YES MA! Backyard Farm: Honoring Heritage Through Food

Adfia Bristol is the founder of YES MA! Backyard Farm, a family farm in Puyallup, WA. She specializes in growing culturally significant crops and making small-batch Caribbean condiments. Her work is deeply personal and honors her Guyanese roots and the generations of women in her family who cultivated food in their backyards.

From her mother, aunts, and grandmother, she inherited the skills to grow food and an appreciation for the flavors and traditions that shaped their family table. With that foundation and a culinary degree, she decided to turn her passion into a full-time business.

“I’ve always been growing food but just wanted to do it full time,” she explains. “The goal was to create a career based on things I love to do.”

From Backyard to Farm

When Adfia moved from New York to Washington state three years ago, she also moved from a backyard to a farm. Today, YES MA! Backyard Farm grows about 50 varieties of vegetables in a quarter-acre plot. Crops include hibiscus roselle, hot peppers, bitter melon, long beans, and other staples of Caribbean cuisine.

Adfia sells her produce and creates shelf-stable, small-batch condiments like hot pepper sauces, onion jams, pickles, and hibiscus roselle achar. Every product is made with clean ingredients: no pesticides, artificial colors, or sweeteners. Just bold, Caribbean flavor in every jar.

“YES MA! Backyard Farm isn’t about chasing trends or mass production, it’s about depth, patience, and honoring tradition,” she says. “Every crop grown and every jar made carries the flavors of the Caribbean and Guyana.”

The Taste of Home

Among her most popular products is her Guyanese-style pepper sauce. It is different from regular hot sauces, is thicker, and highlights the flavor of the peppers instead of vinegar. To keep this tradition, she even grows wiri wiri peppers, usually only found in Guyana, in greenhouses in Washington state.

“Every once in a while, I will meet someone who is Guyanese… When they tell me this tastes like home, this smells like home, this feels like home—that is what is really important,” she says. “My goal is to honor tradition.”

Support Along the Way

Adfia learned by doing, supported by mentors, other farmers, and organizations. She worked at local farms and completed the Harvest Pierce County Farm Foundations Program, which gave her months of training in production and harvesting. Eventually, she was able to lease land through the Harvest Pierce County incubator farm program.

“My journey into farming has been blessed,” she says. “Doors have opened, and I’ve received tremendous support from farmers, organizations, and community leaders who work tirelessly to remove barriers so small farm businesses like mine can thrive.”

Support has come from many places. Grants helped her build greenhouses and expand production. Business Impact NW’s Root to Rise Program paired her with a mentor who guided her through soil testing and structuring her business. It also gave her access to the incubator kitchen at 21 Acres, which gave her space to process some of her produce.

Resilience and Growth

“Every step of the way is an accomplishment,” Adfia says. “I am thankful for every bit of it.”

Some of the milestones she mentions are harvesting 1,000 heads of garlic for the first time, spotting a bright purple cauliflower growing, and harvesting their onions to use in their products.

When things don’t go as planned, Adfia gets creative. Like when tomatoes failed to ripen, they were made into a green tomato chutney. Or when bitter melons struggled, she used the leaves for tea, drawing from traditions in Jamaica and Guyana.

What’s next?

In terms of product development, Adfia is focused on expanding her pepper sauces. She started with one traditional recipe, and this year she has developed three varieties: mild, medium, and hot, with different flavors.

Her achar (a spiced vegetable pickle she grew up with) sold out last year. She will continue using hibiscus roselle leaves and plans to ramp up production with earlier and more frequent harvesting of the leaves.

With greenhouses in place, her next step is to have a commercial processing space to prepare and package Caribbean products at greater capacity while keeping the small-batch quality that defines her brand.

YES MA! In the Community

Customers can find Adfia’s products at fairs, pop-up markets, and events in the Seattle area, and this season at:

• West Seattle Farmers Market, every Sunday
• Tacoma Night Market, Saturday nights
• SeaTac Farmers Market, every other Wednesday, until October 29, 2025

YES MA! also supplies the Nourishing Beloved Community Project in Jefferson County, which purchases food from BIPOC farmers and distributes food to families. Excess produce is also donated to the Puyallup Food Bank. “We believe everyone deserves quality produce,” she says.

Farming has taught her that community is essential: “It’s important to learn through other people’s mistakes so you can skip them, because there will be all types of hurdles,” she says.

She’s experienced this firsthand. When the demand for her onion jam exceeded her own harvest, she turned to farmers at her incubator space who were also growing sustainably. By incorporating their crops into her value-added products, she was able to meet customer demand while supporting other small farmers.

“It takes a team,” she explained. “To grow a viable business is not something any of us could really do on our own.”

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Business Impact NW offers training and resources for food and farm businesses like YES MA! Backyard Farm. Learn how we can support your business here.