How the Farm to City App Came to Be

Holding my “Little Jar of Happy” at The Rainbow Eggs Farm. (photo by Pascale)

But First, A Little Context

I was born and raised on a third-of-an-acre on Vancouver Island. We had a veggie garden some apple trees, a plum tree, a peach tree, a quince tree, a kiwi vine, raspberry and blackberry canes, and a grape trellis. We harvested what we grew, shared some of it with friends and neighbours, and made jams and juices or cut it up and froze it to use through the winter. We occasionally fished for salmon, ate game meat hunted by family friends, and foraged a little when we were out in the bush, but we still relied on the grocery store for staples (more heavily in the winter months). 

We had close family friends up-island that we visited regularly who lived on an acreage and survived almost entirely off their immense vegetable garden, kept chickens, raised cattle for meat, and they hunted. Their next-door neighbours on the right raised turkeys, ducks, and chickens, and their neighbours on the left had a dairy farm. When we stayed with them, I took every opportunity I could to get up early and go next door with my Mom’s friend to help her herd and milk the cows on the dairy farm. I’d also retrieve the eggs from her hens every morning and occasionally helped the neighbour kid on the other side with his turkey chores. I rode horses whenever possible – up in Manning Park, at friends’ farms, at my cousins’ on the lower mainland, and on my uncle’s ranch in Alberta. My family in Alberta farm cattle and grain and I’ve been lucky enough to visit them and get a taste of large-scale farm life. I’ll never forget driving with my cousin into one of their pastures to feed cattle and having a bull come after us, angrily charging the tailgate of their old green farm truck all the way back to the fence line. We were HOWLING! 

So though I wasn't raised on a farm myself, I’ve always loved being around animals, in the garden, and on the farm (any and every farm will do).

My parents believed in eating as natural and close-to-the-earth (I'll call it) as possible as often as possible. We didn't use sprays, chemicals, or pesticides - the bugs, spiders, and bees were welcomed and appreciated and we were taught that they all had important roles in keeping our garden healthy and productive. We'd pull a carrot out of the garden or fruit off the tree and just wipe it off on our pant leg or spray it with the hose before we ate it (Dad always said "a little dirt won't kill ya"). And because we'd grown up eating lots of farm fresh meat, eggs, fruit, and veggies, we noticed the flavour and quality difference between farm (or backyard-grown) fresh and store bought. Even as kids, we liked farm-fresh food better; the egg yolks were brighter, the produce was tastier, the fruit was juicer, the meat was more tender. And we had that sense of pride and ownership when we'd grown, had a hand in growing, or harvested it ourselves. We were taught about eating healthy, nutritious food to fuel our bodies well, about growing our own food, raising animals to eat, and the realities of harvesting those animals to eat. My sister and I used to love hand-feeding the cattle that our family friends raised for beef even though we knew full-well that they’d be on our plate eventually. And though the pasture felt empty when they were gone, we had no qualms about meeting them again as nourishment on our plates. We were taught to be grateful to the animals we eat for their contribution to our lives and to respect that their bodies provide invaluable nourishment for ours so that we may thrive. We were quite well-connected to the earth and our food.

Given how I was raised, it's no surprise that I'm still big on eating “close-to-the-earth”. Eating farm fresh food as much as I can is a value that's stuck with me into my adult years.

From the City to the Country

In early 2022, I took a leap of faith and left my flourishing Project Management career in the city to go “dig in the dirt” on a large-scale industrial construction project up on the Coquihalla. It was a much-needed change of scenery and a new challenge and it was glorious!

But, working 12-to-14-hour days six (often seven) days a week up in the bush outside of town made sourcing and meal-prepping food pretty tricky - especially if you like eating healthy like I do (no sad gas station or drive-thru lunches for me, thanks). Most of the farm stores in the area are closed on Sunday which was our only day off from work if we got one at all. This made gathering high-quality, farm fresh food for meal prep even harder.

One day, on the way to work, I spotted a vending machine filled with egg cartons in someone’s driveway and that's really how this story begins – with the purchase of a humble carton of eggs from an egg vending machine. Perched right in the driveway of this private residence was a for-the-public EGG vending machine. It was amazing! It was refrigerated, it had a little robot voice that talked you through the steps of the transaction, it accepted debit and credit cards as payment, and it was filled with dozens of farm-fresh eggs laid by the hens strutting in the yard beside the home. It had this sweet little mechanical elevator system that your just-purchased carton of eggs gently rolled onto, then lowered it down to the retrieval compartment where you put your hand in and pulled out your carton. This vending machine had singlehandedly made the weekly task of buying eggs easier and more efficient AND turned it into a unique and fun EXPERIENCE! What a vibe! There were a few of us from work who regularly purchased eggs from it, but then one day, it was gone. No note, no notice that they were shutting it down, just GONE! We were all pretty crushed.

By the time the job ended, my partner and I had fallen in love with the area and so we decided to stay and call it home. One afternoon, as I was driving to the garden center, I happened to notice a sandwichboard sign at an intersection advertising an EGG VENDING MACHINE! I was so excited! Could it be that THE egg vending machine had been relocated? Had I re-discovered it? I followed the sign up a lovely country road and found myself at a super sweet farm stand called Rosedale Farm Fresh - a beautiful, covered, walk-in stand with an egg vending machine (almost exactly like the one that had disappeared) tucked inside! Not only were there cartons of farm fresh eggs in this machine, but THIS vending machine was also stocked with packages of locally-made beef jerky, bags of freeze-dried blueberries, bags of locally-made granola, elderberry syrup, and other delicious locally-made goodies. On the shelves inside the stand were flats of farm fresh eggs, bags of local hazelnuts, maple syrup, and more. JACKPOT! It was my first time finding a real farm stand and I was ELATED with the whole experience; the fresh local products, the stand itself (so beautifully built), the concept and culture of "farm stand hopping" (as I call it) in general - what do you mean you can pull up, buy some delicious, farm-fresh goodies and then go about the rest of your day? I’d just found our new egg supplier and I was super jazzed about it!

For me, farm stand hopping is JUST as much about the incredible items you can buy direct from a truly local farm as it is about the STORY of what you buy and how you buy it. Imagine relaying the tale to a friend or family member about how you purchase your eggs from an egg vending machine that talks to you! Imagine telling them how the cute chickens that laid your eggs are pastured, free range, in an apple orchard right next to the stand and that they’re friendly and happy and living their best lives. Imagine bumping into the farmer at the stand and having a lovely chat with them about the farm, their animals, and learning their story! Imagine creating a delicious meal (from appy to dessert and even the drinks) with your farm stand bounty and sharing unique details about the wonderful people and places you purchased each element of the meal from with your guests when they ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ about how yummy everything is. Tender farm fresh meat from the farm down the road, vibrant veggies from another stand (and they’re grown in the field RIGHT there!), the flour to make the dessert freshly-milled on a homestead just up the hill, and the gorgeous flowers to decorate the table from this incredible flower stand around the corner (“they also have u-pick – let’s go next weekend!”). The STORY is part of the charm, the JOY, the SOUL - and this resonates DEEPLY for me. It’s MUCH cooler than going to a commercial grocery store, fighting crowds for parking and the till, not knowing where anything in your basket is really from or how it was produced or what it was sprayed with or what it was fed before it was processed, picking over sad-looking "food" from under the fluorescent lights. Farm stand hopping brings joy, life, and meaning back to what’s on our plates and what we’re nourishing our minds, bodies and spirits with. Not to MENTION how much healthier it is for us, our environment, and our economy (but let’s save these points for another post).

The Genesis of Farm to City BC

In summer 2024, I was swimming at the river with a friend and we were chatting about the egg vending machine. I had (of course) shared the farm stand joy and taken her there with me at one point and then she started buying her eggs there too. She was just as elated about the whole experience as I was and even took her mom there when she was visiting from out-of-town. Farm stand joy is definitely contagious!

As my friend and I discussed the stand, how fun it is to buy from the egg vending machine, how important it is to support local, and how magnificently high-quality the eggs are, I said "I wonder how many more farm stands there are close by that make buying farm fresh more fun that we don't even know about yet?” And then I said “Does anything like an App exist that would help us find them?". So, we sat and we searched the internet. I Googled like my life depended on it. We scoured the App Store. Nothing existed that exactly matched what I was envisioning. I decided right then and there in THAT very moment on the beach in the hot summer sun that I was going to make it my business to find out JUST how many amazing local farm outlets there were in the area AND if there were enough, I'd create a unified, easy, and accessible way for people like me to find them.

I came up with the name “Farm to City BC” on the spot, bought the domain name from GoDaddy right there on the riverbank, secured the Instagram handle (in case I might actually be on to something here), and I was excited to get started, but then life threw me a mega-curveball, so I wound up parking the idea but ruminated over it every day for the next 8 months.

A Little Detour Into Supporting Local

Before I continue, I'd be remiss if I left out the element of supporting local to this brainchild of mine. Although I deeply understand the value and benefits of eating healthy, farm fresh food, they're not the only motivating factors underlying my vision.  Farm to City is also about helping preserve and protect our local farms and farmers by beating convenience culture at its own game. In a world built around convenience, we’ve begun trading local resilience for speed and sameness. Commercial grocery chains (once seen as symbols of progress) now act as giants that squeeze out our smaller farms, centralize our food systems, and drain money away from our communities. When we choose convenience over connection, we weaken our local economy, reduce biodiversity, and hand over more power to corporations instead of keeping it with us, the people. Supporting local farmers/growers/bakers/butchers/charcuterie makers/etc.,  isn’t just a feel-good choice, it’s a form of self-governance. It protects our environment, strengthens our food security, and ensures that the people who grow our food and flowers can afford to continue. When we buy local, we keep our economy, our land, and our future in our own hands. What I had so quickly realized on the bank of the river that day is that there was no unifying or accessible way of finding and supporting local farms and farmers. And if we don't know what alternatives to the big, soulless, multi-national chain stores exist- or IF they exist at all, then we cannot possibly support them. So I built Farm to City to showcase and celebrate the many incredible alternatives that exist and help folks find them - it's my contribution to empower us all to find and support local consistently and... (yes) conveniently.

“That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run.”

Eight months later, after concluding that I wasn’t going to be able to stop thinking about it every single day until I followed my curiosity and actually did it - I went for it. Like Forrest Gump who just got up one day and started running, one sunny morning - June 5th 2025 to be exact - I just got in my trusty old truck with a notebook and a pen and started DRIVING.

I started close to home and then expanded outwards into the great unknown. I drove down every single road, every dead end, every side road. Every. Single. One. I stopped at EVERY farm stand I came across and purchased something from each one, wrote down its address, snapped some pics, found their Instagram or socials (if they had one) and connected with them. After years of working in the area and feeling like I was just surface-existing because of my hectic work schedule, I was THRILLED to finally be able to DIG IN, connect with my community, and experience everything beautiful and local this gorgeous land and the wonderful people around me had to offer.

I often drove upwards of 250 kilometers/155 miles a day (and often more than 9 hours a day too) all over the lower mainland from Chilliwack to Surrey, Pitt Meadows to Abbotsford, Mission, Matsqui, Agassiz, Ryder Lake, and everywhere in between with a 4L jug of water (gotta stay hydrated), my phone, a bucket of water (for the bouquets I bought), my notepad, and my little farmstand cash bag. I’d snack on protein bars and some my farm stand purchases and save the rest to cook and invent recipes with back home.

I started posting my finds on the Farm to City BC Instagram page. I built the Instagram page to share the joy I feel from connecting with the community, to share the beautiful food and flowers you can get from these great local gems, and to help people like me find and support the farmers, growers, bakers, and makers who operate these incredible farm stores and stands! I printed up some business cards and started leaving one in the cash box of every stand I visited.

I built the Farm to City BC website myself, started the blog to share stories and recipes, and taught myself how to make a custom/private Google map. I started pinning farmstands on it every night when I got home; I’d make dinner for my partner and I and then sit at the computer and chart my farmstand finds on the map until long after he’d gone to bed. I began sharing the map with the Farm to City BC community and was delighted that folks were just as excited about it as I am and were subscribing to access it!

As I explored further, I began to get requests from folks to come visit their farms/farmstands/flower farms/meat shops - and what an honour that is! Rookie Blooms was my first official farm tour invite (thank you for believing in me, Lindsay!) and I've had the honour and pleasure of visiting many more since then and am now booking into the 2026 season. I learn so much on each tour and I love meeting everyone and sharing their inspiring stories with our Farm to City family. It’s so incredible to me that we are surrounded by folks who pour their hearts, their souls, their passion, their love, their LIVES into what they do and I know that the world’s a much better place for all of you who do. I believe that that passion and love is contagious, and I believe it’s important to share that inspiration and that energy with others as it has a positive ripple effect on us all.

After about a month of driving around, it became clear to me that there are definitely enough farm stands, flower stands, farm stores, bakers, charcuterie makers, meat shops, dairy farms/cheesemakers, and more in just BC alone with no unifying way to find them – so I dove head-first into assembling a team to build the app. I also realized that this service should not just be limited to British Columbia and that if I was going to build an app and provide this public service, that it should unify all of Canada at the least and more logically all of North America eventually. As a born-and-raised 6th generation Canadian and 4th generation British Columbian, I am of course very proud of my heritage and I feel a deep sense of responsibility to help my fellow British Columbians and Canadians through this App, but I ALSO believe that folks should have a meaningful and accessible way to find and support local no matter where they are. I believe our farm family both North AND South of the border should get the meaningful support they deserve from their local communities and beyond. After all, we’re all just humans standing on the same earth under the same sun, aren’t we? The same passion within us that fuels us to grow and make and create is also within our neighbours. And don’t we all deserve the same access to fresh, healthy, local food and flowers? I believe in my heart very strongly that it’s the right thing to do. In keeping with this belief and my fundamental passion for supporting local (wherever your local is) I'm excited to say that farm stands from our friends and neighbours to the South are also being added to the App daily.

Farm to City Today

It's now been 6 months since I started this incredible journey. I originally set a goal for myself to try and visit 150 local BC stands personally by the end of the 2025 season (which i guessed would be October-ish). I didn't even know if there were that many stands within driving distance of my home! In mid-September, I attended a beautiful bouquet-making event hosted by Brea at The Frequency Farm. It was there that I met Vanessa of Dutch Blooms in-person. We had been connected through Instagram for a while and I had been trying to get to her stand for a long while too but I just hadn't been able to get there yet. We were chatting about Farm to City and I told her that I'd visited about 140 stands at the time of our conversation and about my goal to visit 150 stands by the end of the season. She was pumped! We planned right then and there that I would visit her flower stand for a milestone number and we would celebrate it together. So on September 27th, I was honoured and delighted to meet up with Vanessa at her beautiful flower stand in Langley and celebrate my 160th farm stand visit with her there!

I honestly can’t tell you how many times I’ve just about burst at the seams with elation on this adventure so far. I wake up in the morning excited to hit the road, excited about what the day will bring, the treasures I’ll find, the extraordinary people I’ll meet, the stories I'm trusted with, the experiences I get to have, the amazing messages I get from you - the Farm to City family - cheering me on or asking to have your stands added to the map. It feels like a dream to be here with all of you, sharing the magic that is our local community. Because it really does feel like magic and I’m so very, deeply grateful for all of this AND for all of you!

And now we're on the cusp of The Farm to City App being ready for download - which doesn't actually feel real yet. From a little seed of an idea that was planted on a riverbank, the vision has taken root and grown stronger by the day and it's almost harvest time! It’s taken longer than I anticipated to get it all finalized, but then, I’ve never built an app myself from scratch before so I had no idea what to expect in terms of timeline or how long it takes for the App Store or Google Play to approve apps once they’re submitted for review. At the time of writing this, we're only waiting on final approval from the Apple App Store and for a few aesthetic touch-ups to be completed and then the Farm to City App will FINALLY be publicly available. But this isn't the end of the story. Going live with the app is only the beginning of another great adventure. Getting the platform and systems in place is one thing, but then continuing to connect with and add more amazing locations across BC and beyond is the next important step in the mission and I look forward to continuing this journey into 2026 and for many years to come!

So THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to ALL of you for being here, for believing in this vision of mine, for your impeccable vibes and kind messages, for inviting me to meet you and tour your amazing farms, farm stands, flower stands, and shops, and for trusting me with your stories – I’m so incredibly grateful for all of you and every second of this journey. Though it's only been half a year, I can honestly say that this has already been the adventure of a lifetime and the HONOUR of a lifetime and I know this is truly just the beginning <3