According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the average Multiple Listing Service house price in Canada is forecasted to grow by only 5.2 per cent in 2008, a more moderate increase than the estimated 10.6 per cent growth from 2007.

Only five per cent of Canada's mushrooms are grown in the Maritimes, but that's enough to ensure you can usually find fresh, locally grown specimens at your local markets. While the most commonly grown variety is the white button (agaricus), there are also farmers growing the specialty ones like shitake, oyster, king, maitake and enok.

Summer is vegetable time. Little plant babies are starting to peek out of their soil beds lifting their leaves toward the sun, starting the process of photosynthesis and sending down roots deep into the soil in search of nutrients, literally connecting heaven and earth.

Too often when we decide to add shrubs to our landscape we focus on them as they flower, and forget how they will appear in the remaining months when their foliage is their main show. That is not the case if you plant alpine currant green mound, for its foliage, a bright green colour on stout, stiff stems, is beautiful in itself.

If you see mounds of a beautiful, blue bell-shaped flower growing in a garden in southeastern New Brunswick, chances are you have stumbled on a most popular perennial which locals logically call the bellflower.