It all started off in a Burlington backyard in 2014 when I tried growing a variety of vegetables, and had a raccoon destroy everything except a ghost pepper plant. That turned my focus to growing peppers, mostly in buckets as we had a pool that took up most of our space. In 2017, we relocated to Lebanon, Ontario in Mapleton Township to get more growing area.

Over the last several years I've grown a wide variety of peppers, and the Garden has expanded from dozens to thousands of plants.

In 2021, I did a few talks about pepper growing both through Zoom and in person, and I was honoured to have my peppers included in the League of Fire Americas Belt Match on September 4 in Ottawa, ON.

In January 2022, The Garden of Apologies became a separate business, so we now have organic pepper, tomato and ground cherry seedlings available during the spring as well as fresh pepper pods all summer. In addition to Sorry Sauce, I've also provided peppers to Purple Tongue Hot Sauce, Charby's Craft Sauce, Sexi Lexi and Fired Up Foods.

The highlight of the 2022 season was August 27 in Ottawa at Heating up the Capital. I supplied a bunch of the peppers for the Extreme Chili Alliance belt match.

For 2023, we had about 110 cultivars and each one that produced pods is featured on our YouTube channel, Pepper School.

Now in 2024, I have 105 different peppers across both fields. That's right! I've outgrown the main Garden of Apologies, so this year we have an extra 2000 sq ft of land rented from Winterhill Farm in Rockwood!

I grow primarily to support Sorry Sauce, but I also grow unique and unusual peppers just for the sake of growing them. Please have a look at the Garden of Apologies Exclusive page to see the new or hybrid peppers I've developed here. And I have a bunch of good friends who also make hot sauce, so I've supplied peppers to a few of them. 

The Garden uses organic practices with compost, landscape fabric and hand tools rather than chemicals, pesticides and machines to keep it all natural and low carbon, and we use our solar power and captured rainwater wherever possible. We're adding a second greenhouse for the spring of 2024, and Wellington County's Experimental Acres programme is helping us add a wind turbine to it so we can generate clean energy to run heaters for the winter.

Check our progress through our Instagram and Facebook, and learn about the peppers we're growing on our YouTube channel.
Contact us at info@GardenofApologies.ca