Gardeners' Club
We have a very unusual strawberry growing at our dacha, the Kupchikha variety. What's so unusual about it? It's all there—it's not a strawberry, not a wild strawberry, but a zemklunika, a hybrid resulting from crossing the European Muscat strawberry and the large-fruited garden strawberry. The Kupchikha variety was developed by Soviet specialists in the 1980s at the Bryansk Agrarian University. It... 
Here in Siberia, the honeysuckle is ripening. This year, the harvest is good; all five of our bushes bloomed profusely in the rather cool spring. In fact, the blooming lasted for about three weeks, with some petals falling while others were just opening. Despite the rain and cold, industrious bumblebees helped pollinate the delicate, light-yellow flowers. The very first berries seemed so delicious... 
While winter is still looming, many people are browsing online gardening stores, eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring and the opportunity to plant new plants in their gardens. I decided to share a story about a rowan variety I planted a couple of years ago. Maybe it will help someone make a choice. I've wanted a rowan tree near my house for a long time; I remember seeing large rowan trees in my schoolyard. They looked so beautiful... 
I've been wanting to plant blueberries for a while. So, I decided to give it a try. I bought several briquettes of acidic high-moor peat, soaking them in an old plastic tub. I also prepared two bags of coniferous sawdust. Although I chose old sawdust, it wasn't fully rotted yet. This kind of sawdust can be used; it acidifies the soil, but when it decomposes, it actively... 
After purchasing our dacha plot, we were introduced to new plant species. One of them was the Shepherdia, but we didn't recognize its name right away. A strange tree, more like a tall, unkempt shrub, resembling an overgrown lilac bush, only with whitish, oblong leaves, immediately caught our attention. We pondered what it was for a long time, unsure whether to remove it from the plot... 
According to one folk belief, if there are a lot of ants in the fall, the winter will be harsh. On our property, they walk in even, dense rows, resembling black trails from a distance. They even enter the house, looking for shelter or supplies. Since the end of August, we haven't been able to get rid of these insects, despite trying countless different remedies and... 
It's apple season in Krasnoyarsk, and every garden plot is laden with apples and wild apples. The branches, laden with the harvest, bend all the way to the ground. Gardeners gather the harvest by the bucketful and stand outside stores and along the roads, selling the wild apples. The most popular and delicious apples are the Vospitannitsa variety—beautiful, dark red—and the Uralskoye Nalivnoye variety—bright yellow, golden wild apples—... 
When my husband bought the dacha, there was an unknown bush growing in the corner of the property. It was unsightly, weak, and didn't resemble either a flower or a berry. He wanted to uproot it, but his mother-in-law, out of curiosity, took the sapling back to her village. She planted it in the black soil of the huge vegetable garden (thankfully, it was June) and began watering it daily—"watering" it, as she puts it. 
This berry is the most popular among summer residents. In some regions, it's called "strawberry," in others, "strawberry," and in some, "Victoria." Garden strawberries, or strawberries, are my favorite. When I was little, every summer during strawberry season, I'd pick a bowl of the fragrant berries, wash them, and have them for breakfast. Now, as soon as my grandson arrives... 
In the spring, while trimming broken and dried branches on my blackcurrant bush, I discovered dark holes in the center of one of the branches. Some of the branches were bent and weakened, some had dried buds, and several branches hadn't blossomed at the ends and remained dry. I remembered that last year, several branches on this same currant bush remained bare...