This makes it 200!

Not a good blogger at all this year, but the garden survived anyway. It was another hot summer, but the frost dates were farther apart, so that was good. Fruit-wise, again no cherries - it seems to be a fungal problem, not frost! So I bought big on chemicals for next year - dormant oil spray and a fungicide. I am determined to have cherries, especially as I now have several more shrubs...the three I started with have produced progeny, and late in the summer I bought two tiny, tiny sprigs - 'Cupid' and 'Valentine' so now I have five varieties and about 8 or 9 shrubs. Raspberries were a washout this year - I usually can count on them, but I think they really need a big manure feed for next year. Apples were terrific! Had an enormous crop on the golden delicious, and a good few on one of the cordons (don't remember the variety), probably 2 dozen. And one of the pears, planted last year, produced 8 pears! They were delicious too.  We made tons of apple cider, over 40 litres in all. I tried making 'apple cider syrup' because I had so much cider that I had no room for it all in the freezer! So, to make it, you boil down the cider for HOURS, like making maple syrup....I started with about 8 litres and it made 6-1/2 cups of syrup. It tastes nice, but I am not entirely sure it was better than just drinking the original cider! It does make the house smell nice, though.
The Veseys sale was in early November; I bought mainly tulips and crocus, managed to get them planted as well! I potted up the plants to spend the winter in the garage as that worked out well last year- got 4 hellebores (2 'Confetti Cake', 1 'Blushing Bridesmaid', 1 'First Dance') 6 peonies (Itoh 'Candy Stripe')