Riverbend Gardens began in 1982 when Doug and Evelyn Visser decided they wanted to become farmers. They grew 2 acres of vegetables their first year and sold them at the local farmers’ markets. Over the years the farm expanded adding more acres, employees equipment, and buildings. Riverbend Gardens has diversified and grows bedding plants, dried flowers, and has in the past grown several different vegetables for the wholesale market, including, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers and green onions. Today Riverbend Gardens is owned and operated by Doug, Evelyn, Janelle and Aaron Herbert (their daughter and son in law). Together with their team of employees they grow, harvest, package, ship and sell seventy five acres of vegetables. From seed to your shopping bag your food is in our care.

Riverbend Gardens is located in northeast Edmonton in the North Saskatewan river valley. Edmonton’s river valley has its own microclimate, being at a lower elevation this creates many growing advantages such as more frost free days than other parts of the area. Riverbend Gardens also has sandy soils. We often get asked at the market how we have new potatoes at the end of June and carrots and peas in the first weeks of July. The combination of sandy soils and frost free days certainly aids in the creating of early vegetables. We also have a constant clean water source from which to irrigate.

We at Riverbend Gardens pride ourselves in growing unique early vegetables to this area. With many years of experience, the varieties of vegetables are carefully selected in the spring. Over the years we have learnt what grows well in our soils and of course we are always testing new varieties as well. Some of our favorite varieties are the baby sweet Nantes carrots…………….. Some of these varieties will never be found in the grocery stores as they are more time consuming and are not economically feasible to grow for a wholesale price. We also strive to grow small potatoes ………. All of our vegetables are sold freshly picked and travel no more than 30-40 km to reach our customers.

We at Riverbend Gardens enjoy the opportunity to interact and build relationships with our customers. The Farmers market is a unique place in that you can be assured that the people you are buying from and supporting are the producers. We as producers at the farmers market are available to answer all of your questions. Common questions are, when was this picked? What variety is this? Where are you located? And many different questions about our growing practices. We are happy to personally answer questions and value our customer’s feedback. The direct marketing at farmers markets allows us to evaluate our customer’s needs and better serve our customers.

Riverbend Gardens, at this time, also supplies the local wholesale market with cabbage and cucumbers. This experience with the wholesale market has complimented our farmers’ market growing by extending our season allowing us to purchase larger equipment and increasing our food safety standards. We are part of the HACCP.

We as local farmers also feel it is important to be involved with the community at large and the farming community. Riverbend gardens has donated time and land to City Farm, who run programs for children to get them connected with farming, the land and their community………..we are also involved with and support AFMA, AFFPA, legacy lands, topsoil, country soul stroll, spring drive and many farmers market boards

Our seasonal employees are made up of mostly local students and recently we have employed foreign workers from Mexico. We enjoy having these men and have welcomed them on our property with a home and enjoy sharing our summer with them. The relationship builds as we spend so much time with them on the farm and as our neighbors. Having foreign workers has worked out well for us as it has become increasingly difficult to find local labor especially being outside the boundaries of public transport. We still strive to support the local labor force as much as possible and are willing to hire anyone and give everyone to be a part of our team.