Affordable Luxuries...

I’ve known for quite some time now that Men are from Mars and women are from Venus but the other day Arleigh was helping in the shop when a lady asked, How long will this soap last? I try not to say what I’m thinking and take the conversation to bathing and shower habits but Arleigh, the practical one, said, Much longer than a Starbucks Latte She bought 6!

Conspicuous consumption is so NOT cool. One of our retailers showed Jayna a $15.00 bar of soap. Ouch! Well it did come from another country. As a Canadian boutique producer, we don’t have a lot of layers to our company so we can, and will, for now absorb the increased costs in food and packaging supplies that the oil “crisis” has caused. Who knows? Things could change! Maybe the Beatles were on to something…Imagine. …some of the lyrics make sense…

Meanwhile in the garden… the meadow inspired borders are lovely but I’m not sure if Piet Oudolf would be impressed just yet! The ornamental grasses are accented with echinacea, rudebekia, asters, coreopis “Moonbean” With the joe-pye weed and miscanthus gigantea reaching skyward things should look good well into the fall. I just love how the sound and sway of the grasses give such a lively dimension to the garden. Arleigh harvested St. John’s Wort yesterday. The cold spring made it late this year. The basil is doing well and I can see I’ll have a plenty harvest when I make pesto sauce later but for now our favorite summer treat is sliced heirloom tomatoes:, fresh basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper. Yum!

Oh, and the peony poppies are really showing off now. I will be saving seed and sharing it with visitors to the shop in September.