Time to Prune

‘Tis late winter and that means pruning season.  Whatever you are pruning, fruit trees, berry bushes, roses or any sort of bush, you can get free instructions on the web.  You can also go to the Stake Peach Orchard, they have excellent demonstrations on how to prune their trees and what you learn can be applied to what you have in your yard.  It is also my understanding that we have some amazing gardeners in our ward.  I’m too new to know who they are so I’m hoping you will respond and tell us who we might call for some more personal advice.  I am always happy to come and offer my amateur tips.

I love pruning.  It is so helpful for the plant and it is a miracle that cutting away parts of a plant actually make it stronger and more beautiful.  I also love that it’s kind of hard to mess up too bad.  Plants are usually very forgiving and you can ALWAYS learn from your mistakes and try again next year.

Don’t have the time to research?  Tip 1:  Leave space for the fruit, if you have branches too close together to let the fruit grown properly then get rid of one of the branches.  Tip 2:  Can you reach the fruit?  Unless the tree is old or already taller than you, you can cut the little branches within reaching distance.  Tip 3:  Drive the neighborhood and see what they should look like.  I love driving down 700 East between 3100 and 2700 N.  There are fruit trees and berry bushes getting pruned right now close enough to the road for all to see.

March's focus: FOOD STORAGE

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God" (D&C 109:88)

This month we are going to sort of focus on food storage, but we'll talk about anything and everything that YOU want to talk about.  We have a canning date at the Ogden Home Storage Center on Saturday, March 19, at 1pm.  We have 1 station for 1 hour, but things have been so slow there that we can probably stay longer or take another station if we need to.

I worked in the office of that cannery every Saturday for a year during the last "panic".  It was so much fun and easy.  If you've ever wanted to serve a mission close to home on your schedule then the cannery is a great place.

If you go to providentliving.org and follow the links to food storage order form then you can see the offerings at the cannery.  Some of the tasty favorites are the apple slices and hot cocoa.  If you want some products then fill out the order form and give it to me with a signed, blank check.  It needs to be blank because they are sometimes out of some things or their prices change without notice.  I've done this a lot and can tell you that blank checks are by far the easiest and most efficient way to do this.  You get copies of all receipts so you know I've been honest.

For the record, I'm new to blogging, so .  . . be paitent and participate.  Send me any pictures and posts you would like to add.  Or you can just comment under the post.  Also, if you have anything around the house you want to get rid of you can offer it to the ward members here.  We had one of these in our last ward and it was a great success.