Where it all started...

Roots & Shoots first became an idea in 2020 when our family moved to St Thomas, but it also started long before that. 

When I was just a child growing up in London with my mother I was always surrounded by plants and animals. My mother has a large garden on her corner property filled with native plants and wildlife. growing up there my mum was always in the garden tending to the plants, while I would be playing in the trees or searching for bugs or butterflies with my net. Most summers I would take my wagon down the street with some buckets to the neighbor's houses and search for toads in their window wells and try to save them from their unfortunate death. I'd bring them home and put them in the garden and my mum would always say how beneficial the creatures were to help control the bugs. 

My mother and I would take walks down to our local woods area with the dogs, she would point out all the different types of native flowers and plants growing there and I would search for fossils and stones in the creek. Most often we would go to find tadpoles or see the Blue Heron by the stream. As I got older I liked taking pictures of the flowers that I found, such as the Native Trillium, which are pretty hard to find these days. 

My favorite memory's in the garden were the years we had grown sunflowers that must have been 10 feet tall, and the time that we collected Monarch caterpillars to watch them grown into butterflies in a home-made cage.

      My mother also loved going to markets that had local artisans, produce and flower sales, we would spend hours looking at different native plants, only for my mum to decide that she already had most of them or that she didn't have that particular color. My mother; also a business woman, running her own small business from home even before me, she had taught me all she knew about anything and everything. 

   Needless to say I never needed any other form of entertainment when it came to hanging out in the garden during the summertime. As I got older I became intrigued by the idea of growing my own plants and getting back to my roots. 

As soon as I saw the greenhouse idea the wheels in my head started turning, all the fruit and vegetables we ate at home I could grow right here. I told my husband about the idea, along with all the other ideas I always have going through my head, and he was skeptical at first, but he always helps bring my ideas to life. 

So after searching through countless Facebook Marketplace ads for greenhouse structures or frames we could build off of, I finally found the perfect one on Kijiji. I told my husband and we had measured based on the dimensions to see where it would fit. I picked it up in London one day after work and that weekend we had it built. Unfortunately to was too big for the space we had in mind but we made it work. I showed my husband the interior design I liked and then, keeping in tie with my resourcefulness and frugality, we build the inside planter boxes using recycled materials like wood pallets, mulch, cardboard and bricks I found someone giving away for free. 

Believe it or not this was all built within one summer, because I was determined to get my dream underway. Once everything was built my husband filled the garden beds with dirt, and I started drawing out plans for the plants that I would be putting in each garden bed. 

As the first year went by we overcame many hurdles such as growing too many plants that we could actually use, plants or vegetables being eaten by pests, the actual structure of the greenhouse needed more support and the interior needed to be vented to keep the plants a the proper temperature. Also realizing that there are some plants that can not be grown in a greenhouse of that size, and need to be planted outside. As the greenhouse expanded to outside we built raised garden beds and strawberry plant boxes, we expanded to larger vegetables such as watermelons and pumpkins that did really well. 

After a few years and doing lots of research about the plants, environment and money saving tips, I finally opened the greenhouse to the public in 2024 just to sell some of the seedings that weren't going to be used for our own produce. I posted another Marketplace ad and had many people come by to buy their own plants that I had grown, I received great reviews that the plants did really well. Towards the end of that year we had grown so many watermelons, cherry tomatoes, pumpkins and lettuce that I didn't know what to do with it. That brings us to our next venture.. canning.

It all started when I wanted to make my own pickles, because I love them, so I started learning how to can and pickle some of the excess produce that I had grown in the garden that we weren't going to use right away.

 I hate waste of any kind, and I had already mastered the art of freezing certain food that could be frozen, so I wanted to try something different. 

  I started joining groups about canning and how to get started, picking up books at thrift stores and jumped right in. At first I started with what seemed like the easiest thing; pickles, and my daughter loved to help in the kitchen, eating the pickles so I named them after her. I grew so many cucumbers, pickled them with my own recipe and everyone loved them, of course sharing them with friends and family first for some reviews. I should note; that I spent a lot of time watching TikTok videos of people in their own gardens to learn a lot. 

Slowly I moved to canning different items such as green beans, tomato sauce made from my own cherry tomatoes and pickled Banana peppers. However I soon realized that I needed more canning equipment to do larger batches of these items, that's where I started running into problems. I got a lot of feedback stating that the current stove we have (glasstop) was not ideal for having large pots of water for water-bath canning. The other option was a pressure canner which can range anywhere from $200-800, but that was not in the budget for someone just getting into the hobby. Electric canners are also on the pricier side. So I settled on a steam canner that I got from my local farm store for $150. Since steam canners process different than the other methods; I had a limited amount of things you can do with them, so I had to settle on a few items that I really wanted to make perfect.

So that brings us to where we are today with the items I am selling. But of course I am always creating new unique recipes to add to the list.

Besides running a small business, I also teach toddlers as a full time Registered Early Childhood Educator. I love to teach new skills to anyone who has the passion to learn something new. So In the future I will be offering classes on a variety of different topics such as;

• planting 
• starting seedings
• pollination
• pests
• transplanting 
• sourdough starters

These are small individual tutorials where individuals can come and have a one-on-one lesson in the greenhouse with me. These classes will take place on Saturdays listed on the home page, so keep an eye out for them!