The Gardens ( I apologize in advance some of the pictures are sideways (?))
It was a sunny hot day in Northern Ontario. 29 degrees celsius is a rare temperature to have during the spring season.
We wore dresses and sandals. Frankie with her little straw hat. We packed bottles of water and pears for the trip.
It was the perfect day to head out to Aidie Creek Gardens. A place to purchase an assortment of plants from flowers to trees, herbs to vegetables and even fruit.
On our way we picked up @earthmother and her daughter. An adventure is often quite fun when I can share it with a friend.
The drive was about half an hour to 45 minutes and upon arrival the sun was in full shine. It was hot!
We chose our buggy and headed on our way to browse the plants.
The most flowers we saw were the pansies. I am guessing they are quite popular in the area. Not my kind of flower but they are nice.
There were nice displays of flower arrangements in the large pots. Some ranged from $22 all the way up to $90!
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Beautiful arrangements they were, but I still prefer to make my own. Much cheaper that way.
It was blazing hot under those tents. I could still feel the sun rays piercing through the tent. If it was 29 outside with full sun, you could just imagine how hot it was in those tents.
After gazing in a few tents and grabbing a few plants, we let the kids have their turn at having fun. We let them play at the itty bitty mini park they have. How thoughtful of them to have that for the kids. We usually spent several hours there so this is quite welcoming for the children.
We were all sweating and for me, it was beginning to be uncomfortable. I saw a woman that was watering the trees, so I made a joke and asked her if she watered humans as well. And even though we laughed she was so kind to water us down. It was so very refreshing and very much needed!
Continuing on our journey I spotted one of my favorite flowers. Fuschias look like such elegant flowers and have a nice variety of colors. I bought a small fuschia plant where the top part is purple and the bottom being pink. The plant is quite young still so there are no flowers to show. I had also grabbed a few different flowers for the raised bed like lily of the valley, different types of lilies, calendulas, some that I don't remember the names of but have little tiny flowers that grow vines (not the climbing ones), ground covers really.
We also grabbed the herbs and veggies that were on the list. Bell peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, spicy basil, lemon balm etc.
When browsing the squash, we found something quite surprising. Some of the seeds were still intact, holding onto the plants leaf. The seeds were coloured blue and red. Chemically treated seeds. @earthmother and I were quite devastated to find this. We thought this little haven of a garden was organic and just beautiful. It was our 2nd year going, just to be crushed knowing that everything was chemical. With the information given, we are not to eat from the plants until 45 days after growing. Not to be fed to animals either. So many questions came to mind. Then A thought popped up. The tomato plant I grabbed has a 45 day growth. I will have to be careful with that. The problem is that this 45 day chemical treatment was never advertised, people don't know this unless you find out like we did and ask questions. We also don't know the age of these plants as well, if the plant is 2 weeks old or more. And then what those chemical carrying seeds put into the soil, now putting in the soil of my garden. Very alarming.
We took another break from the heat. Sitting on the grass in the shade, drinking water, eating pears and just enjoying each others company. It was lovely. We even had a pinecone battle. Frankie filled her hat with pinecones and handed them to me so I could throw them at Tammy and Avia. We had many laughs and lots of fun.
I also tried to take a nice picture of Frankie. She kept pushing me down as to have me lying down and she would be on top of me. I saw what would be a wonderful picture. The background being the sky and the pointy tips of pine trees. It didn't work out very well, Frankie thought it was absolutely hilarious to press her face against my phone and say cheese. Funny girl she is. So I let the phone be and just hugged her, my baby girl
@earthmother took the opportunity to take the shots of this precious moment.
Good memories in the making.
We headed back and paid for our items. This will be the last times we buy edible greens from this place. We will come back for the strawberry pickings only, but before I decide to do that, I will need to know if they spray the crop with pesticides and whatnot.
The one thing I am proud of them for is for their help with reforestation.
All these greenhouses hold thousands of little pine trees in each one. No one can purchase these ones since they are reserved only for the purpose of reforesting all the clear cuts.
The road that I drive on most often has already started being cleared and it is such a hurtful sight. I have great respect for trees and to see these images breaks my heart. I have no words for this kind of destruction. The homes of animals destroyed, the earth being ripped apart root by root.
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Can any of you feel the pain just from looking at these pictures? Even though Aidie Creek is growing pine trees to help these areas, it will only help the industries as they will use these trees to cut them down again in 20 yrs. Also, @earthmother has brought up that they only grow pine trees as it is bigger money. If the purpose was to really reforest the area, perhaps it should be more than just pine trees. They are not the only tree that make up the forest as she has stated as well.
Despite the downs we have experienced throughout the day, we still had a great time and made the most of what we had.
Now we take the next few days to plant our newly purchased items. I have plants already started from seeds and planted in the greenhouse and outside as well and these new items will fill in the gaps of what I have not grown myself. With everything I now have twice the amount than I had last year and I hope that I will have enough items to give me new seeds and some food throughout the winter.
Happy gardening everyone ^_^
Didn't know it got that hot up there. Sounds like a nice mini-adventure with the kids though.
Lets set up a time to meet on Discord so I can tell you about your astrology chart. Feeling rather embarassed about not getting this done sooner. So let's do it. Blessings.
Don't ever feel embarrassed. No harm was done, only happy times ^_^.
Let me know times that work for you, for me I think mornings are better during the week. Weekends are a bit harder as I have all my kids, less chances of me being on here. I can do evenings as well once the kids are sleeping :)
OK I'll get back to you probably Sunday or MOnday to pick a time once I know what my week is going to be like. Blessings.
I like how they have some pine trees set aside to plant where others have been cut down/removed/etc. So many times people don't think of that.
It is a good great thing that the do for sure. I don't know of other places in the area that do it but I hope there is more.
It seems like you had a great day. I've never thought to ask the nursery where I go for my veggie plants (tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers) if they were sprayed. I was going tomorrow and I will be sure to ask. Thanks for pointing that out in your blog.
Yep it is best to be very careful when it comes to knowing about the food we are eating. It may look safe to eat but it is incredible what they can do to our food in forms of chemicals and gmo stuff. It is insane that we now have to watch out for the food we eat this bad. Like looking with a telescope.
As always a fabulous day! Another great day for the memory books! I am glad wet caught the seed. I will have to look at the stokes catalogue. The strawberries are all propagated from their own root stock. That's what we bought. But i suspect they use fertilizer. But they have weeds that got through the straw mulch, because i took some lambs quarters to plant here... to eat..lol
Avia is still talking about the pine cone fight! We planted her plant. I say 2 weeks before lucy finds it...lol
Tomorrow night is frost. So we are planting ours on saturday! Looking forward to seeing all your pictures! How are the zuchinni? Did they perk up?
Well one zucchini is flowering and one squash as well. 1 plant doesn't seem like it will survive. The others may have a chance. I covered them last night and I left them covered still. It won't be warm tonight as well so they remain covered till tomorrow it seems I wonder if I were to pant some more zucchini and squash seeds if there will be enough time for them to bear fruit??
The only things I have planted from our purchase was the ones I was able to put in the greenhouse. The rest is still in the greenhouse. After the cold nights, flowers and all will be planted outside.
You can always tent and cover the plants to prolong the growing season a couple of weeks :)
I am so excited for you!!
I should tent it....