Do you want to grow your own vegetables, herbs and fruit, but don’t know where to start?
Have you already started food gardening, and just need some advice to increase your success?
Growing your own food at home can be one of the most rewarding and satisfying things you do. Adding vegetables, herbs, and fruit to your yard can create a beautiful oasis in the middle of a suburban or urban setting. The less time and distance from garden to kitchen, the fresher the ingredients and the better the taste! You can also reduce your carbon footprint and save money as food costs rise.
That all sounds wonderful, but there are plenty of challenges to home food gardening as well. Climate, soil, pests, and other environmental variables can make it difficult for beginners (and even veteran growers!). It can be very costly to keep replacing plants that struggle to survive in tough conditions, or to lose a crop entirely to pests. Very often beginner gardeners can be discouraged and disheartened in their first season or two.
That’s where some expert advice can go a long way, both to increase your success (and therefore satisfaction) and to ultimately save time and money. There are multitudes of gardening books, blogs, videos, and other resources available to home food growers. Many are great and valuable tools, especially if they are focused on your particular region and type of gardening. Ultimately the most useful advice will be that which is most tailored to your location and situation; the best way to accomplish this is to have an expert come to your backyard!
This is what we offer: an initial site visit and ongoing consultation from an experienced food grower, to help you succeed in starting and maintaining your own backyard kitchen garden. we can help guide you in choosing what to grow and where to grow it, taking into account your goals and wishes as well as a realistic assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the location. If you have fruit trees and/or berries already established in your yard, we offer expert maintenance and renewal pruning as well. In everything we do we always try to keep in mind the principles of organic growing, permaculture and sustainability. We are based in the Cowichan Valley on southern Vancouver Island, and can make site visits over most of the south Island region.