Welcome to
The Pollinator Path
at the Daily Bread Food Bank!
We began ‘re-wilding’ this industrial green space in 2017. Many native plants, hundreds of volunteer hours and a grant from PollinateTO later, we now have the vibrant, blooming Pollinator Path you see when you enter the Daily Bread Food Bank gates! From bees and birds and butterflies, to wasps and beetles and ants, pollinators fertilize the plants that supply our food. Visitors are always welcome to walk around the garden and visit the pollinators and the plants. Our interactive map will be linked here soon!
QUICK LINKS TO UPDATES
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | |
| OCTOBER 2024 | MAY 2024 | OCTOBER 2023 | |
| SEPTEMBER 2024 | APRIL 2024 | SEPTEMBER 2023 | |
| AUGUST 2024 | MARCH 2024 | JUNE 2023 | |
| JANUARY 2025 | JULY 2024 | JANUARY 2024 | MAY 2023 |
| JUNE 2024 | APRIL 2023 |
Thank you to Daily Bread Food Bank – for letting us steward this green space
OCTOBER 2024 NEWS
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The nights are cooler, the leaves are starting to turn, and the New England Aster is a spectacular show of purple! We continue to collect seeds in the garden, as well as the last tomatoes (which might green but they are still edible in green tomato tarts and chutney) but there is a lot less work to do in the garden.
Actually, that’s not totally true; we began installing the posts for The Pollinator Path’s signage. While we had high hopes of getting the signs in before the snow – it looks like the grand signage unveiling will need to wait for spring. However, here are some photos of the fall garden and where we will be installing signs.
SEPTEMBER 2024 NEWS
September means harvesting food, seed collecting, and sharing both seeds and plants at the annual Long Branch Tree Fest in Marie Curtis Park. This year, the event took place on September 22 on a glorious fall day! The Tree Fest is always a fun afternoon in the park, surrounded by other community groups who care about the environment and urban tree canopy. We sold seeds from our garden – and gave away free milkweed pods and other native seeds that require cold stratification over the winter to bloom in spring.
AUGUST 2024 NEWS
As much as we enjoy weeding The Pollinator Path to keep native species thriving, we often find unwanted plants trying to get in! One of the invasive offenders in our garden is field bindweed. This aggressive and invasive plant looks so lovely (as it is in the morning glory family) but it can kill anything its twining stems wrap around.
In 2023 and 2024, we estimate that 35-40% of our time spent in The Pollintor Path was spent trying to control the bindweed. While the most successful method of getting rid of bindweed is to use herbicide, the common ingredient glyphosate can significantly harm bees by making them more vulnerable to pathogens and premature death. So, instead we dig up the roots, pull out the stems and make sure to put seeds in the garbage and not yard waste bags, so they don’t spread throughout the city.
If you have any bindweed strategies let us know! For more information, check out the Ontario.ca Bindweed page here.
JULY 2024 NEWS
Toronto is home to a wide range of pollinators, including beetles, butterflies, wasps, flies, birds, and more than 360 species of bees.
Summer in The Pollinator Path is busy (and buzzy). Check out the video on the left to see who visited the garden this summer. This is why we spend so much time here.
Come join us some time!
JUNE 2024 NEWS
We spent the month getting ready for the Lakeshore West Garden Tour on June 22. We refreshed the wooden signs in the garden with some ink and shellac. We reinstalled the nesting garden sign and its water areas and spruced up the pathways.
It is always a joy to share The Pollinator Path with members of the community. Often, people have no idea that there is a community garden, an apple orchard and a pollinator garden at Daily Bread Food Bank. People are always pleasantly surprised and very impressed. It’s no wonder our membership keeps growing.
MAY 2024 NEWS
May is always such a busy month in the garden! We amended the soil in the Pollinator Path, planted even more native plants, and started preparing for the Lakeshore West Garden Tour in June.
We also hosted our annual plant and seed exchange/sale at The Assembly Hall on May 11th. What a fantastic day – the weather was great, our favourite gardeners brought so many native plants to trade, and we raised hundreds of dollars for Daily Bread Food Bank.
We also shared seeds we grew at The Pollinator Path and offered information on how to grow a pollinator garden.
APRIL 2024 NEWS
What a great day to spread a little joy AND mulch in The Pollinator Path garden!
Yesterday we had our first 2024 “meet up” and volunteers spent two glorious hours moving wood chips! We add a serious layer of chips every spring to our pathway system because it allows our visitors a safe way to navigate the garden (without resorting to asphalt), and it helps us access the plants and collect seeds later in the season. It also helps keep the weeds down!
MARCH 2024 NEWS
The first Pollinator Path Walk of the season was cold but bright. If you look closely you can see the pink flags that indicate where the pollinator self-tour signs will go once they’ve been designed.
JANUARY 2024 NEWS
You might think we are hiding away and keeping warm until spring – but so much is going on in our garden AND behind the scenes! Insects and bird and animals are using our garden to hibernate or feed on last year’s seeds. And we are busy working on the signs for the Pollinator Path. Here’s a first look at our logo!
OCTOBER 2023 NEWS
The delayed summer has delayed the onset of cold weather. We have been rewarded with ongoing feedings on our blooming flowers all through the gardens. The Tithonia plantings are an ongoing buffet of goodness for our migrating monarchs, in the last of the warm sunny days. Learn more about Tithonia (Mexican sunflowers, Tithonia rotundifolia) here.
SEPTEMBER 2023 NEWS
The fall paths are cleared for exploring; the overgrown summer perennials are pruned to showcase the fall flowers; and, Monika and Julie were recognized as Pollinator Stewards by the Pollinator Stewardship Certification Program.
If you or your local community group would like to join the international world of pollinator stewards, contact the Pollinator Partnership and Pollinator Partnership Canada programs. Their online, interactive programs support learning from anywhere and it means the world to your garden pollinators.
In other news, Humber College interviewed us in their magazine. See here:
JUNE 2023 NEWS
We’re starting a tree nursery. If you have a baby tree or a small shrub to donate, let us know. Email us at legsetobicoke@gmail.com
MAY 2023 NEWS
We’ve been super busy this month, cleaning up the garden, and getting ready for a soil delivery to really help our pollinator habitat grow!
At the end of April, we did a preliminary clean up to prune some of the damaged branches on our fruit trees and smaller shrubs, clear the space of garbage, and make sure the pollinators still had ground cover and some stalk cover to stay safe and warm until the temperature rose.
Spring Clean up means saving the pollinator garden debris
Last week, Monika added some fruit and veg to the the southern edge of the garden. We love mixing flowers and produce – and the pollinators love it too! What did she plant?
- Echinacea
- Strawberries
- Kale
- Basil
- Tomatoes
- Marigolds
- Zucchini
Over the long weekend, Dorota and Julie weeded the space, in anticipation of the soil delivery later this week. They pruned a severely damaged mulberry tree, and removed thistle and bindweed. Julie also prepped a few areas for all the baby milkweed (swamp, butterfly and common) to grow happily as well as the other native species she picked up at the GreenUP Ecology Park Native Plant Nursery in Peterborough, Ontario!
Cleaning up the garden paths and mulch ways for pollinators big and small
Mariola is busy refinishing the garden signs, so we are ready for JUNE and the Longbranch Garden Tour!
A great big thank you to Mariola, our carpenter/painter/designer extraordinaire who makes our natural wooden signs for the pollinator garden.
APRIL 2023 NEWS
LEGS was one of 44 community groups to receive a PollinateTO grant this year! Much thanks to the City of Toronto for supporting pollinators and biodiversity in this great city!
OUR GOALS FOR THE POLLINATOR PATH:
1. Expand the Pollinator Habitat
- Add more plants, shrubs and trees with diverse pollen and nectar sources to support pollinators.
- Add a safe nesting area for ground-nesting pollinators / native bees.
- Add water area for pollinators.
2. Develop Educational Programming
- 3 members are certifying as Pollinator Garden Stewards with Pollinator Partnership Canada to learn how to maintain the Pollinator Path and be ready to run education tours in the summer and fall.
- We will also run seed collection, planting, and native species growing workshops throughout the year.
3. Create a self-guided tour
- We will create and install 8 – 10 ‘waystation’ signs. Each will focus on one native species, indicate which pollinators it attracts, and have one fun “Did you know?” fact. Potential plants include: Goldenrod, Common Milkweed, Serviceberry, etc.
- We will develop an interactive Pollinator Path map on the LEGS website for those who want to access more detailed information online.