Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Ontario’s Vegetable Patch


Holland Marsh, Ontario
Aren't the rows of various greens pretty? Stripes of vegetables.

Just WEST of East Gwillimbury is a town called...ummm, can you guess?

Yep, West Gwillimbury. A large portion of WG just south of Lake Simcoe is floodplain known as the Holland Marsh. And as you can see, it's flat, very flat. What you can't see is the soil, which is fertile peat moss called muck soil.

Muck is what was left after the marsh was drained in the late 1920s and early 1930s to create farmland. Farmers still have to control the water table. Driving along Canal Road, pumps are clearly visible. Onions
If I were willing to limit my food intake to carrots, onions, lettuce, potatoes, celery, parsnips, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, tomatoes and cucumbers, I could easily foods within a 100-mile radius of my home.
Carrots
But I admit to a fondness for bananas and oranges, neither of which grow in Canada.

6 comments:

Kris McCracken said...

Do the East Gwillimburians and the West Gwillimburiyites get along?

I love these shots by the way, especially the onions!

Darla said...

Without your craving for fruit (LOL!) you could be well on your way to being a locovor.

Looking at fields of food makes me happy.

Darla

Gerald (SK14) said...

Just hope they can harvest it before the floods come

Small City Scenes said...

Stripes of green. Very pretty. Great shots. Our valley looks similar. MB

Tom said...

Excellent pictures... love how my eyes followed the links.. I think I went cross eyed on the last one :O)

Dina said...

Muck soil--interesting new term for me. Such a fertile country. I love to see rows and rows like these that go on forever. Something we don't have in the hilly Jerusalem Hills.

I appreciate your kind comment, thanks.

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East Gwillimbury is a rural town less than an hour north of Toronto, Canada's largest city. My family calls me CameraGirl because I take my camera with me wherever I go.