The wet weather that came through last Friday lifted enough to make Garden Day at Freeman’s Country Supply just about perfect. It was obviously spring and time to get growing.
The garden centre at Freeman’s is stocked with one-hardy perennials and fruit trees and Freeman’s once again brought in some knowledgeable and informative speakers to help put some giddy-up in your gardening.
Lunch was available from Jerry Watson, so folks could have their midday meal while they got their questions answered by the experts.
There were “Garden Talk” seminars through the day with guest speakers Vivien Browne from West Boundary Sustainable Foods and Resources Society (FAR), Barb Stewart from the Boundary Invasive Species Society, Andres and Michael Dean from Gaia Green Organic Fertilizers and – as Joanne Eek put it, “back by popular demand”—Cheryl Ahrens, Master Gardener from Bron & Sons Nursery.
A representative with Grower’s Supply, a primary supplier for Freeman’s, was there to talk about the latest in irrigation and agricultural tools.
Andres Dean explained that Gaia Green is locally produced in Grand Forks. The ingredients come from a variety of locations.
“One of the core distinctions that we’re doing is feeding the soil instead of trying to directly feed the plant. Trying to create very healthy soil that has all of the various nutrients and micronutrients and enzymes and stuff like that available by feeding the ecosystem in the soil, which is a symbiotic relationship between the many, many thousands of bacteria and fungi, and nematodes that eat the bacteria, and larger organisms that eat the nematodes. So it is an ecosystem—invisible to the naked eye and we are trying to create a very healthy ecosystem so that the plants coming out of it can be extremely healthy.
“The plant is what it is all about here. With plant health you get better resistance to disease, frost.”
“We are locally produced and nationally distributed,” added Michael Dean. “From the west coast of Vancouver Island to St. John’s Newfoundland and from Leamington, which is the southernmost point in Ontario to Inuvik and points in between.
We sell to garden centres, organic farmers, municipalities, commercial landscapers and our product tis about supporting and improving plant vitality. We are about making plants as healthy as they can be. The healthier they are the more natural resistance they have to disease and pests.”
Gaia Green will be celebrating a quarter century next year.
Joanne called Barb Stewart and her work, “just amazing. It is one of these things that people need to go and listen to her all the time because there is always some more information that she has.”
Stewart is willing to go to people’s ponds and check for invasive species that might have been inadvertently introduced.
Joanne said that Freeman’s is considering working on weed identification by displaying a weed of the week.
“Because people do not know what these things look like, and we are all needing to be educated.”