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An email from a gardener on Salt Spring Island took me back to the early days of growing tomatoes in my current garden when he wrote: “My favourite variety is Alicante — a rather small fruit but very prolific.

Dear Debbie: Do you have any tips for adding a bit of the glorious fall to our home without going over the top? It’s a short season, but we love the colours. Daniel Each season of the year introduces us to a different mood.

Dear Helen: Is there a way to prevent brown spots from developing on my anthurium plants? N.S. Anthurium (flamingo flower) plants require high levels of humidity in the air and a soil kept consistently moist.

Dear Tony: Our strata council has engaged in some bizarre activities lately in how it holds council meetings and reports decisions to the owners. Our bylaws have an unusual condition that relates to in-camera minutes.

More wacky weather.

Mirrors play a powerful role in interior design. Their practicality for checking out how you look might be the most familiar benefit. It’s hard to imagine applying makeup and fixing up bed head without the bathroom mirror.

Dear Helen: Can I move perennials now? I have several different types that I want to relocate, including some delphiniums. W.D.

Dear Tony: We have an unusual problem in our strata corporation. We have 308 units in several buildings. Several owners have approached council with a complaint that their strata fees are not correct and want to know how to change them.

A Victoria startup has created an organic dust that kills fruit flies — while saving the worms — in compost bins.

Autumn officially begins on Monday and soon the new year’s seed catalogues will begin arriving.