Meet the Urban Farmer Determined to Teach Others About Edible Landscapes
Matthew Geldin wants to help you turn your lawn into a bountiful garden.
By Bridget Shirvell
Modern Farmer
Aug 19, 2022
Excerpt:
As the head farmer of Farmscape, a company that designs, installs and maintains both residential and commercial gardens throughout California, Matthew Geldin has planted a lot of edible plants. He’s helped turn lawns, roofs and parks into productive food spaces, helping people connect with their food and nature at large.
“I think a lot of people either don’t have the time, the knowledge or the capacity to manage a garden themselves, but they really want to have that direct relationship with their food and where their food comes from,” says Geldin. “We can bridge those gaps for folks.”
Geldin started working with Farmscape, now the largest urban farming company in California, while studying landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona. After school, he honed his expertise working as a gardener at places such as the Los Angeles County Arboretum before returning to Farmscape, becoming the head farmer in 2014. Now, he oversees the weekly maintenance of hundreds of projects—everything from backyard gardens to neighborhood farms.
Each garden Geldin creates is wholly inspired by the people or the community it serves. For homeowners, Farmscape starts with a site visit. The consultation includes an analysis of growing conditions in the patch of land, including sun exposure, the location of trees and hedges and what the irrigation access is like. They have conversations with the owners about how large the household is and how much food, if any, they want to produce. The company also installs pollinator gardens, native plant gardens and summer dry gardens.
