Meet the Sea Bluff Farm Team
Robin Tunnicliffe
They say Robin would be in a casino if she wasn't on the land. She's a born gambler, pushing planting dates to their extremes.
Over her 24 years in the business, she's mostly come up on top with year round salad greens, cilantro in December, radishes in January and an abundance of beautiful produce all year round. She's been managing Sea Bluff since 2013. She has an M.A. in Food Policy from UVic, she's a published author, she's chair of the Metchosin Agricultural Advisory committee, along with seats on other regional agriculture committees.
When not farming she can be found swimming at Matheson Lake.
Sasha Kubicek
What doesn't Sasha do on the farm? Sasha is our accountant but he's more often in the field than not. Sasha was radicalized by Dan Jason from Saltspring Seeds and has pushed the envelope with his seed breeding for Sea Bluff crops. He's responsible for our beautiful hedgerows along Witty Beach Road and has lead an incredible mission to transform our Garry Oak meadow from blackberry thatch to vibrant native flowers.
When he's not stocking the farm stand or scrubbing harvest bins, Sasha is an orchid savant and has won the equivalent of several Olympic gold medals (AOS awards) for his orchid growing.
Bob Mitchell- 1939 to 2022
Metchosin just got a little quieter, a little more docile and definitely less colourful. A library of local history has burned. On February 13, Bob Mitchell passed away at Victoria Hospice at the age of 83 Farmer, politician, thinker and International Man of Mystery, the tales of Bob’s adventures in life will live on in the many lives he touched.
Bob was born in Saskatchewan but came to Metchosin as a young boy. He fondly recounted a rich childhood spent blowing up stumps with dynamite and tossing hay bales with his father. Bob’s wild years were enlivened by running after-hours night clubs in Arizona and Seattle. He recalled these years as the best of his life. He met and married Jackie Slater and fathered his only son, Geoff. He wasn’t one for domestic life, and soon ended up in jail after getting busted for turning his agricultural gifts to the cultivation of marijuana. We guessed that Bob’s short stint in jail was the thrill of his life, for we heard many a soliloquy about his time behind bars. He continued to advocate for youth detainees and for prisoners at William Head for many decades.
Bob’s adventures spanned some years up at Clo’ose on the West Coast trail. He loved recounting tales of incoming storms into the beach, and having to sail out to anchor his boat, and then swim to shore to keep his rig from getting tossed into the rocks. He continued to visit the site, and was there last fall and had to hike out because of a misadventure.
Bob served on Metchosin council for three terms, his slogan “I’m the only one running that has a conviction!” The folks of Metchosin will be familiar with the sight (and smell) of the tractor and trailer load of seaweed coming up from Weir’s Beach. He was a regular at the Broken Paddle, and could be seen whipping around Metchosin and beyond in his iconic Mini Cooper, the farm delivery vehicle. A point of pride for Bob was to be the first one to plough up his field in the spring, even when he got mired down in the mud.
Above all, Bob loved Sea Bluff Farm. He was so proud to feed the community 12 months of the year from our humble farm stand on Wootton Rd. “Things are really cooking!” he’d say with satisfaction while looking over our loaded farm stand. Bob was rototilling in the greenhouse mere weeks before he died. He would spend hours on the end of a hoe, methodically saving crops from the weeds. He was devoted to soil health and his legacy lives on in our giant beets and Hubbard squash.
Bob was happiest when he was sharing knowledge: helping out new farmers and scheming about local politics . Bob shone when he was the centre of attention, and he could regale tales drawing on a huge breadth of knowledge. He was extremely well read, always curious, and had an excellent memory for municipal history.