Canada Blooms 2020

Canada Blooms 2020 [CANCELLED]

UPDATE Mar 12: Due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, Canada Blooms is suspending its 2020 show as per the recommendation of Ontario Ministry of Health and Toronto Public Health for gatherings of more than 1000 people to be suspended. Come and visit us at Canada Blooms and get a taste of Spring!

From Friday March 13 to Sunday March 22, come and explore unique and exciting gardens at the Enercare Centre in downtown Toronto. We’ve been hard at work preparing for a backyard garden display featuring our Caja planters with lots of beautiful, edible plants. You’ll see how easily the Caja can fit into almost any space and be used to grow currants to chard, perennials to peppers, and lots more.


This year’s theme is “Birds of a Feather” and we were inspired by plants that provide food, shelter, camouflage, and habitat for birds. These include hot peppers, bird peppers, choke cherries, and other fruit trees. Birds are an important part of a healthy ecosystem, and instead of excluding or trying to eliminating them from our garden, we want to encourage them to be a part of the garden by providing things like bird baths, habitat trees, fruit trees, and other edible plants for them to enjoy. Food gardens are often perceived to be at odds with birds, so we wanted to show ways in which birds, plants, and humans can coexist in a shared space.

Here are a few photos from our backyard garden display:








Some other unique and interesting features of the garden include a number of fruit trees including apple, pear, peach, plum, and cherry. We’ve included a unique cacao shell mulch for the stone beds that help to make your garden smell like chocolate! Not only does it help to keep moisture in the soil, it suppresses weeds and encourages a whole host of natural beneficial bacteria, fungi, and worms to your garden.

As part of participating in this show, we’ve put together a few special promotions for visitors to the show and to friends/supporters who aren’t able to make it in person.

  1. For visitors to the show, you can take home one (or multiple) of our planted demo boxes at the end of the show starting Sunday March 22nd at 4pm. Boxes are $60 inclusive of tax. You can reserve your box by speaking to us during the show or emailing robert@thegrowingconnection.com to let us know which boxes you’d like. Some boxes will include tomatoes, kale, chard, peppers, alpine strawberries, mixed herbs, pea microgreens, currants, and more.
  2. Other display items are also available including fruit trees, a blue ceramic birdbath, wood and metal stands at a reduced rate. For the best price, contact us and arrange a pickup at the end of the show starting Sunday March 22nd at 4pm.
  3. From Friday Mar 13th through to Sunday April 19th, you can purchase our Caja basic kit for $70 each + tax, including free delivery across the GTA. Our Caja Ready-To-Plant kit, which includes a package of organic fertilizer/dolomite and 60L of our premium potting soil mix is also available for $90 each + tax, including free delivery across the GTA. For the Caja basic kit, please use code “TGC2020” for online orders and for the Caja Ready-to-Plant kit, please use code “CanadaBlooms2020”.

We hope to see you there!

Caja planters in greenhouse

Upcoming Events February / March 2017

Come and find The Growing Connection at a number of upcoming gardening events as we prepare for the 2017 growing season. 

Saturday March 4: York Region Seedy Saturday
Join us, along with other garden suppliers for interactive kids activities, local, fresh, delicious food, inspiring speakers, and a community seed exchange. 10am-2pm @ the Newmarket Community Centre. 200 Doug Duncan Drive, Halls 1 & 2.

There is no admission charge, but a donation to the York Region Food Network would be appreciated!

Sunday March 5: Evergreen Brickworks Seedy Sunday
Seedy Sunday is a one-day event that brings together scientists, agronomists, plant breeders and community seed savers to share knowledge about developing varieties of open pollinated seeds that are well-adapted to local communities. This year’s event will include seed and gardening vendors, a Community Supported Agriculture fair, gardening workshops, and a seed exchange area where hundreds of seed packages are traded. Bring your own seeds to trade or buy new ones onsite.

Sunday March 5, 2017 | 10:00am–3:00pm
Evergreen Brick Works, 550 Bayview Ave. Suggested donation of $2

March 10-19 Canada Blooms
The Growing Connection will have a number of our Caja planters incorporated into some of the feature gardens. We will also be giving 2 workshops on Thursday March 16th.

Creating a Pizza Garden
Fafard Gardening Workshop – G32
Thurday March 16th @ 1:00 PM

Let TGC Managing Director Robert Patterson show you how you can create your very own container pizza garden. Discover the best plants that will give your pizza pizzazz and you will swell with pride when you tell your friends that you grew it all yourself. This workshop is free, but space is limited, so we suggest that you sign up using the Canada Blooms Demo Workshop Form so that you are not disappointed.

Growing Health and Taste at the Doorstep
Hortus TV Garden Solutions Stage presented by Harrowsmith (Hall G)
Thurday March 16th @ 3:00 PM

The values and rewards of the freshest, tastiest foods is unassailable. However, today’s urban settings and hectic lifestyles often mean that these rewards, enjoyed it at their peak, are often lost. You’ll learn about the most space/labour/cost efficient methods, and how to bring fresh production of food, aromatics and ornamentals directly into daily life at home, at the workplace, and at schools, hospitals, clinics and seniors’ residences.

This presentation – which touches all our five senses – will demonstrate how easy and valuable it is to integrate fresh food production within virtually any workplace or institutional environment.

 

 

Kitchener Seedy Saturday 2017 Review

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Kitchener Seedy Saturday this past weekend. It was a warm February day and we were happy to give a short presentation on “Growing Food At the Doorstep” to everyone who came out to our early 9:15 presentation. We look forward to making Kitchener/Waterloo a hub of future activities particularly in terms of our “Connection” part of our name, with new schools and organizations growing food at the doorstep.

Want a garden in your backyard or for your organization? Connect with us and we’d love to help you enjoy health and taste with a Caja garden at your doorstep.