GROWING your own vegetables is both fun and rewarding. All you really need to get started is some decent soil and a few plants. But to be a really successful vegetable gardener — and to do it organically — you’ll need to understand what it takes to keep your plants healthy and vigorous. Here are the basics.

“Feed the soil” is like a mantra for organic gardeners, and with good reason. In conventional chemical agriculture, crop plants are indeed “fed” directly using synthetic fertilizers.

When taken to extremes, this kind of chemical force-feeding can gradually impoverish the soil. And turn it from a rich entity teeming with microorganisms insects and other life forms, into an inert growing medium that exists mainly to anchor the plants’ roots, and that provides little or no nutrition in its own right.

Although various fertilizers and mineral nutrients (agricultural lime, rock phosphate, greensand, etc.) should be added periodically to the organic garden, by far the most useful substance for building and maintaining a healthy, well-balanced soil is organic matter.You can add organic matter to your soil many different ways, such as compost, shredded leaves, animal manures or cover crops.

While sales reached slightly above the ten-year average for the month, a lack of sufficient inventory in the Fraser Valley continued to put pressure on homebuyers in March.

The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board processed 1,664 sales of all property types on its Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in March, a decrease of 24.8 per cent compared to the 2,213 sales in March of last year, and a 20.1 per cent increase compared to the 1,385 sales in February 2018. The ten-year average for sales in the Fraser Valley in March is 1,658 transactions.

Of the 1,664 sales processed last month 410 were townhouses and 460 were apartments, together representing 52 per cent of all transactions in March.

Active inventory for the Fraser Valley finished at 4,796 listings last month, increasing 10.5 per cent month-over-month, and decreasing 0.2 per cent when compared to March 2017.

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Whether or not the weather really reflects it, spring is here. We all know what that means: spring cleaning!

This annual occurrence is, let’s face it, a chore in every sense of the word. So, to keep the hard work to a minimum, here are some great tips that will make spring cleaning as easy as possible.

• Get the right dustpan
  We all get frustrated by that little line of dust which just won’t go into the dustpan. Using a dustpan with a rubber edge will minimise this problem.

• Leave your stove until last
  When spring cleaning your kitchen, start to the right of your stove and then move clockwise around the room, finishing with your stove. This will prevent you from spreading dirt and grease from the stove into other areas. It also gives you time to soak any removable bits, making them easier to clean.

• Whistle while you work
  Well, you don’t necessarily have to whistle, but you should find a way to entertain yourself, such as listening to music or a podcast or chatting on the phone, while doing your spring cleaning. This will keep your mood perky and your work brisk.

• Group wayward items
  As you spring clean, you will doubtless find items in places they don’t belong. Rather than returning them to their proper places one at a time, take a laundry basket and put them in there. Once you are done, you can return them all in one go, saving time.

Stats are calculated comparing March 2018 to March 2017 .

To see more information on local stats in Abbotsford, please click here.