The feathered kind, not the drinking kind. Now that our landscape is maturing, we are seeing an increase in the amount and variety of wild life directly in our back yard. While we could often hear Wild Turkey calls, this has been the first year we have seen them wondering our lawn. The turkey is… Read more »
Slight Relief In August
While August was still slightly warmer than normal there was a little relief from the intense heat and dry weather of July. Our average high in August was 26.5C just slightly above normal (25.1C). Rains in late July and early August helped bring back lawns and sustained the gardens. We averaged 77.8mm of rain in… Read more »
How To Grow Longer Beans
It has been a tough year for us green beans wise. We had a very cold and wet spring and our new second garden was not quite ready, delaying our first planting. And, since our new garden was not fenced in like our first garden, the rabbits and deer decided to eat our young sprouts… Read more »
A Hot Dry July
It was certainly a great summer to enjoy a backyard pool – hot, dry and sunny. July started out warm and just kept getting warmer. Temperatures were mostly above normal the entire month with little reprieve in the evenings. We experienced an unbelievable 13 days with temperatures over 30C, and that was before factoring in… Read more »
Perfect French Fries
Having grown our own potatoes for the last three years we of course make our own french fries. I’ve discovered three secrets to making the best french fries: Cut the fries the same size — we like ours about 1/4 inch in size, the longer the better. Soak the cut fries in ice cold water… Read more »
Harvesting, Drying and Storing Garlic
Look out all you vampires it’s garlic season! I harvested our garlic crop on July 27 this year. When to harvest garlic is a judgment call. Pick your garlic too early and the the bulbs will be too small and the cloves will be unformed. Too late and there will not be enough protective layers… Read more »
New Summer Salads
Summer is here and the garden is already providing an abundance of zucchini as well as Swiss chard and kale greens. While I love grilled zucchini and greens fried with garlic I was looking for some other ways to use these vegetables to add some new interest to our meals. And summer salads are always… Read more »
Cooking With Garlic Scapes
While they may not be new to everyone, we discovered a whole new food this week. I have made it a point this year to use everything we can from the garden. So when I cut the tops of my garlic this past week I decided to google garlic scape or garlic flowers and see… Read more »
Best June Blooms
I think June has to be my favourite month in the garden for blooms. While the early spring bloomers are a sight for sore eyes, June blooms just pop with amazing size and colour. The dramatic effect of Beauty Bush, the deep colours of peonies and weigela and of course the scent of lilacs and… Read more »
Accidental Colour Combination
I’m not very good at planning plant colour combinations. I’m more of a shape and structure person. I can visualize the beds shapes, pathways and plant shapes that I want but often have more difficulty when it comes to combining colours. Maybe that is why I do not have a lot of perennials in my… Read more »