One thing vampire children are taught early on is, don't run with wooden stakes...

In preparation for the coming move and fall planting season we are planning to hit the Toronto Garlic Festival which, turns out, is happening on our moving day next Saturday. In any other circumstance we would skip the garlic fest but because it's literally 2 mins. off the highway on our way up, we are going to make it happen. After we're packed up and loaded, D will head on to the Farm and I will make a slight detour for the cloves.

Better have a mint...

The 2nd annual Toronto Garlic Fest is a mix of food and farm suppliers with anything from oils and dried garlic to roasters and seed for planting. We have no interest in the food aspect at this point of course, but I have been doing some research as to who is going to be selling seed garlic there. Over the past few days I have taken the time to contact them, find out what strains they are bringing and in some cases asked them to set up a package for me to pickup. The reason for this is two fold. First, the obvious time constraint, if I can just pick it up and go all the better. Second, and more importantly, I'm hoping that the direct contact will edge them to perhaps include a better quality of seed vs a person just walking in off the street. I'll let you know how that one goes.

One of the hottest around...

The odd thing is, and this is a trait of mine I'm trying to dissect, I could care less about garlic. Not that I don't like it, but do I like it enough to go through all this hassle and energy? Not really, however it's a popular food, and if we want to have a solid hold on what people are going to eat/order then my own personal feeling don't come into the mix. Another example of this is the peppers we grew up on our balcony as a pre-test for out green thumb abilities. Along with a couple sweet peppers, we grew some habanero and a ghost pepper plant from seeds we bought on Craigslist. Ghost peppers being one of the hottest in the world if you didn't know. Again, I don't like spicy foods at all but many people do and if nothing else it's an added value addition people may appreciate just to try, or at least contemplate. I tend to be more on the side of diaper wearing when it comes to testing my spice resistance. D's brother ate one and said his eyes sweated... wished he got it on video. We've decided we will have a few odd things like this peppered (lame pun intended) throughout our growing stocks.

I guess the point is, we are trying to be prepared regardless of convenience and personal preference. Many books say to grow what you like to eat yourself, but god hasn't invented a cookie tree so... We will be prepared with the garlic for future growing seasons and prepared with a variety of unique items to offer to our customers as a way to stand out. Well that, along with quality organically grown products of course...

Life Lesson # 51: Never wear anything that advertises a company, unless they're paying you...