Lots of amazing floral arrangements but this was by far my favourite.
One product that seems really popular this year (We also saw it later at Humber nursery) were crazy led trees. Some of these were interesting but I don't see where I would ever put them. It did remind of of a Christmas story that Lisa tells often so I snapped a picture to pass on to her.
"Hey Lisa, you think you dad will want these for the holidays?"
As with all the home/garden events in Toronto there was the rock balancing area. It always amazing me at the ability of the people that do this but I have to wonder why they bother doing it?
And of course there had to be the comically large Muskoka chair. This one if for you Sarah. To match the pic we have of you ;)
Tashy started to slide backwards while trying to get up
After wandering through the entire event we decided there were some things we just had to get. Sadly I didn't take pictures at the show but I have some from when we got home.
First off was the beetle larva fertilizer by a company called Better World.
I had first heard about this stuff at the herb seminar 3 weeks ago and I have been very concerned about the nutrient content in my pots the last little while. Especially since starting to read my organic gardeners manual book. They had a 1L bag on sale for $25 so I decided I wanted to try it.
I have also been a little concerned about my worms because they seem small and they aren't really eating food as quickly as I was expecting them to (from all the readings I have seen online). One of the possible causes was a lack of the bacteria that actually does the decomposition of the materials. After talking to the sales guy for a few minutes I got the idea that perhaps by adding a small amount of this into the worm bin I could actually increase the around of good bacteria in the bin and speed up decomposition. This is possible because the fertilizer is kind of like probiotic yogurt in that all the bacteria that helps to make it are still alive (but dormant).
The next amazing thing that we found (and probably my favourite booth of the day) was a mushroom saver ceramic pot.
This pot was made by a very friendly lady who runs Earth Works Pottery. This little pot is a decient sized pot to keep mushrooms in before you use them. The pot goes in the fridge and helps to regulate the amount of moisture so the mushrooms don't get slimy and gross or dry out and shrivel up. The Lady was telling us how she tested it with a bad and found that the mushrooms lasted much longer compared to a simple paper bag.
The pot is simply a nice unglazed pot that allows excess moisture to be wicked away from the mushrooms or provide more moisture when the mushrooms start to dry out.
As I said this was by far my favourite booth because there were so many cool items there and they were so amazingly well made that I just wanted to buy them all. Included in this were a cool salt jar, a cake cup with recipe right on the cup, ceramic wine glasses that are supposed to neutralize the acids in wine and make it a smoother drink, adorable brie baking trays, and even baked apple trays that were the most amazing dish to serve single portions of baked apples to guests. The really nice thing about the owner (Barbara Taylor) was that she was friendly and talkative. I spent a good 10 minutes babbling on about wanting to get unglazed ceramic water spikes that I could use to water plants with. I may just email her later to see if I can get those custom made.
Another cool booth was that of Humber Nurseries. They aren't the greatest nursery that I know of but the are very large and they have a really good selection of things to buy. The booth at the show didn't have much, just a lot of seeds and fertilizers. But I did find something I was looking for. I seed starting mini greenhouse.
Now if you have paid attention to my pictures from a couple weeks ago you will probably be wondering why I was looking for this as I got almost the exact same thing from my herb seminar. What my herb seminar lacked was the clear plastic cover and I am hoping that this can be used to help deal with the fact that no matter how much water I give to my plants, by the time I get home the plants are dry and wilting. I am fairly certain that of the 9 herbs I planted at the herb seminar I have none left. The few that did sprout wilted and died and the others either dried out and died before emerging from the soil or rotted because I was putting so much water on them. I am hoping that if I keep this lid on the plants during the day and take them off at night it will keep them moist enough to grow but not damp to the point that they rot. We will see.
One of the other interesting things I found at this booth was a full mini greenhouse kit which included a light, a bunch of fertilizers and things and a large (larger than the above one) green house. The thing that I was interested in was the 18 inch grow light. I have been looking everywhere for one of these so when I went up to pay for my mini greenhouse I asked it they sold the light separate and it turns out they do! This got me wanting to go to Humber nursery and Tashy seemed ok with that so we added a trip to our scheduled events.
So that was the end of the garden show. Over all I would say it was nice (especially if you are into growing bulbs or orchids) but a little expensive at $15 a ticket. The think that bothered me the most is that for a "home and garden" show there was surprisingly little home or garden events. The garden section was decent about 1/3 of the total space but the rest of it was all hot tubs and automatic windows and stuff that I really don't like.
~(' ')~
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