The Pantry is on TV! In the summer of 2013, I had the opportunity to chat with Jack Etkin of Shaw TV’s Citizens’ Forum here in Victoria, BC, about organic gardening. We ended up filming three installments, actually, because there was so much to talk about! Have fun watching the first episode today. We’re looking…

Whether a tree falls in the forest… or your wooden compost bin falls apart: To Nature, it’s the same thing. The body of a tree, cut up or intact, is a valuable source of carbon and other nutrients, and a whole crew of decomposers large and microscopically small are ready to transform this bounty into…

To All Customers, Supporters, and Friends of the Pantry in 2012: Thank you, thank you so much for this fabulous past year! Granted, you saw the last newsletter in February, and here we are on New Year’s Eve – time sure flies… So what on earth have I been up to? Well, here’s a long…

The chickens experienced their first snow last month. It was very amusing to watch them traipsing through the white stuff and trying to eat some. I made sure that they had warm water to drink, plenty to eat, and extra thick bedding during the cold weather, and amazingly they are continuing to lay eggs too!…

Ten days away from the winter solstice – the garden is fast asleep, resting under a thick blanket of leaves and replenishing its strength. At this time I imagine a great pendulum slowing down as it reaches its highest point, and pausing there for a moment, before starting to swing the other way on the…

When making aerated compost tea, you can of course simply extract the microbes that are present in the compost. But, as you probably know, if you add certain foods to the brew, you can also multiply them. The foods also add plant nutrients and minerals. Multiplying aerobic microbes means they need to breathe oxygen, so…

Happy Spring Equinox! I know, it’s been an on-again, off-again roller coaster ride here in Victoria, with all that snow just a month ago and temperatures still hovering in the single digits. But the birds and flowers are now out in force and they can’t be wrong, can they?

Here we are now, midway between winter solstice and spring equinox! The skies are still grey, yet buds are swelling everywhere and the birds are starting to make a lot of joyful noise. A few days ago I went out into the garden late at night. I stood in the darkness transfixed, listening to that…

Summer has come and gone and the July newsletter never even happened… But today I am back and very happy to announce that mycorrhizal fungi are once again back on the Pantry shelf. After much searching for an alternative to imported products, I have now switched to a large Canadian supplier who makes a decent…