The health food store is welcoming you all year around with their knowledgeable staff.
Next french essential oils class with Michel Turbine: Febuary 5th, 2026
Pick your own organic apples in our organic orchard from August until middle of October.
Monday
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Thursday
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Friday
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday
10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Sunday
closed
Le Tournesol is a health food store, only 20 minutes from Ottawa, which has been open since December 6, 1986. You will always be greeted by
a member of our friendly family. The store offers a range of products from the farm as well as specialized services: herbalism, naturopathy,
oestéopathie ...
You can find a varied range of superior biodynamic, biological, ecological as well as regional products such as: fresh, dried or frozen foods,
cosmetics and supplements, green cleaning products, gluten-free, etc.
All our apples are 100% organic!
*** Do not forget to bring your bags and a pair of good shoes ***
August 9th to September 4th
August 16th to September 27th.
August 27th to October 10th
August 27th to October 23th
August 27th to October 23th
September th to October 10th
Our grass-fed and organic meats contain perfectly balanced Omega 3 & 6 due to the animals’ diet.
No hormones
No antibiotics
Naturally raised
Taste the difference! You will never go back to grocery store meat.
Eat grass and hay only, from start to finish. Makes our lean beef full of taste and value.
On pasture, complemented with sprouted grains. All natural, grass and grains fed. Ham and bacon smoked naturally, giving them an authenthic, rich smoky flavor.
On pasture complemented with sprouted grains. All natural and raised cage-free. Grass and grain fed from start to finish.
Fresh eggs from our free range chickens. Hens and roosters are free range and are fed with organic, sprouted grains. Our happy flock has plenty of room to roam, eat bugs and grass.
Raw unpasteurized honey directly from our organic farm. The bees of our farm are not treated with chemicals and the honey is not pasteurized. Our bees gather nectar on biodynamic and organic lands, in clover fields, in our fruit trees, in our gardens of vegetables, medicinal herbs and flowers.
Right at the heart of the Ottawa valley, our farm is surrounded with large conventional agricultural fields. All on a small scale but very diversified, inspired by oldtime farms, you can find here Canadian cows, sheep, goats, poney, donkey, ducks and laying hens. During summer season, we also have pigs, turkeys and meat birds. In our gardens, we grow vegetables and culinary herbs, flower and medicinal plants. We aim at self sufficiency and biodynamic warp.
Gilles and myself are both born on farms less than 2km away from this hobby farm. Nothing surprising that after a few years in the city, the desire to come back to the countryside brought us back to our homeland to stay. That's why in 1976, we bought half an acre from my Dad to build our house. In 1984, we acquired the whole 30 acres which consist of our actual farm.
Our great adventure on the alternative road started when our oldest daughter got sick. That's what propelled us toward a healthier diet and a greater environnemental conscience. This search for health and balance brought us to open a natural foodstore: Le Tournesol. I started to study naturopathie in Montreal and our son Sylvain follows the same path. He is also an osteopath with his clinic on the farm.
In 1999, Gilles retires from a 35 year career as an accountant and from there the farm and family got bigger. This same year, our three daughters, Céline, France, Brigitte and myself started a 3 year certificate as traditional herbalist with Herbart. Always on the marginal side, daughters and daughter-in-law, give birth at home with midwives, nursing the babies and homeschooling the kids inspired by the Waldorf Teaching philosophy. It's also the start of the orchard when Sylvain buys some 300 fruit trees: apples, pears, plums and others, planted on a cold and rainy May weekend with the whole family helping.
The workshop 'L'introduction à la biodynamie' given at l'Armoire aux herbes, strongly pushed us in that direction but it was the 1999 summer gatering at La Butte Magique that really kicked off the practice of biodymalic ways on our farm. Than in 2005, the orchard is opened to the public for self picking and we started the transformation of apples into juice.
Since then, we never stopped reaching for the 'small ideal farm' with an animal and vegetal diversity, the application of 500 and 501 and the inoculation of the preparations in the compost. In 2003, reaching the end of a 17 year lease on the main street in Embrun we moved the store on the farm.
This farm continues growing as the family does like the family and in every sense of the word. Now our family includes: Gilles and I, our 4 children with spouses and our 12 grandchildren, not to mention a 13th expected in Juin.
Everyone participates in the many tasks involved in a small diversified farm. Together we form a well-woven and biodynamic family nucleus that gently spreads its values to those around them.
We look forward to seeing you at our farm, Irène and Gilles Dagenais
Note: written in french by Irène Dagenais in 2013
