Guelph Winter Night Market 2016

I feel so luck and super excited to be a part of the Guelph Night Market winter event on Febuary 10th at the Ebar in Guelph! At the nigh market I will be a vendor for the very first time, selling my seeds, succulents, plant accessories and more micro-farm fun! If you love plants come check me out!

There is a 2$ admission fee at the door, as well as a collection of Canadian Tire money for Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis click here to learn more about them. Doors open at 7pm and fun goes until 12pm - hence the night market!

Items on my table:

Vegetable, Flower and Herb seeds

Succulents

Mini Terrariums

Handmade Succulent Pots

Nerdy Plant Art

& a few surprises

Seed Packages & Seed Sale launch!

My seed packages are here! I'm really excited to present my line of home grown and collected seeds available in 2016! A limited quantity of seeds is set to launch on my "Market" page on Febuary 1st, available for purchase via Paypal.

My seeds will also be available in person at the Guelph Night Market, Febuary 10th at the e-bar, 

and at the Guelph Seedy Saturday on March 19th at the Transition Guelph's Resilience Festival. 

A full list of varieties and prices will be released on Febuary 1st 

and seeds will be available for purchase online starting on Febuary 5th. 

I've worked very hard to bring an affordable product to market to help fund my projects on the Suburban Micro-farm. Here are a few facts about my seeds; my seeds are not certified organic - because I'm not a full fledged farm, my seeds and plants are not certified, however they are grown from some certified seed, and raised under these principals, using no chemical pesticides and only natural fertilizer from my chickens, rabbits and compost. My seeds are not certified non-gmo, but originate from gmo-free parent seed. I have tested my seed for quality and high germination rates and have only offered the crops that I have deemed acceptable to my own personal standards. The seeds are designated for home personal use and come in a small format envelope with some information on the variety and growing tips on the back.

If you have any questions about my seeds feel free to email me at suburbanmicrofarm@gmail.com

Peppers of 2015 - Review

It's pretty ironic I was going to post today's blog post about my peppers, on Scoville's 151st birthday (January 22nd 1865) and google made an amazing doodle! Here are some highlights from the doodle and game! Click here to see the doodle and play the Scoville game.

Here is the concept art for the Scoville Google Doodle.

Last year was an amazing pepper season! I ended up growing twelve varieties as some seedlings were given to me after my 2015 pepper post last spring. In this post I'll do a little review of the peppers I grew last year and some notes on those varieties.

Young plants developing in cages, excellent growth and perfect health all season long!

Gold Raspberries - Another Edible Obsessive

Perennials grown under the right circumstances are the easiest edibles for the newbie gardener, even without the most ideal soil conditions or space. This is why perennial edibles; like raspberries and other rubus are simply the best. I don't know anyone who doesn't absolutely love raspberries. However, gold raspberries are harder to come by, and purchasing canes (in Canada) is a challenge. Aside from my open-love for tomatoes and purple vegetables, yellow and gold raspberries are another fascination bordering obsession. The taste profile is milder and less tart then red raspberries, and they tend to be "softer". They ripen much quicker and most yellow or gold varieties are harvested in fall - which is great if you have a variety of raspberries and you want an extended season. However, a grower should be careful of over-ripe fruit.

This photo says it all - look at that diversity of colour!
How could I not be in love with this fruit!

Officially on Instagram!

Suburban Micro-Farm is now on Instagram! I've used my own personal Instagram to post pictures related to the blog, but it's 2016 and I thought it would be best for the blog and business to have it's own account where I can post exclusively Suburban Micro-Farm content! I'm hoping it will also expand the community of the blog and reach more passionate gardeners, backyard chicken enthusiast and curious readers. Follow if you love to garden and grow your own veggies!

You can find the Suburban Micro-Farm Instagram with the name @suburbanmicrofarm. Click here to check out the account online. You can also search the hashtag #suburbanmicrofarm.

In other exciting news, I will be offering a limited number of seeds with my very own Suburban Micro-Farm custom seed packages for 2016! The custom packages should be arriving very soon and I can't wait to show them off! There will be vegetable, flower and herb seeds. All the seeds were grown, collected,  and packaged on the micro-farm. As I am too small to be certified organic, the seeds are simply labeled naturally grown from non-gmo seed and open pollenated. 

The Ultimate Tomato List of 2016

I'm back after a too-long blogging break! I'm ready to step it up in 2016! Last year the count was 98 varieties of tomatoes, and this year I am crossing over into the 100 club. Click here to check out last year's tomato list post, and to see a full list of the varieties for 2015. I'm thinking right now that even if each plant only produced 1 perfect tomato, that's still a ton of tomatoes!

My New varieties for 2016

Hana

Blue Keyes

Don's Double Delight

Black Stripe

Tonnelet

Marvel Striped

Bandelier

Henderson's Pink Ponderosa

Tiny Tim

Apricot Brandywine

Banana Legs

Blush

Fred's Tie Dye

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Joffre

Marizol Magic

Orange Cream

Pertsevidnyi Polosatyi

Pink Tiger

Rainbow Cherry

Sarandipity

Selwin Yellow

Uptown Funk

Pineapple Pig

Faelan's First Snow

Which brings me to a grand total of 123 varieties for 2016, with the possibility of more, as I often do some trading and get extras from seed companies. I'm pretty consistent with my selections, focusing on stripes, bi-colours, deep purple-chocolates and some classic stunners of colour like Cream Orange and Tiny Tim as a novelty in size.

I'm probably most excited for Blue Keyes, an indeterminate from the breeder Michael Keyes. It's a cherry-sized pear form in a deep deep blue, nearly black with a deep ruby red bottom when ripe. Absolutely stunning! I really think all of my tomatoes are stunning, but some do indeed stand out more than others. Tonnelet is a very unique tomato with incredibly distinct stripes and everything I've ever purchased from J&L always does fantastic in my garden, wither it be yield, taste and hardiness. Fuzzy Wuzzy is a weirdo of sorts, with its fuzzy silver foliage and pointed fuzzy-striped fruit, it's another novelty that I hope to grow in a planter amongst some complimentary herbs and blooms.

"Fuzzy Wuzzy"
Photo from the Blog: yourapplesaremyoranges.blogspot.ca

A more mature plant on a patio - a truly bizarre plant.
Photo by the German site: www.gaertnerei-bluetenmeer.de

I can say it until I'm blue in the face - I love unique vegetables and I love tomatoes! Why grow the average or plain when you can grow something absolutely amazing, and as my dad says "You can't get in the grocery store." You can't even get these at your average market! I can remember a moment when I knew I absolutely wanted to step up my tomato game - back in 2012 I visited southern California and walked to a local market. This market was amazing - fresh seafood, flowers, orchids, rainbow eggs (another visual inspiration, look at me now!), they had beans and herbs and crazy carrots and this one particular farmer had an entire table spread of heirloom tomatoes.

This market spread above is what really turned me on to tomatoes. 

Another tomato goal I've set is to stay on top of the blight in my area by doing a spray treatment one to two times a month. Blight always seems to ruin the last 2 months of the season. This past year, we had a very raining two weeks followed by hot and humid days in between and despite my late season spray treatments the blight took over. My tomato plants themselves grew to such monstrous sizes, they eventually bent the support cages and couldn't help but sag completely to the ground. In a perfect-ideal scenario I would have my tomatoes in a greenhouse with red landscape tarp and an irrigation system and just beat the blight that way... keep the fruit and leaves dry and have those indeterminate tomatoes get 13ft tall.

I have added a few more dwarf tomato varieties, so I hope to get those going very fast and have them give a full yield before any kind of blight pops up. The chances of NOT encountering blight are impossible without a super dry summer in which other plants suffer, I'm also not sure what this relatively mild winter will effect. If the spring heats up quick and we have an early frost date this can only be good because I'm only ever affected by late blight, and sometimes Japanese beetles.

Beyond just growing some tomatoes I would really like to win some fair competitions in my area. I have my eye on a few regional fairs and some of the specific categories, the more you win the more chances you have to win an overall ribbon. It's all about the ribbons, I've never won anything other than school distinctions and a plethora of sports awards and championships. Winning a blue ribbon for my garden would be fantastic, we shall see what happens! I will talk more about specific tomato varieties in upcoming posts, as well as peppers and other gardening plans.