Silver Creek Nursery Blog
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Steph Muma on Jul 23 2025
There are lots of factors that can impact a tree’s growth and fruit-bearing capacity, (such as soil nutrients, watering, etc.), however, we are specifically looking at summer pruning for control of a tree’s size, shape and fruitfulness. The following factors will help determine how much and when we do summer pruning:
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Steph Muma on Jun 21 2025
Making an elderflower oxymel is a great way to preserve the flavours and healthful qualities of elderflower blossoms for use out of season.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
Elderflower Fritters and Tempura
by Steph Muma on Jun 18 2025
Have you ever tried using elderflowers in-season for a special weekend breakfast of elderflower fritters? Or would you like to try making your own elderflower tempura to pair with sushi or a salmon budda bowl?
Elderflowers are about to be blooming and this is your chance to plan ahead and try out both!!
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Steph Muma on Apr 29 2025
This blog post will be a quick one; I just want to get a little something foodie posted since we've been so busy with spring goings-on (plant orders, dormant grafting, planting, etc.) that we haven't posted any recipes over the past two months!
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
Pruning an Old, Neglected Apple Tree
by Steph Muma on Mar 08 2025
If you’re ready to rejuvenate your old fruit trees, or you’ve inherited a space that has an old tree (or forgot to prune your trees for the past decade - it happens!), you just need to spend some time learning about pruning and you're in the right place!
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Steph Muma on Feb 21 2025
There are key things it is worth knowing for certain berries & vines, and that’s what we’ll cover below. We will look at any relevant details for all seasons of pruning (dormant spring pruning and/or summer or fall pruning) for each berry/vine type. Remember that everyone prunes a bit differently, including professionals, so you can do (or experiment with) what works best for you!
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Steph Muma on Feb 14 2025
It’s so easy to bake desserts with fruit, but they can also make wonderful additions to your main meals! To that end, here is a quick aronia berry vinaigrette recipe that can very easily be modified to suit what you’ve got on hand in your kitchen and pantry.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
How to Spring Prune Your Fruit Trees
by Steph Muma on Feb 06 2025
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If you read our first pruning blog post in this series, you’ll already know how important spring pruning is for your fruit trees of any age, but in particular for your fruit trees’ first 3-5 years of life! Today we’re going to go into lots of detail about how to do dormant spring pruning, tree anatomy, and the terms you’ll hear orchardists saying, so buckle up!
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
Warming Winter Spiced Quince Jam
by Zack Muma on Jan 30 2025
The optional quantities above do reflect the final amounts that I put into my 2kg of puree, to give you a good idea where you could start. My recipe turned out quite lovely with the spices being present and noticeable, but not at all overpowering.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
Planning Your Most Important Spring Orchard Task
by Zack Muma on Jan 27 2025
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It’s also one of the most common mistakes new fruit tree growers make! Many of our customers question why we tell them to prune away approximately 1/3 of their young 1 or 2 year old tree as part of the planting process after their purchase, so we thought we’d begin our pruning blog series with an outline of why you should care so much about pruning, and what you should begin planning for.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Zack Muma on Jan 09 2025
Originally, Wassail was tied to the tradition of wassailing, an old Yuletide tradition of drinking and salutation along with door-to-door charity-giving or used to ensure a good harvest the following year. Wassails are typically made with hot mulled ciders, ales, wines and spices, adding apples, oranges or other fruit as well.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Zack Muma on Dec 19 2024
This recipe was loosely based on an Austrian Apricot Dumpling recipe. I chose it because I wanted to find a way to showcase the flavour of American Persimmons a bit more, instead of losing it in a baking recipe that is packed with holiday spices such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
American Persimmon Experiments
by Zack Muma on Dec 14 2024
Hi there! I’m writing this blog post quickly to provide additional details for any folks who are inspired to try out their own version of Candied American Persimmons or want to hear more about my small experiment with “hoshigaki” style dried American Persimmons.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Mouse Paxton on Nov 22 2024
The cheesecake is delicious with a relatively mild but pleasant pawpaw flavour. It has been a huge hit at the nursery and my pawpaw-loving girlfriend loved it! This was my first attempt at a no-bake cheesecake and found it pretty easy.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
Apple Chutney: Quick, Simple and Delicious!
by Zack Muma on Oct 10 2024
Lightly spiced (unless you want to tweak it with the optional additions) with sweet and tangy flavour that pairs well with cheese platters, grilled cheese (who wants a fancy grilled cheese thanksgiving dinner?!) or turkey sandwiches (great for your traditional thanksgiving dinner leftovers!)
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Steph Roth on Oct 02 2024
Bare-root planting involves using dormant plants that are shipped without soil around their roots. This method is economical and often results in stronger plants, as they adapt well to their new environment. On this blog post, learn how to plant your bareroot and potted trees from Silver Creek Nursery.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Zack Muma on Sep 26 2024
Despite this they are delicious when freshly picked (especially sun-warmed while up on the ladder doing the picking!) and the lack of care just showcases how easily one can get useable crops from a simple peach seedling! This year, I just had to try out something to preserve them since the crop was bountiful, so I chose a peach honey butter recipe from my mom’s collection.
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
Juglone Tolerant Plants: A (Somewhat) Quick Rundown
by Steph Roth on Mar 01 2024
...There are somewhat recent studies showing that healthy soil high in organic matter and mycorrhizal fungi can reduce the toxicity of juglone, suggesting that many more plants could grow successfully below Juglans in a healthy ecosystem...
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
A Year of Plenty (of Perspective)
by Steph Roth on Nov 11 2023
Something not discussed often enough when planning an orchard is how the orchard might serve you beyond the conventional mindset of exclusively yield per acre of marketable pounds of fruit...
Silver Creek Nursery Blog
by Mouse Paxton on Mar 23 2023
In late spring of my first year at the nursery, I was amazed at just how abundant the Grandma Barbara-Anne rhubarb was! I love strawberry rhubarb pie but had never made it myself. After bringing home several stalks of rhubarb, my friend and I decided to bake some pie together! My friend has an eye for the finer details and had the great idea to use the leftover bits of crust from the lattice to make roses and a bow.
Recipe: My friend and I used the recipe here to make the pie! The egg wash and coarse sugar sprinkled atop the crust really add to the visual appeal.
Staff Reviews: Greatly enjoyed by everyone at the nursery! The pie tasted as good as it looked.