One of my #gardengoals for this year is to pick more flowers from the garden. Even though there are actually lots of flowers growing there, the bouquets I picked during the past year could be counted on the fingers of…
One of the main principles of permaculture is diversity. Taking a hint from nature and combining plants into diverse polycultures instead of growing row upon row of the same thing makes great use of the space available, discourages disease and…
Mid-March is usually the time when we can start sowing and planting outside but it’s also the last possibility to plant bare-root trees – here are some things that we’re up to in our garden this month! For an early…
Our supply of home-grown butternut squashes is dwindling. The good thing about that is that it frees up space under our bed which is where I’ve been storing them much to the chagrin of my son who’s the one doing…
If you’ve watched my video about the 7 winter squash varieties we’d grown in 2016, you’ve heard me talking about what I call ‘one-meal-squash’ varieties. I prefer squashes that don’t get too big so that we can use a fruit…
Even though I still call our garden ‘the new garden’, we have a full year of tending our dream plot behind us and it may be time to drop the ‘new’. I can’t wait for the 2017 season to start…
Every fall, I plant lots of spring bulbs. Even if I forget to plant garlic (and I still have not planted any this year!), I will plant some crocuses, tulips and daffodils, together with some more obscure spring bulbs like…
One of my goals this time was to try new recipes instead of falling back on a couple of old favourites. Even though I cook dinner at least six times a week, there are times when I feel uninspired and…
When we bought our garden, there were two mature trees there: one big hazel and an even bigger pear tree. We tried to find out what variety it was, but all the answer we got was ‘probably a cooker’. We…
This week I am planning to do a new installment for the ‘A week of eating from the garden‘ series where I record what we harvest at a particular point in time and how I use the fruits and vegetables…
If this fall had a theme, it would be ‘tarte tatin’. I’ve been trying to crack the secret to the perfect classic apple version and have made it several times to that end. I am in no way unhappy with…
Dear friends, it has been a long time and I apologize for that. The thing is, ever since I handed in my manuscript last year, I’ve felt a bit like a wrung out cloth – all the words gone. I…
If I could grow just one vegetable (and I really hope it never comes to this), it would probably be lettuce. And if I could grow just one variety of lettuce (and again, I really hope it never comes to…
Early on we knew that a pond would be an important feature of our new garden. The main reason was to attract more wild life, especially slug-eating frogs and toads. But I also wanted to try growing edible aquatic plants…
This is the point in the year when I feel like control is slipping away from me. There are parts of the garden that are perfectly tidy and well managed and some that are…not. Since I am a bit of…