Imagine meeting a middle-aged woman at the local coffee shop. She’s wearing a straw hat and a bulky trench coat.

With a wink and a smile, she leans closer and whispers, “Pssst… wanna buy some fertilizer?”

Well, this is pretty much how I’ve been handling pickup orders since leaving my shop in Vic West in November 2023 (okay, minus the trench coat).

Oh, I absolutely loved having the shop, and I miss it dearly — but it really was too large and had been getting quite expensive.

With the pandemic-induced gardening boom squarely in the rearview mirror, I came to realize keeping the shop no longer made financial sense.

So I rented a much cheaper storage container for the bulky items, packed up my office, bottles, and shelves, and moved operations back home!

Which is good fun: In fair weather, I can pack parcels with a view of my garden, and the cat is delighted to have his personal service monkey around. But it also poses some spacial and organizational challenges around receiving deliveries, preparing products, and filling orders. Last but not least, it means meeting you, my precious local customers, in a very different setting — the above-mentioned coffee shop. No more drop-ins and convenient front porch sales at my current home. So far, you have all taken it in stride.

What threw me an extra curve ball is that Google Maps declared me “permanently closed”. They have it wrong: Although, yes, I left the shop, I’m nevertheless very much still in business!

I’m working on that little wrinkle. One of the avenues to directing web traffic to the correct information is by asking for Google reviews. So I’ve been doing just that, and you keep delivering! I’m very grateful to everyone who left their reviews so far, and if you too love what I do, feel free to add yours — thank you so much!

At the same time, my colleague and former business neighbour Susanne Osmond and I teamed up to make select Pantry products available at her remarkable Vic West specialty shop, Gardener’s Kit. We may collaborate even more closely in the near future: Stay tuned…

As you can see, the Pantry keeps on rocking and rolling (even with the punches) in an organic kind of way, always evolving and adapting to a changing environment.

Fall, of course, is the ideal planting season with soils still being warm and full of life, rains generally becoming more dependable, and the longest period for root establishment before the next stressful hot and dry period. Remember to apply mycorrhizal fungi and liquid kelp to give your plants the best start in life! And then it’s going to be time to watch the leaves fall, blanketing the soil with a nutritious and protective mulch layer…

Please note, I’m away from September 14 through 28, 2024. So if you need anything soon, place your order now — I will process all current orders by Friday, September 13. Orders placed after that date will be shipped upon my return at the end of the month.

Thank you as always for your continuous support! Happy gardening!