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Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto

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You are here: Home / Archives for Recreation / Tricia's Garden

Winter is coming soon!

November 3, 2010 by Tricia

I can’t believe that it’s already November. It seems like the last couple of months have just flown by.

It’s getting colder here too. Our furnace has been on several times each day over the last week or so. I guess it won’t be long before I’ll be pulling out our winter coats, hats and gloves.

I was looking out my kitchen window at my backyard and some of my neighbors backyards and I realized that we still have a lot of work to do to prepare for winter. We’ve done some yard work such as putting away the patio table and gathering up the solar lights and so on, but we still have to tidy up the garden beds and empty the pots and planters that held all of the annuals.

My neighbors are much further ahead then we are. One of our neighbors plant their whole backyard with veggies in early summer and they just cleared everything out a week or so ago so their yard is just soil now. Another neighbor was working in his backyard today, putting away his plant pots and other gardening tools and making sure the hot tub cover is secure and he moved his BBQ right outside his patio door for easy winter barbecuing.

Hopefully it’s not too cold this coming weekend, because we’re going to have to get out there and get all of the work done that needs to be done before winter arrives.

Oh and on Saturday I saw my first snow! How sad. My husband and I were standing in the kitchen and we both saw what we at first thought was rain, but then we realized that it was snow falling. It actually snowed hard enough that the ground was wet for a while afterwords. Thankfully it melted right away!

Is it getting colder in your area too? Have you seen any snow yet?





Filed Under: Canada, Gardening, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: annuals, BBQ, cold weather, first snow, garden beds, melted, neighbors, patio table, plants, potted plants, solar lights, tidy garden, winter, yard work

A Beautiful Fall Day

October 16, 2010 by Tricia

It was a nice Fall day here in Toronto. My husband and I decided that since it was so nice out we’d better get outside and get some of our outdoor work done.

I spent some time tidying up the front garden beds. Some of the roses had grown and their branches were starting to block part of the front walkway.

My husband has spent some time over the last month repairing the parging on our foundation at the side of the house whenever the weather has been nice enough to do this kind of work. He had finished repairing the parging, but it needed to be sealed so he spent some time sealing the foundation this afternoon.

It’s supposed to be nice tomorrow as well, so maybe we’ll do a little bit of work in our backyard garden. I know that my husband wants to take our Patio table apart and get it stored for winter.

Winter … man I can’t believe I’m saying that word already, but I guess it’s coming – and soon. It will really only be a couple of weeks, and then we’ll be outside hanging our led christmas lights. That’s definitely something we need to do before it starts snowing.

Did you have nice weather in your area today? Did you get outside and enjoy it? Are you like us, trying to get some yard work done before it gets too cold?

Filed Under: Canada, Gardening, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Toronto, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: autumn, fall, foundation, garden, garden beds, parging, pruning, roses, sealer, sealing, Toronto, walkway, winter, yard work

Product Review Etiquette

June 11, 2010 by Tricia

Do you do product reviews on your website or blog? Do you receive products to test and keep? I do the occasional review, more in the past than I do lately.

Most of the time when I do an actual product review it’s an item that I bought myself and I’m just writing about my experiences with the product. One example of this would be the post I wrote just after I bought a Shark Steam Blaster (not that happy with it overall) or my discussions about our new front load washer and dryer (still extremely pleased).

Occasionally I’m contacted by a company and I’m given a product to test and then later write an opinion piece. I haven’t had many of those and I certainly don’t accept all offers for example I probably wouldn’t accept a clinicalliex review . I generally only accept products that I can actually get some use out of and that I will use regularly. In the past I’ve received a Nokia smart phone from a marketing company, bath soaps and skin care products, coffee and a few other food items or coupons for free and discounted food and beverage products, a photograph turned into a canvas, and a special window tint that I used on our very bright south facing kitchen window. There’s probably a few other products but those are the ones that I can remember at this moment.

One reason why I’m writing this post today is 1. that I’d like to do more reviews (a couple a month maybe) and 2. I just received a product that I’m going to review on my gardening blog.

In the past all the products that I’ve received to try out and review have been completely free and the one that I received early today was supposed to be free, however I was extremely surprised when the delivery person told me I had to pay the duty. It was a product shipped from the US to my home in Canada and I guess the company didn’t cover the duty and taxes.

I’m a little miffed, but when I think about it I’m getting a product that costs over $100 for free so it wouldn’t kill me to pay the almost $13 duty and taxes charge. Still, I think the company should have warned me that I’d have to pay these charges. I’ll be contacting the person who arranged the review to tell him about the Duty and taxes I had to pay. It’s possible that he either didn’t know about these extra charges or that it didn’t occur to him that my being in other country might incur these kinds of extra charges.

I’ll chalk it up as a lesson learned. the next time a company contacts me and offers me a product for free I’ll ask if there will be any shipping charges or duty.

Anyway, I’ll be reviewing the item that I just received on my gardening blog sometime next week. It’s a Black and Decker 24 V cordless Trimmer Edger. Definitely something that we’ll get some use out of. Oh, and I’ll be coming up with a giveaway too. The company said that I could give away a trimmer edger to one of my readers, so I guess I’d better start thinking about an interesting challenge for my giveaway. Any ideas?

If you do product reviews have you ever experienced something like this? Say a shipping charge, Duty or taxes?

Do you think it’s fair to have the blogger pay these extra charges or do you think the company sending the product should cover all charges?

Filed Under: Blogging, Canada, Cool stuff, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Sales and Marketing, Toronto, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: beverages, cellphone, charges, duty, etiquette, Food, garden, home, items, nokia, opinion, product review, review purchases, shipping, skin care, taxes, test, use, use regularly

Rainy days

June 2, 2010 by Tricia

It’s raining raining raining! I’m not going to complain about the rain though – we need it! This has been one of the driest years here in Toronto in a long time and my garden is loving all the rain.

Actually as I said in some of my recent posts we spent ALL of this last weekend tidying up the garden and planting new plants. We also spent a good portion of the weekend before last working on the garden, setting up the outdoor furniture and putting in the solar lights so now that it’s raining cats and dogs I’m happy that my new plants are being watered.

The last week of May was really hot here too and we were starting to water every evening so this rain is going to save us some money on our water bill too.

How’s the weather in your area? Are you happy sometimes when it rains or do you hate it? I just hope that the rain stops by the weekend .. I’d like to get out and enjoy the slightly cooler weather we’re having if I can. I think this summer’s going to be a really hot one!

Filed Under: Canada, Gardening, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Toronto, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: cooler, garden, hot, humid, need rain, new plants, nice, planting, plants, rain, raining, watered, watering, weather

The garden is a lot of work at this time of year!

June 1, 2010 by Tricia

I’ll bet that some of you have been wondering where I disappeared to these last two weeks. Well, I can’t say that I went far! I guess I’ve been in the garden – trimming, tidying and planting, planting, planting!

Oh and recovering from each and every garden outing for a day or two! My back is acting up again and all the bending involved with taking care of a garden is just aggravating things.

It’s so bad today that I can barely get up and walk around. I dreaded taking the dog out a few times today because she tends to pull on the leash … and that makes my back scream!

At least the garden looks fantastic. Almost all of our roses (60 + rose bushes) are in bloom. The lavender is also starting to bloom as is one of our Peony plants and several of our Clematis. Everything looks great.

Our vegetables (well most of them) are planted as well, and with all the hot weather we’ve been having I expect to be eating a lot of salads and using several tomatoes in our meals sometime soon.

Now I have to get to work and do a search for a good price on some Branson tickets for the end of July. Chris’ brother wants to meet us there for a family get together. So we’ll see what I can find.

Ok time to take some Advil and put a heating pad on my back!

Filed Under: Back Pain, Canada, Chronic Pain, Gardening, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Toronto, Tricia's Garden Tagged With: aching back, back, blooming, clematis, flowers, garden, garden beds, lavender, planting plants, recouperating, roses, Sore, time

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