Imagine walking into a huge landscaped park.  

Awaiting you are beautiful beds of a vast array of perennials, annuals, ground covers, shrubs and lovely arching trees overhead. You walk along the meandering pathways, under garden structures covered with climbing and flowering plants.  You continue past  breath-taking sculptures, (some are artists sculptures, some are made of growing plants),  and tucked away is a quiet, private, meditative space surrounded by sweeping curved walls that are growing with plants.  Then you hear a wonderful aura of live music in the background and the buzz of people enjoying the entertainment, hearing the calming bubbling of a fountain,  a pond full of colourful fish and water plants waving in the breeze, places to sit and ponder, breathing in the delicious mixture of aromas of food wafting through the space. 

Now, imagine your surprise when you come to realize through the interpretive panels and plant identification stakes that all of the plants in that garden are in some way edible.  The shrubs bear fruit, leaves make tea,  trees hang with nuts or fruit or perhaps parts of their structure have been used historically for medicines.  And when you look really closely, you see that the living sculpture is made of herbs and flowering annuals that will produce food.  That pergola you walked under is supporting miniature trees, their branches trained in horizontal rows with delicate fruit hanging in neat rows, and oh the roses-wait!... roses?  Rose flowers are only one of the many flowers that can be eaten, not to mention the rosehips produced in the fall that are loaded with vitamin C.  There will be much to surprise the visitor about the versatility of food plants at the BBFG. 

WHY ARE WE BUILDING IT?
It's hard to believe that almost 10% of the Canadian population lives in food insecure households.  It's harder to believe that right in the middle of prime farm county in southwestern Ontario that  about the same percentage of residents suffer from the same situation.  That means that they do not have access to or the means to provide their families with affordable, healthy, nutritious, safe, culturally acceptable, nutritious food at all times to sustain an active lifestyle. Some of this condition can be caused by their location-too far from a grocery store or lack of transportation to get there, inadequate income, or perhaps  more easily addressed, a lack of education on how to grow the simplest of foods to help supplement the diet nutritionally at minimal cost. 

Besides presenting food production in an exciting way that will interest visitors to the region, a goal of the Bruce Botanical Food Gardens will be to educate its guests on the issues surrounding food insecurity and teach them about sustainable production of food while providing new opportunities for arts and cultural activities. 

We hope you will join us in our journey and visit this site often to see what's happening next (check our our Blog)!