Edible Ottawa

There Grows the Neighbourhood

• Photo by Amy Zambonin

  Dylan Mitchell, left, and Jonathan Murray, right, stand outside one of Heartee Food's containers in a parking lot on MacLaren Street in downtown Ottawa. Inside this nondescript, white, 40-foot shipping container are growing-blocks from which sprout a gloriously colourful variety of mushrooms, all harvested by Mitchell and delivered daily to local restaurants and a growing list of grocery stores.

• Inside Heartee Foods' 40- foot shipping container in Centretown, Dylan Mitchell, shown top left and bottom right, harvests a variety of different mushrooms — lion's mane, chesnut, pink and blue oyster, — 14 to 21 days after they sprout.

• They're delivered to Ottawa restaurants, often just a few feet away, and select stores.