Donation garden flourishing again after alleged chemical attack

Just weeks after a suspected chemical attack ripped through her 680-bucket donation garden near Bell’s Point Beach Campground, Trista Pino has overseen an unprecedented turnaround.

“I was able to pull a rabbit out of a hat,” she says. “With some quick-thinking, I divided my plants and I planted hundreds of beans and peas. I fed and I fed and I fed. Usually I only feed once every 10 days during the summer, but because of the damage, I fed every five days. What a difference it made.”

When SooToday last spoke with Pino two weeks ago, she estimated 40 per cent of her fruits and vegetables were destroyed overnight.

The long-time gardener has been growing and donating a wide assortment of produce for families and community members who are facing food insecurity for the past several years.

Despite the massive loss last month, Pino estimates her garden will be back to 100 per cent by Saturday.

She’s also fertilizing and harvesting more plants now than at any other time this season.

“I got a really big harvest this past weekend,” she told SooToday. “I harvested five crates of food, which was donated to several agencies, including one that makes soup. I got a lot more food than I thought I was going to get.”

“I have a melon plant that has 11 melons on it, and another plant with 15 zucchinis. My pumpkins exploded too – at least 35 of them right now. I’ve never had this many before – it’s incredible.”

Since her initial post blew up on Facebook in July, Pino has provided around 20 tours for gardeners and locals who were interested in seeing her garden up close.

“Nobody had toured it before the incident,” she says. “When people come to do the tours, they’re so surprised with how big the garden is. You definitely have to be out here to understand the size. People are just blown away by it.”

Remaining confident that somebody had broken into her garden and sprayed her produce with chemicals, Pino is now working to install fencing, cameras, and motion detectors around the donation garden.

“We’ll be installing a five-string electric fence,” she says. “A local woman is actually donating the string, and she’s letting me use her solar panel which will power the fence for the rest of this season. I have to purchase 25 poles that the string attaches to, as well as a new solar panel for next season, so I’m looking at about $500 in total there.”

“A lot of the park people have come to me and said they’d keep an eye on the place while I’m at work which is nice. The Garden River police pass by frequently too, so I feel like there’s so many eyes on the garden now that they’d have a much tougher time to break in.”

While the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotions for Pino, she feels incredibly thankful for all the positives that have come from the experience.

"I feel like for as much bad that happened, it's okay because I learned lots and met new people," she says. “A couple local businesses saw the story and have been selling me bags of fertilizer at cost which has been great.”

“At this point, I’ve chosen to move forward – lesson learned. Next year I will increase my security, try and make it to the end of this year without another incident, and just take the positives from a terrible event.”

Pino invites anyone interested in touring her donation garden to stop by during the weekends near Bell’s Point Beach Campground in Garden River.

“You might go home with something, too,” she says.

To assist Pino with security and fertilizer costs, donations can be made to her garden here.