SHIFTING ROOTS

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Resolution Update: March 2017

March 3, 2017

Resolution Progress

There’s nothing like sharing your goals with 1000 of your closest friends to keep you accountable.  Today I thought I’d let you know how my resolutions are panning out so far.

[Read more…]

Kristen Raney

Kristen is a former farm kid turned urban gardener who owns the popular gardening website, Shifting Roots.  She is obsessed with growing flowers and pushing the limits of what can be grown in her zone 3b garden.  She also loves to grow tomatoes, but oddly enough, dislikes eating them raw.

www.shiftingroots.com

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Filed Under: Get Healthy, New Years, Uncategorised Tagged: blogging, exercising, goals, progress, resolutions, routines, Ryde YXE, self care, social media

One Mom’s Story to Better Health

January 31, 2017

Get healthy after kids! Advice from a mom who's been there.

Today we’ll be talking to Amelia Francais about her recent weight loss and journey to better health.  Amy is a wife, mother of 3 kids, band teacher, and amazing friend.

Fun fact!  She was the very first friend I made in university, as we clicked during our music auditions.  You can imagine our joy the first day of classes when we realized that we both made it!

I wanted to share Amy’s story because a lot of my readers are Moms of littles and likely in the same boat.  Even if you’re in another phase of life, there’s something in Amy’s wise words for you too.

[Read more…]

Kristen Raney

Kristen is a former farm kid turned urban gardener who owns the popular gardening website, Shifting Roots.  She is obsessed with growing flowers and pushing the limits of what can be grown in her zone 3b garden.  She also loves to grow tomatoes, but oddly enough, dislikes eating them raw.

www.shiftingroots.com

2 Comments
Filed Under: Get Healthy, New Years Tagged: childhood, Children, fitness, health, healthy eating, mom, pregnancies, pregnancy, small children, weight-loss, workout

The Week I Took Care of Myself

January 18, 2017

THE WEEK I TOOK CARE OF MYSELF

Like many Moms of little kids, I put myself last. It’s part of the territory. You want to make sure your littles have everything they need and are ready for the day. Then there’s your job (or your full-time mom gig!). And your partner. And each others families. Or your church/music group/sports/volunteering/some other extra curricular activity that you try to squeeze in. Some weeks it feels like there are not enough hours in the day.

[Read more…]

Kristen Raney

Kristen is a former farm kid turned urban gardener who owns the popular gardening website, Shifting Roots.  She is obsessed with growing flowers and pushing the limits of what can be grown in her zone 3b garden.  She also loves to grow tomatoes, but oddly enough, dislikes eating them raw.

www.shiftingroots.com

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: New Years, Uncategorised Tagged: Exercise, new years, self care, Self love

No-Stress Brunch Menu & Party Plan

January 8, 2017

Cooking for a crowd can be stressful, but not when you make this easy brunch. I love having guests over, but when I first started entertaining, I often found myself stressed out with cleaning and preparing food at the same time. I didn’t know how to time things out, so the food wouldn’t be ready until an hour after everyone came. Did I mention I suffer from hanger? Grumpy hostess=grumpy party.

Now that I’m older and hopefully wiser, I’ve figured out how to solve most of these issues. This years New Years-ish brunch with friends was our easiest one yet!

brunch-menu

This menu is designed to keep you out of the kitchen and visiting with your guests.  The sausage and pancakes take a bit of time, but they can easily be fried before guests arrive and left to warm in the oven.

[Read more…]

Kristen Raney

Kristen is a former farm kid turned urban gardener who owns the popular gardening website, Shifting Roots.  She is obsessed with growing flowers and pushing the limits of what can be grown in her zone 3b garden.  She also loves to grow tomatoes, but oddly enough, dislikes eating them raw.

www.shiftingroots.com

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Fun, New Years, Recipes, Simple & Easy Tagged: Bacon, Brunch, Casserole, easy, Eggs, French toast casserole, No-stress, Pancakes, quiche, sausage, simple

Secrets to Keeping Your New Years Resolutions

January 2, 2017

new-years-resolutions

What’s the secret to making your new years resolutions stick?

Don’t make any!  Kidding!!

Write it down, put it in your calendar, and work on it everyday.

Seriously, its that simple.

[Read more…]

Kristen Raney

Kristen is a former farm kid turned urban gardener who owns the popular gardening website, Shifting Roots.  She is obsessed with growing flowers and pushing the limits of what can be grown in her zone 3b garden.  She also loves to grow tomatoes, but oddly enough, dislikes eating them raw.

www.shiftingroots.com

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Fun, New Years

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Welcome!

Hi, I'm Kristen and I help new gardeners learn to grow their own vegetables and beautify their yards. I also share recipes that use all that delicious garden produce. Grab a coffee (and your gardening gloves) and join me for gardening tips, simple recipes, and the occasional DIY, all from the lovely city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

P.S. First time gardener? You'll want to download the quick start gardening guide below!

Recent Posts

  • 26 Best Flowers to Grow for Dried Flower Arrangements
  • 17 Perennial Flowers That Love Shade
  • How to Design a Cut Flower Garden in Raised Beds
  • How to Start a Cut Flower Garden
  • How to Make Watercolour Decorated Sugar Cookies

Welcome!

Hi, I’m Kristen and I help new gardeners learn to grow their own vegetables and beautify their yards. I also share recipes that use all that delicious garden produce. Grab a coffee (and your gardening gloves) and join me for gardening tips, simple recipes, and the occasional DIY, all from the lovely city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Connect with Shifting Roots On. . .

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Find What You’re Looking For. . .

Privacy Policy

Are you gardening in containers this year? When y Are you gardening in containers this year?  When you're shopping for vegetable seeds, look for varieties that have names with words like patio, tiny, small, etc.  While lots of vegetable varieties will do fine in a container, you'll have an easier time with ones that are specifically bred for that situation.⁠
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📸 by @blushbrandphotography
I'm living the pepper dream in this photo. While I'm living the pepper dream in this photo.  While these ones are a bit on the small side, who doesn't want ripe peppers in July in zone 3?!?! ⁠
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Over the years I've gotten better at growing peppers, and I promise I'll spill my secrets in February when it's actually time to start them.  Until then, get yourself all or one of my four favourite varieties: ⁠
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🌶️Carmen⁠
🌶️Escamillo⁠
🌶️Candy Stripe⁠
🌶️Hungarian Hot Wax⁠
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Do you have a favourite pepper variety?⁠
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Have you flipped open a seed catalogue lately? It Have you flipped open a seed catalogue lately?  It's so easy to get completely overwhelmed, especially if you're new to gardening.  Why are there so many varieties of everything and which ones do I choose?⁠
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Here's how I try to narrow it down.⁠
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🌤️ Short growing season like me?  Try and prioritize varieties that have short dates to maturity.⁠
🥗 What do you or your family actually eat?  While I think you should always try a couple of new things, there's no sense in planting a giant garden filled with vegetables that you're not going to cook with. ⁠
🥒 Do you care whether your vegetables are heirlooms or hybrids?  Heirlooms are the kind that have been around for 50+ years and you can save seeds from.  Believe it or not, this year we're prioritizing hybrids for some of our garden.  The Hermit @mgsraney is obsessed with production this year, so anything that's going in "his" greenhouse better be able to produce a lot.  I'm using more heirlooms in my "glamour garden" as we call it, because I want things that are pretty and I can save seeds from.⁠
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What do you prioritize when you're picking out seeds?⁠
Last week we started thinking about our plans for Last week we started thinking about our plans for cut flower gardening, now this week we start thinking about plans for our vegetable gardens.  Unlike cut flowers, there's not as many vegetables that need to be started ridiculously early.  However, it's still fun to plan and dream and get your thoughts sorted.⁠
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I'm curious--what size of garden do you have to work with?  Are you on an acreage or farm, city backyard, or do you have a couple of pots on an apartment patio?⁠
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As for me, I have quite a mix.  I have my container garden on my backyard deck, the small cut flower garden in my yard, then vegetables in raised beds.  We also garden at my Mother-in-law's acreage, so there's a giant garden over there where we're figuring out how to grow food on a larger scale.  Then finally, sometimes my Mom grows things for me in her garden if I'm nervous that I'll ruin them in my own garden--call it a backup garden if you will.⁠
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📸 by @blushbrandphotography
I hope you've enjoyed this week of chatting about I hope you've enjoyed this week of chatting about the best flowers to plant in a cut flower garden.  There's so many options, these 5 that I talked about all week don't even come close.  If you need more help creating a small cut flower garden, I created this plan intended for a raised bed (but you can plant it in-ground too.⁠
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Head over to my insta links page on my profile, and you'll see the button to click on that will take you directly to it.⁠
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#cutflowergarden #cutflowers #raisedbedgarden #raisedbedgardening  #growyourown #greenthumb #raisedbeds #urbangarden #urbanfarm #squarefootgardening #slowflowers
Hey friends! There's a lot of new faces in this l Hey friends!  There's a lot of new faces in this little corner of IG, so I wanted to introduce myself.  My name is Kristen and I'm the gardener & content creator behind Shifting Roots.  I'm wife to @mgsraney and mom to 3 kids, ages 8, 23 months and 7 months.  Needless to say, our house is BUSY.  I garden in zone 3 in Saskatoon, SK, so if I can grow it in my short growing season and cold temperatures, you probably can too.⁠
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Here's a few fun facts, can you relate to any of these?⁠
🍅I don't like raw tomatoes, but I grow a ton of them because I like tomato sauce.⁠
💐I probably sound like every flower is my favourite flower, but my two favourites are peonies and zinnias.⁠
🌈I can't pick a favourite colour--I love so many of them in different circumstances.  If you force me to choose, I think I've got it narrowed down to coral and turquoise, but even then I still want to throw in yellow, emerald green, fuchsia. . . ⁠
🖤Even though I love colour to the moon and back, you'll often find me wearing black and white in real life, because it's just easier and I don't have to think about it going together.
When you think of rudbeckia, do you think of those When you think of rudbeckia, do you think of those maybe-slightly-boring flowers with yellow petals and a brown centre? (Please don't come at me with your pitchforks if that's your favourite flower!!)⁠
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Rudbeckias, like these orange and burgundy ones, can be so much more!  Pair them with sunflowers & amaranth for an especially striking late summer bouquet.⁠
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🤞I'll have amaranth and sunflowers this year to play around with.⁠
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Need help planning the cut flower garden of your dreams?  It doesn't have to be complicated.  Grab your copy of Cut Flowers Made Simple and have pails of flowers like this one at your fingertips.⁠
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See my link in bio and click on the ebooks button.
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