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How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Locally Sourced Food
We’re continuing our series on how your garden helps the planet this week by looking at the impact of growing your own food or purchasing locally sourced food. If you missed our first posts in this series, check them out here: Composting, Trees, Plants and Garden Design, Lawns. Obtaining sustenance is a major focus of every life form – it takes up a large part of our collective time and resources and so it makes sense that these activities would make an impact on our planet. In today’s post we will explore how much of an impact food production has on our planet, and how we can make changes for…
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Backyard Garden: Surviving the Weather
Well, it’s been awhile since the last backyard garden update and a lot has happened this season! To set the stage for those who don’t live on the southwest coast of British Columbia: it’s been a wild year. We had a cold spring that ran quite late, which changed almost like the flip of a switch to a couple of very warm spells including a record-breaking heat wave that went above 40 C. That hasn’t happened here since recordkeeping began and the effect on the whole province has been profound. As you can imagine, the plants in the garden have reacted in varying ways – read on to find out…
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How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Composting
We’re continuing our series on how your garden helps the planet this week by looking at composting. If you missed our other posts in this series, check them out here: How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Lawns How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Trees, Plants, and Garden Design. What is Composting? Composting is the process of taking your organic waste and turning it back into nutrient-rich soil. Compost is a fantastic addition to your garden beds or pots and you can make your own compost whether you have a yard or a small space under your kitchen sink! Gardening Know How states that “to understand the composting process, it helps…
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How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Trees, Plants, and Garden Design
We’re continuing our series on how your garden helps the planet this week by looking at the elements of trees, plants, and garden design. If you missed our first post in this series, check it out here to find out about lawns and their environmental impact: How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Lawns. Ways Your Garden Helps the Planet What comes to mind when you think about a garden: carefully cultivated, visually appealing flowers? Shade trees and benches along paths? Perhaps a pond? Do you think about how you, your family and friends will use the space? In reality, there are many impacts that your space has on the natural…
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How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Lawns
It surrounds our homes and buildings, lines our roads and sidewalks, and covers our parks. But have you ever wondered why or how we ended up with a flat green mat covering the dirt in our outdoor spaces? I hadn’t really thought much about it until watching the movie Biggest Little Farm. In the film, the plot that is eventually transformed into lush, productive land teeming with life begins as a former monoculture farm operation that has sapped the life and energy from the soil. It was inspiring to see what could be done, made me wonder what could be achieved on my little bit of land, and also made…
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Winter Garden 2020: Last Update
As always, things didn’t go entirely as planned with our winter garden plants. However, we were able to harvest a few things through the winter. Read along below to find out what worked, what didn’t, and what we’ll grow again! Biggest Success The best result was probably our brussels sprouts. In fact, we gave some away as we had too many! I used five or six stalks for soup through the winter and could tell that their flavour improved after the weather turned cold. I actually thought they made a beautiful feature in my garden through the cold months and hadn’t wanted to cut them all, so there are still…
