Our Story

Who are we?

We are a small Canadian company that believes:

Everyone deserves to eat fresh, healthy, pesticide-free food
Growing food at home reduces our impact on the planet, including: reduced water consumption, no fertilizers which contribute to green house gas emissions, no pesticides, and eliminating shipping food long distances... the average NA meal travels 2,414 km's!
Making our products in Canada with the highest environmental standards from packaging to materials used.
Food security and sovereignty: unlike other indoor gardens we do not make customers buy our seeds. You can use our organic and heirloom seeds, or your own.

How we started

Jen grew up in a food insecure home. As a child I remember having an empty fridge and the stress our hard-working single mom endured, trying to keep food on the table. Part of that included growing a vegetable garden. The flavour of a carrot with only the dirt dusted off and fresh peas devoured before ever leaving the garden, made an imprint on my taste buds at a young age.

In the mid 1990's my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He had enjoyed fast food most of his life, but changed to an organic diet, high in fruits and vegetables. His health improved for several years, before losing his battle to cancer.

Founder - Jen McGuinness

When I bought my first home, my aunt helped me set up a garden. She provided plants, seeds, and her green thumb. We lived in a townhouse that only received a few hours of sunlight a day. Our patio was full of potted veggie plants, because it was the sunniest spot. One day I went to sit down and there was no room, too many veggies! That was the beginning of my research into vertical gardening. From there I learnt about growing indoors hydroponically. This technology is used by greenhouses to grow high value crops like peppers and tomatoes. I used to find it disappointing in the fall when my own garden and the farmers market could no longer provide fresh produce, it was back to the super market where produce was not fresh, and often rotting before I even got it home. For this reason, the idea of being able to grow food year-round spoke to me. My friend Matt was good enough to come a long for the ride and we started prototyping.

Hard work and perseverance

Pictured below are some of our growing pains, earliest prototypes, and some of our brave family and friends that helped test and provide feedback.

Indoor vegetable garden VerdeGarden

The vision

To: beautify your living space, grow food year-round indoors, and make it easy for novice gardeners.

Counter-top space is sacred and I hate clutter, so if I was going to design an indoor garden it had to be vertical. Here is one of our early prototypes, tested by early adopters in 2015.

Indoor vertical garden prototype

Feedback led to improvments

Refinements to the VerdeGraze came following feedback from our early adopters. Christina, quoted below, called her first prototype the "Franken-wall." It was ugly, but it still grew food:

Meanwhile Jen moved from her townhouse with the shady yard to an apartment with no balcony, and Matt to a basement suite with no yard, highlighting the need for an indoor garden. Surely there were other Canadians that had the same problems.

The refined VerdeGraze in Jen's new apartment

Getting closer, no longer the Franken-wall.

Our Kickstarter Campaign

Customers were asking to buy the VerdeGarden, then called the VeggieWall. With 90% of the design done, we launched our Kickstarter campaign. We ran in to difficulties around increasing costs and complexity with the final 10% of the design. Matt moved to Australia, and Jen continued on alone resolving the remaining challenges. We are very grateful to our faithful customers that have stuck with us and patiently awaited their product.

Ready to see the final product?

To learn more about VerdeGardens, click here.