Hello World! Welcome to my bright future

My name is Farmer (wild but true, it is the name that everyone in my life calls me, its on my cards, my name is Farmer) and welcome to my garden of sustainable freedom. I currently live in Port Moody, British Columbia but I grew up in Cobourg, Ontario where my mum and I shared a passion for getting covered in dirt like a seed.

Throughout the years I tried my hand at containers on balconies of university student housing… they never did well. I often forgot to water them while I was rushing between classes – or they’d not transfer well when I moved for the summer.

How I started this enterprise

In 2014 I had a spectacular 3×3 foot garden I turned by hand in the yard of my rented house. I got enough tomatoes to make two cans for my brother’s graduation gift, and enough kohlrabi to waste half and enough zucchini to get sick of.. but that was that.

In 2024 I moved into a house with four other young adults who can’t afford to buy property in Canada let alone this close to Vancouver and we had a small outdoor area. That summer we started late with our containers and got one singular pepper and itty bitty potatoes but still more potato than we put in the bags at the beginning so I count that as a win.

My roommate Mike offered his services as a contractor to build up our outdoor yard space to host plants, my roommate Nathan is always down to cook strange vegetables, and my roommate Kim and I can keep track of the planting schedule! So I went to work.

Planting the Seed for survival

I started off reading: my long term goals are to be more self-sufficient as a community member. Which is a very strange way of saying I want to grow the tomatoes for the community, and trade those tomatoes for someone else’s pickled peppers made from someone else’s excess harvest. But my research showed that successful gardeners start with what they know.

My mum and I worked hard on her yard back in 2019 shortly before I moved from Ontario to BC. Since then, though, I haven’t grown much. So I made a list of the vegetables that my roommates and I use regularly that won’t be too complex for my rusty skills, then I added a few for fun!