Here is your dreary, rainy fall day pick-me-up:  A recipe for nourishing and delicious Garden Potato Leek Soup!  Of course you can use food from the shops, but striving for locally grown, or better yet your own-grown food, is the best!

In the heat of the summer, a freshly-cut flower bouquet is at risk of drying out and not lasting as long as it could.  Read on for my top tips to keep your bouquet refreshed and looking as beautiful as possible for as long as possible!

Blue Flower painting from my sister.

Yesterday was my sister’s birthday and I couldn’t help but remember one of our most interesting childhood moments together.  We were out walking and for some reason we were talking about blue flowers.  Actually, we were questioning whether blue flowers even existed because in our young lives we hadn’t seen any. 

In the exact moment that we were declaring blue flowers didn’t exist, we glanced down to see something blue... At first we thought, Oh! A blue flower!  But then it moved!  To our utmost surprise, we had stumbled on a small blue budgie.  The little bird must have escaped through someone’s window.  We were astonished at the coincidence of our conversation with this bizarre discovery.

One of the things I hear from other women is that they don’t want to pick their own garden flowers for fear of losing the colour and beauty outdoors.  I completely understand this!

It wasn’t until I read the book "The Cut Flower Patch" by Louise Curley that I learned the best way to overcome the guilt of picking your own garden flowers is to actually plant some of them with the intent that you will be cutting them. 

This is one of the early tips that started me on my flower-growing journey!  I wanted to be able to cut my own flowers and not feel like I was leaving a barren garden in my wake.

When you intentionally grow a few extra flowers for cutting, you don't have to feel bad about taking them from the garden. 

Just as we are gearing up for spring and looking forward to longer days and spending more time in our yards, so too are the birds!  They are busy pairing-off and seeking the perfect site to build a nest in time for egg-laying and raising their little broods. 

On Vancouver Island, we are lucky to have the native Chestnut-backed Chickadee living in the forests and visiting our backyards. In BC, there are 4 species of Chickadee, but only the Chestnut-backed Chickadee lives here. 

Whether you are new to gardening or already have an active green thumb, growing flowers for cutting may not be something you have thought about including in your garden. I know when I first started my home garden I was completely focused on growing food (aside from a couple of tiny marigolds to help fend-off unwanted pests).

Now, over ten-years later, I still grow food but flowers are where it’s at!

Have you ever picked fresh herbs from your garden? If you have, you know the rewarding sensation that comes from fresh, aromatic herbs readily available at your fingertips…fresh basil for pasta, fresh mint for tea…these are the truly fine pleasures in life. 

Whether you’ve got a large yard or a small patio, you can easily grow and reap the rewards of your own herb garden right outside your door. Read on for five fun reasons to grow an herb planter! 

If you grew dahlias in your garden this summer, now is the time to pop them out of the ground for safe keeping until next spring. Once they’ve gone through a couple of hard frosts, the plants are ready to be stowed away for the winter.

While some varieties might be fine left in the ground, our damp West Coast winter months place us near the edge for dahlia hardiness… it’s better to protect them than have them turn to mush in the wet, frosty soil.