Having obtained some “historical data” from the Weather Network concerning the last decade, I find we haven't received any real extraordinary amount of rainfall from March 1 to June 21. Apparently, it just seems like it. However, with the exception of 2008, we are looking at one of the coolest springs in quite some time. Cool and wet are just what fungi like so it should come as no surprise that heat loving garden veggies aren't growing well. Insect development is delayed.

A couple of fruit tree notes here then: It’s time to apply control measures against the western cherry fruit fly. Weekly protection is required at least until you harvest all the fruit. There is not too much you can do about the peach leaf curl fungus on your peach or nectarine trees unless you have an old bottle of Fruit Plus (15 per cent ferbam). With that said, you can pick off some of the puckered leaves and apply a Copper spray during the dormant season after the leaves have fallen off. Remove the fallen leaves as well.

On a positive note, we still have what I would consider to be excellent planting weather. About a week and a half ago, I planted 100 bare root apple trees out to the field and they’ve all done wonderfully. Now that greenhouse traffic has slowed some, I'm going to plant our flower beds. It's my Father's Day tradition to put some nice colourful beds together, which helps to clean out the greenhouses as well.

Outside in the nursery, I'll have one more order of nursery stock come in this week to help fill in the blank spots. There are lots of great looking plants left. A few need repotting for summer so as to reduce overall water consumption and the amount of time spent doing it.

A lot of people ask me how long a containerized plant can spend in a pot. Well, figure a year to root in a liner that is placed into a gallon pot. That will take another year or sometimes two to fill into that pot. They could be three years old in a gallon, perhaps four in a two-gallon pot. It is hard to get the stem size of a small tree to thicken up, so they are often field grown for a few years and then lifted and planted into a container for sale. Some of the maples I've been growing here are eight to 10 years old, depending on how fast they grow. Everything gets repotted along the way.

Now, lacking a crystal ball (to see the future), production plans are often changed mid-stride. That's why some of the nursery stock gets ordered in. With a much shorter production time, the greenhouse crops are all grown right here either from cutting or seed.

Hope you have a great start to summer!

Evan and Wendy Davies own Beltane Nursery at 2915 Highway 3 in Erickson.