about
About Custom Foodscaping
We transform ordinary spaces into
beautiful, food-producing landscapes.
Custom Foodscaping provides consultation, design, and installation services to realize your edible landscaping, farm and garden or permaculture goals.
We specialize in raised bed vegetable gardens, food forests, orchards, herb gardens, culinary gardens and profitable vegetable farms. We love to work with residential clients as well as institutions including schools, universities, hospitals, community centers and restaurants.
Meet Our Team
Matt Lebon
OWNER
Matt is most passionate about creating magical food moments. He is driven by the belief that food connects us all. By cultivating food crops with a reverence for Mother Earth he believes we can begin to heal our bodies and the land. Matt got his start with farming as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, where he was initially bit by the gardening bug. He went on to study ecological design and work on several farms. For five seasons Matt worked at the EarthDance Organic Farm School until he left his role of farm manager in 2017. Now with Custom Foodscaping, Matt is a practitioner and designer of edible landscapes and gardens.
Ryan Albritton
Designer & Foodscape Manager
Ryan is a passionate urban homesteader and advocate for local food systems, since cofounding a food startup called Sprouthood, which connected gardeners and farmers in the St. Louis region. His varied experience in carpentry, gardening, and landscape design has found a home with Custom Foodscaping and after completing Daniel Halsey’s United Designers course, Ryan has been leading the team’s formal design efforts. As Foodscape Manager, Ryan is involved with the design and implementation of many of our foodscaping projects.
Hayley Young
Maintenance Lead + Foodscaper
Hayley exudes enthusiasm when it comes to plants and plant-based eating. Working in specialty coffee for several years sparked Hayley’s interest in understanding where food comes from as well as the importance of farming conditions. She is passionate about connecting with food at the source and sharing bounty with others. Her background in art, landscaping, and carpentry led her to Custom Foodscaping, where Hayley spends much of her time building and installing garden beds in addition to maintenance work for client’s edible landscapes.
photo: Mackenzie Leek
Gabriel Hahn
Water Systems Manager
Gabriel loves connecting himself and others to the innumerable joys and wonders brought to us by the living world, and is captivated by moving water and everything that grows. He began working in organic vegetable production in 2007 and soon found himself living on permaculture farms in Ecuador and Peru, catalyzing a passion to use water responsibly, localize the food system, and live more communally with people and land. In 2012, Gabriel started and managed Seeds of Hope Farm in Spanish Lake, MO, where for 5 years he honed a focus on increased access to and education around local, healthy food. Looking to expand his working knowledge of plants and integrated living systems, he then spent two years at Brambleberry Farm in Southern Indiana. As Water Systems Manager, Gabriel oversees design and implementation of water management and retention systems.
Lindsay Wolff
OPERATIONS manager, The FOODSCAPER
Lindsay oversees our sister company, The Foodscaper, an educational platform for professional edible landscapers. She spends most of her free time rehabbing a 1918 farmhouse outside of St. Louis where she and her husband Nate love to host community events, including a recent permaculture design certification course.
Cat Dunsford
Foodscaper
Cat has been on a pursuit of knowledge in regenerative consciousness and skills since 2017. Inspired by hearing of permaculture, she started her journey with organic farming and has enjoyed absorbing the many different areas in the field. Her passion lies in land regeneration and helping to encourage regenerative systems from land to community.
She strives to be a positive presence in the world and is always eager to share in learning and knowledge with others. Her goal in this work is to highlight how everything, from people to plants, is connected. Her favorite life principles to apply are "leave it better than you found it" and "everything is tetris". She is excited to be a part of the CF crew and to help folks build and connect with edible plants and nature!
Clayton Darnell
Installation + Maintenance Crew
Clayton is a lover of nature, food sovereignty, and building closer relationships with the natural world. For the past eight years - from working traditional landscaping, to growing food for a retreat center, and going through a horticulture program - Clayton has grown a deeper love and awareness to plant care and the power of growing your own food.
Jessica Gazzola
MARKETING & ADMIN MANaGER
Jessica found grounding in sun, soil, and food as a young mother. Her past tracks through spiritual communities, but ordinary life in a blended family and tending relationships with backyard chickens and fruit trees illuminated her path. She loves her community orchard (The Orchard on Virginia) where she grows pawpaws, june berries, community, and stories. Jessica is thrilled that these tendrils of passion have a place to grow with Custom Foodscaping, supporting the foodscaping movement and sharing stories of everyday magic in the garden. She also likes to share her gluten-free baking.
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Photo by @virginiaharold
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