Focus Fair - This Weekend!

Would you like to pick up some heirloom seeds for seasonal presents? How about choosing from a whole bunch of local artists with unique gift ideas? Join us for Focus Fair this Saturday & Sunday at the Spill Cafe! 

For more information & links to the artists websites, check out our facebook event or follow #focusfair on Twitter 

If you can't make it out this weekend, you can also pick up urbantomato seeds at Avante Garden, GreenUP store or send me an email 

Last Big Harvest - November

loads of carrots, some romanesco, cabbage, herbs & kale 

romanesco growing up. this sight made me oh so happy

purple cabbage and fall leaves. gorgeous
and delicious

carrots

Late Fall Tomato & Pepper Harvests

Despite many september frost warnings, and October touches of frost, tomatoes continued to ripen on my table well into mid-November

lots of peppers picked green ripening beautifully on my coffee table 

hot peppers: bulgarian carrot, jalapenos, and garden sunshine  

gorgeous peppers ripening in fall sunshine 

lots of basil! it's off to the Night Kitchen for their pesto. Grown & eaten on hunter st. 

More carrots!

gorgeous carrots freshly pulled from my Lift Lock Community Garden plot 

x-large super carrot! so beautiful and huge  

no caption needed really 

  this is what diversity looks like & why i grow heirloom

pickled carrots

greens & lettuce growing seeds

beet seeds growing 

red romaine bolting, will flower soon & create seeds 

mustard seed pods about to fill with seeds 

coriander putting out lots of seeds 

drunken frizzy headed woman lettuce putting out tonnes of flowers from which will come lots of seed

speckled lettuce bolting & creating seeds

saving seeds from lettuce & other greens

Here are some photos of various leafy greens going to seed: 

 This is some lettuce seed in the stage after it has flowered (above) 

When collecting leafy green seeds, pay attention to the plants. They will begin to "bolt", grow upwards & create flowers (they will no longer taste very good at this stage), let those flowers bloom & die back, and then seed pods will form. Let them brown & then collect! Dry further indoors, pop open pods, and there is the seed! 

 Here are some greens that are sending up their flower stocks, and are about to bloom

 Romaine Lettuce bolting, it is about to send out it's flower stock

 Romaine sending out flowers

 Leafy green flower stocks against a beautiful august evening sky

 Red Romaine just about to flower

After the flowers have bloomed, you will have to wait another few weeks for the pods to form and start to dry out . . .watch carefully, when they are ready, they may burst open & you will loose the seed. Take them inside to dry before that stage . . .

Weird & wonderful summer squash

lemon squash forming fruit - tastes just like yellow zucchini, but in a cute round package

 

Yugoslovian finger fruit squash. one of the coolest looking veggies I have grown 

Squash blossoms getting pollinated 

late July seed garden photos

can't stop photographing this gorgeous drunken frizzy headed woman lettuce. Can't wait to add it to my urbantomato 2014 seed collection

First sunflower. I love having flowers mixed into my seed garden. Sometimes I collect the seeds, sometimes I love the beauty they add, and I always love that they attract pollinators  

mammoth purple cabbage - mine seems to be a little behind to what I see in other folks gardens, no cabbage yet, but I bet it likes these cold nights more than i do! 

purple cherokee tomatoes coming along 

cosmos & sunflowers captured just before blooming

first of the peppers! 

artichoke leaves unfurling 

portugal pepper bigger than the plants  

 lettuce boquets 

 more peppers coming 

red stalk celery. can't say i have ever had much luck growing into celery, but it sure makes a delicious herb

mexican sunflower. i started them from seed early this season, and they are flowering quite early as a reward.  

 lots of beans coming along 

 gorgeous mixed greens. waiting for most to go to seed, but couldn't resist picking a salad of speckled lettuce, siberian kale, red romaine, drunken frizzy headed woman lettuce, mustard greens and arugula! some zucchini blossoms too 

 first big basil harvest ... off to the Night Kitchen pizza shop for making delicious local pesto ... super local, same street, just five blocks apart from garden to restaurant.