Three Stellar Women and a Community Garden

1)This morning, I met with Maggie Theriot, Sustainability Coordinator for Leon County. She heads the Office of Sustainability. A large part of her job right now is event planning for the Leon County Sustainable Communities Summit 2010 which will focus on "how to foster a sustainable local economy and the importance of sustainable food systems."

Last fall, Maggie got in touch with me about being involved with the Summit. She was looking for referrals for farmers and other folks engaged in making our local food system more sustainable. She also indicated that I might could serve in some kind of public capacity at the event itself-- whether exhibiting or speaking-- since my food gardening entrepreneurship happened to overlap so perfectly with the Summit's two main focuses.

But that's not why I met with her today.

We met today to talk about her ongoing work in partnership with and under the direction of the County Commission and and the Leon County Agricultural Extension Agency to identify county land that could be used for community garden space. The working idea is to conduct three pilot or "test" community gardens in order to get their (community gardening) feet wet.

How about that, eh?

2) At two, I met with Elizabeth Swiman in FSU's Center for Civic Engagement. The reason for the meeting was twofold. First of all, last fall Elizabeth coordinated an excellent forum about how to facilitate partnerships between professors and community agencies in order to open service learning opportunities for students. With hopes to bring together the many disparate individuals and organizations working in, on, and around community gardens here in the Greater Tallahassee area, I hoped to pick Elizabeth's brain about how she coordinated the forum last fall. And, the second reason for the meeting: business. I heard from a mutual friend that she just might want my expertise in starting a garden.

Turns out, Elizabeth is also interested in bringing the many community gardening coordinators, organizers and activists together because an increasing number of her students are interested in learning to grow food, community gardens, urban farming, etc. And she needs agencies and programs to direct students towards. Synergy?

3)After months of communication by email, I finally stopped in to visit Gayle, one of my down-the-road neighbors. She gave me a tour of her garden: raised-beds filled with kale, huge heads of cabbage, sugar-sweet carrots, onions, broccoli, mini-turnips, and lettuces. Gayle also has pear and mahaw trees, loquats, raspberries, an orange tree, lemon, satsuma, and a giant fig tree. And get this: she makes fruit wine. Lots of it. She graced me with a taste of her "cherry pie wine." I swear, just smelling it caused my cheeks to pucker and start gushing just as if I'd taken a big ole bite of delicious pie. Wow. Tomorrow she's making orange-ginger wine. Whoa. In case you're interested, on Sat. Feb 27, she's hosting a benefit wine tasting just after the Big Bend Community Orchestra's 4pm performance at TCC.

4) Okay, I lied. There was a fourth woman. And a man. After chatting with Gayle about gardens and homemade wine, I ran over to the 4th Ave Frenchtown Community Garden to see my buddy, Mark Tancig and Anna Lee. Mark Tancig is the garden coordinator, and he's out there gardening with the kids from the community center every Thursday after school from around 4:30 to about 5:30/6. (You can read his stories on the Damayan Garden Project Blog.) Anna Lee, who works at the Healing Center on Park Ave has recently undertaken to create an edible landscape according to Permaculture principles on her personal land near Chaires.

Mark, Anna and I-- along with the kids of the community center and FSU students referred to the garden by Elizabeth Swimann-- tended rows of collard greens, prepped soil, planted seeds, and watered the garden.

It was an appropriate ending to a great day. Food gardens: that's what all this work is about.

Why Can I Eat Bread in France, but not the USA?

Updated 10/31/2017 as the National Organic Standards Board meets in Jacksonville, FL. This may well be the most important thing you read this year for your health. (Originally written in 2015 while I was traveling-- and eating bread-- with my wife in France.) I've got a food riddle for you from Paris, France: Why can I eat bread over here when it makes me sick at home? I'll share my best guess in a minute, but first, a little personal background. Since my senior year of high school, I've not been able to eat much bread at all. For five years, I was severely hypoglycemic, and everything I ate had to have more protein than carbohydrates. That meant, in effect, that I spent my years of college beer-less and eating lots of salad with meat on top. I ate tons of vegetables, very little fruit, basically no carbohydrates to speak of, meat, nuts, eggs, and cheese. If I accidentally ate, say, meat loaf that was, unbeknownst to me, made with bread in it, I'd spend the n...

Man in Overalls - It's Like Washing Your Dishes

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Man in Overalls - Growing Great Soil

Good soil will basically grow your groceries for you, but how do you build great soil? The answer is that there are two options: a quick & easy way and a DIY, hard(er) way. So we're on the same page, I'm continuing my #GrowYourGroceries The Easy Way series by digging into the how-tos of growing great soil. These stories and techniques will likely make the most sense after reading Geeking on Good Soil , my last update. (I outlined where I was headed in The Big Picture.) As I was saying, the easy way to build a great soil is to fill raised beds with a terrific compost-based soil mix like my Magic Mix to jump start your food garden productivity from year one. From there, seasonally, you simply top-dress each season before planting with another few inches of compost-based soil mix. This is how I manage my own food garden and those of my customers. Why? Because at the root of things, I'm a lazy food gar...

Man In Overalls - My Compost System

Composting, they say, is an art form. But, truth be told, I'm just too lazy for all that. My own compost philosophy is, "Crap rots in the woods, doesn't it?" But really. :) Whenever I think of home gardening systems, I always reflect back on my grandmother. She gardened up until the week she died at 93. She planted by the signs and assured me that's why her collards were not eaten up by bugs and were able to grow for 3 years running and up to 8 or 9 feet tall. She had a little rototiller, planted straight rows, mulched by spreading leaves to keep the weeds down. She threw out a little 10-10-10 from time to time and kept the cabbage worms at bay with Sevin dust. She hoed if the weeds called for it. But mostly, she harvested. Her pots were always full and her freezer always stuffed with produce: collards, mustards, turnips, peas, tomato gravy, squash, you name it. Now, I don't use 10-10-10 or sevin dust, and I'm not big on tilling. However, the thi...

Man in Overalls - Summer Garden Blues & What To Do

Welcome to mid summer in the Deep South! If you're anything like me, you're actively looking for excuses to avoid going outside this time of year. The heat doesn't so much radiate down from the sun as it seems to rise from the side walk. Rain helps- for about ten minutes- and then simply adds to the humidity as it vaporizes on the payment, so that it feels like you need a snorkel to make it from the house to the car, but of course, it only gets worse when you turn on the AC, and that first puff of hot air feels as though someone just wrapped your face in a plastic bag - not to mention that if you cut your grass yesterday, you're going to have to do it again... tomorrow. And, lets not even talk about how fast the weeds grow this time of year! Or the insects seem to multiply! Oh, home... :) Here's the good news: If your garden looks a little worse for wear, it's okay. Really. Mine does too. As much as I aim for- and largely achieve- a productive & beauti...

Man in Overalls - How to Start a School Garden: Design

Before you get to build your school garden like this, before you can help kids get their hands dirty like this, or teach kids in your school garden like this, there are a few things you've got to take care of first. The #1 most important thing you've got to do is build your team. I say- with no exaggeration-- that human infrastructure is THE most important aspect of developing a successful school garden. But, I already wrote about building your school garden team last time. Assuming you're on track with that, a simultaneous step is to begin developing your school garden design. Here are a few things to should consider as you develop a school garden design: Purpose In your school garden interest meeting, one of the first questions you should ask is: "Why are you interested in a school garden?" Interestingly, this question serves two purposes. First, it helps the team gel because there will likely be a lot of overlap in answers. This will ...

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Man in Overalls - An Ode to Collards (Now with my recipes)

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