Tea Tray Work

Last January i saw an old oak tree that had been cut down in our neighbourhood. It looks like it was rotten. Anyways, there was snow all aver the ground still, and the pieces were totally water logged. I called bill and we met up to scavenge what we could. some pieces were way too heavy, but i managed to find some pieces that i thought would be suitable for a new tea tray. a year ago i attempted to make one, and while its really pretty, it’s an utter failure as a tea tray. so anyways, i need a new one. The wood has been drying for almost a year now in bills garage, and its time to start working on it. so lets see what work I’ve done so far.

SO here is the piece. look at the wonderful features it has.

this had a lot of potential.

So to start, we used a regular saw to cut an inch or two into the log.

This was the most gruesome part, since the line had to line up perfectly all the way around, and it would dictate my edge on the final piece. here is bill hacking away at it.

We then used a large swede, or bow saw to cut thru the middle. this was a 2 man operation, and in total the whole process took us probably 2 hours or so. but the final piece turned out great!!

This final piece is about 3 in thick, much nicer for a tea tray. ALl this previous work happened last weekend. so this weekend, i got to work with creating the guide for the router. this is what that looks like.

and a first pass of routing out just the edges ended like this.

the following day i finished routering out the inside. i created a wood board to cover my template, it worked really well.

and with the midde cut out. good start!

It looks so great already. I’m super excited to keep working on this. I’m really glad i got a more powerful router. That wood is so dense and hard. its creating a lot of sawdust as i cut it.
anyways, i shall keep everyone up to date as i continue to work on this!

Tomato Hot House Tour

Earlier this summer i got the privilege of touring a local tomato hot house. I’ve always been super excited about how commercial operations work, and especially hot houses. They are needed in Vancouver, as the summer hot season is so short, and this is the only way to extend the growing season. i was blown away at how tomatoes are actually grown commercially, and some of the innovation that have gone into producing more yield. and i was struck by the beauty of all the rows of tomatoes.

so, lets see what they look like!

Here they are being packed up ready to ship around BC

walking into the hothouse. its really cooler walking among the plants, due to all the moisture they are releasing from the leaves.

can you even see the end of the row?

look at them all!

more cherry tomatoes

bumble bees are the best tomato pollinators, so they are brought in by the box load

and a last few pictures i took

anyways, i had a wonderful time, i learned so much, and if i ever get the area to “really” grow some tomatoes, I’m set!!!

Passion Fruit Maintenance

I kept alluding to this post, but i guess here it finally is. WARNING! this is serious gardening talk. be advised its not for the faint of heart.

One of my big task i set for myself this year was to prune the passion fruit I have in israel. so here is what it looked like when i got there, after 2 years of rampant growth.

Look at that monster! its got tendrils everywhere! you couldn’t find any fruit. and it was a huge mess of vines.
since the jet lag hit me pretty badly this trip, i would wake up around 6 and work for a few hours before everyone else was ready for the day. my first job was to untangle the monster. i did this by trying to isolate single vines, and roll them up keep them from breaking.

this is what that process looked like. this is probably 2 days of work? can you still see the tangle in there? see my tea in the bottom left hand corner. you have to be civilized while pruning.

i think the next day i was making progress.

this method worked really well for keeping the vines from breaking.

some of those piles got pretty big. this was one of the main trunks. most of the fruit sets on new growth, and there were some fruits still on these larger vines, so i paid special attention to keeping these alive.

look how thick this trunk is after only 2 years of growth. CRAZYNESS! i guess thats what the wonderful israeli heat does for plants. so exciting.

the main trouble was as this plant was not trained when young, there were vines growing in really odd shapes. i had to try to wrangle them into some semblance of order.

and another view, things are starting to look much better. from this point on, i bunched up all the vines, and hung them off the wire.

then i started unrolling the vines and looping them back and forth along the guide wire. getting all the vines bunched together, and off the ground, allows me in the future to prune much easier. you just cut everything a foot below the guide wire, to promote new growth and the currently bunched vines become the main trunk lines. the few hanging vines with fruit can be seen hanging down and those would be cut in the future to prune. and now when fruit falls (when its ripe) you can actually see it and collect it! genius!

so heres what it turned out to look like, after probably 6 mornings worth of work.

Since i was jet lagged, and even though i was on vacation, waking up every morning in order to garden in the cool morning air, was wonderful. once the sun hit you, it was way to hot to do any yard work, so the morning was a perfect time. the sun would also set way to early to get any work done in the evenings. it was a lot of work, but i had fun wrangling that plant. and i guess i learned my lesson, make sure the thing is trained properly. i guess i could of just chopped it and planted a new one, but this was a lot more fun! i look forward to a lot more tasty passion fruits in the future.

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