LACTUCA was entirely Travis Kennedy’s brain-child. Having spent too many years away from market gardening on Salt Spring Island, he started a backyard urban farming operation. Right out of the gates he was selling out, and I was quickly supplying him with the excesses from my space. We proceeded to geek out on growing hyper-seasonal tweaked-out salad mixes full of herbs, blossoms, and odd varietals of tasty things that weren’t readily available. Never did catch up to demand.

Trav and I are now business partners in LACTUCA Corporation [funny, right?], and we’re scaling up considerably. Both of us adore growing stuff well. We also share a keen interest in building a successful urban ag business model. LACTUCA supplies a number of restaurants [Three Boars, Elm, RGE RD, Woodword] in addition to supplying farmers’ markets. We’re really grateful for the progressive chefs in the city who are embracing what it is we’re doing, and we’re equally indebted to all of those that come to the markets regularly to re-stock their urban-farmed veg for the week. This season will see a major expansion into a collection of eclectic veg varieties – but not to worry, we’re still hyper focused on the salad mixes.

Our full-on site is here. I’ll be producing LACTUCA videos in 2013 through the season so that you can see where we’re at and what we’re up to – they’ll be one of the ‘programs’ on kevinTV.

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