should have known!), Cupid, Valentine, and Crimson Passion. All these varieties are excellent for nibbling fresh or making jams; Valentine is listed as best for pies, and Romeo is listed as being the best for juice. All have good-sized fruit (the smallest being Romeo at four grams and the largest being Cupid at 6.5 grams).
The U of S also works with other fruits like apples, grapes, haskap, raspberries, and strawberries. It is very worthwhile to check the site, and also to read the excellent comprehensive reports by Bob Bors.
The summer garden as we know it is fading, but the autumn garden is exquisite in his own way. We have that to look forward to! Have a great week!
