Our Story

Hi, I'm Brianna! I operate Puddle Produce Farm, which has been a 1.5 market garden outside Williams Lake since 2013. While I will continue to run the market garden and produce many of the veggies you'll find here, I've wanted to open an online farm store for a long time. My main reason for this is because I see how much small farms like me struggle to make every part of their operation - including sales - efficient enough to make a profit. I think we can be more successful if we share the load, and take things off each others' plates.

I also want to ensure a direct relationship between farmers and customers is maintained, and independent from corporate food systems. To me, this is the foundation of trust in what and how we're eating.

 

 

Relocating from Victoria, BC, the idea launched in March of 2013 as a lease-based multi-locational urban farm operation known as Puddle Produce Urban Farms. That season, it started with 4,500 square feet of yard space within Williams Lake city limits and converted it all to productive garden beds. 

In 2016, I wanted to expand the farm's offerings and find a larger property. So I relocated to Soda Creek north of Williams Lake, where I landed on a 70 acre leased piece of land just above the Fraser River. It was pretty perfect for market garden adaptation, and I increased my garden area to 1.5 acres.

 

I grew on that leased property for 9 seasons, where I also got to know my new neighbours 8kms up the road, Lynda and Charlie.

I met Lynda and Charlie before I moved to Soda Creek: when I first relocated to Williams Lake, I joined the Board of Directors for a small local food coop called Cariboo Growers, where Lynda was also a Board member and Charlie helped with manual labour around the store. Later, when I moved to Soda Creek, Charlie helped my dad and I turn over the new property with his tractor. He said we had a lot of rocks! (it wasn't that many rocks :P)

They were neighbours for the next 6 years, until Charlie passed in 2022. At that time, Lynda had to sell her beloved home and farm - known as Fraserbench Farm - of 35 years. I then thought to myself....maybe we can do something good together.

My partner and I ended up buying Lynda and Charlie's beautiful property in October of 2022 and moved the farm there in October 2025. It is a dream for us, full of comforting history and dedication to Lynda and Charlie's lifetime of work. The orchard she planted of over 55 fruit trees lives on, as well as her amazing ornamental gardens that pepper the property. I hope it comforted her as well, to know that someone was committed to stewarding this piece of land and growing food, as she had done. Sadly, Lynda also passed in September, 2024.

Preserving and continuing what was created at Fraserbench Farm over so many years has now become part of my mission as a small grower. 

We are still known as Puddle Produce Farm and probably always will be. But it's been built to where it is today by many loving hands.

 

 

Puddle Produce Farm was certified organic for 5 years, from 2020-2025. We still grow with the same principles, which are primarily:

• low-till: we till when opening new ground, but after that it is only done around garden edges to keep grass from creeping in, or at a very shallow 1-2" to work in fertilizer
• organic-approved fertilizers. These are things like feather meal, fish bone meal, kelp meal, and gypsum
• compost! you don't need much. We aim to add 1" per season and just leave it on the surface
• no herbicides, ever: there are none that are ok so we use light surface cultivation to get weeds as early as possible
• physical barriers for pests: we use a  LOT of insect netting to keep pests out rather than using an organic-approved pesticide whenever possible
• cover cropping: we try to fit in a cover crop somewhere in garden before the winter, and rotate them around

If you ever have any questions about our growing practices, just let us know!

 

 

To provide a healthy, local, sustainable, & diverse alternative to our only other sources of food. We want to grow as much of this food for as many people as possible in our community, at fair prices that can support educational and satisfying farm jobs for seasonal employees. We want to remove barriers to buying local by providing as much convenience as possible and creating value in the form of the highest quality produce available. We want to do all of this while living a healthy, humble, and honest life, and giving back to those around us as well as the ecosystem that supports this work.