#HumansofTK: Backyard Edibles Bring Urban Farming to Ottawa
Meet the Urban Farmers: Madeleine Maltby and Matthew Mason-Phillips
Combining her years of hands-on farming experience, his diverse background in community development and a shared passion for hard-work and organic growing, Madeleine Maltby and Matthew Mason-Phillips make a formidable duo dedicated to the principles of sustainable agriculture and devoted to their dream of farming the city.
The Urban Farm
Embedded in the communities it feeds, Backyard Edibles transforms underused residential space into productive market gardens. With clusters of plots within a given neighbourhood, our farm not only grows fresh, healthy produce but sows positive relationships between people around ideas of community, sustainability and land use.
The Products
Backyard Edibles grow a wide variety of heirloom and organic vegetables, as well as a diversity of microgreens using non-GMO seeds and sustainable, ecologically viable methods.
Their Impact
Farming in the city has many benefits to both the community and the urban ecology. It not only creates productive green spaces using resources that would otherwise go to waste, but brings families and communities together, strengthens the relationship between consumers and producers, and educates citizens who are increasingly removed from food production. The future of hyper-local food is becoming prominent nation-wide, transitioning from the 1000-km diet to the 100-km diet to a 100-metre diet, and it can be found right here in the capital.
Backyard Edibles supplies the microgreens to many of the top restaurants in Ottawa. These products not only bring colour to the dishes they finish, but they also bring them to life. Their microgreens are more than just a garnish, they are also a unique component that brings a depth of flavour to the dish. In Canada’s cold climate, their innovative growing system allows chefs in the nation’s capital the opportunity to express their creativity all-year-around.
Check out their full TK profile here.
