Man in Overalls

A month ago, I told stories from Florida Theater's stage : stories of family, stories of our backyard farm , stories of where we've been and where we're growing. In the month since then, even as we continue to support others to grow their groceries at home, team Overalls received 95 neighbors & community supports for our Farm (2) Raising , and, together, we built our 2nd "​ unlimited urban uPick ​" neighborhood farm. Farm Three is already in the works. It's an exciting moment to be wearing Overalls, so I want to share the backstory with you.  Just below, you'll find the video , or if you'd prefer to read, look just scroll down. - - - - - - My name is Nathan Ballentine. Folks know me simply as Man In Overalls .  Last Sunday, I spot Charlotte, our 3-year-old neighbor, outside our kitchen window. She’s headed through the gate to our backyard farm. She stops at the mint, looks back over her shoulder to make sure no one is watching, and snags a piece. ...

I want you to grow your groceries. Could you grow enough food to feed your family if you needed? Could we, as communities, sustain ourselves - even temporarily - if there was some major disruption like a cyber attack, supply chain failure, hyper inflation, economic fall-out, or - God forbid - war? Though I'm a fan of salads & tasty treats like sugar snaps, if you're hungry, those just won't cut it. It comes down to calories and protein. If you were gardening to keep your family alive, what would you grow?  This isn't about fear-mongering; it's about preparedness & keeping enough life-skills passing around in our networks so that, "if & when" we need them, those skills can be cultivated & shared . Even within a generally stable society, there are "minor" crises at the level of region, city, neighborhood, & family all the time that don't feel all that minor to the folks involved.  If you had to, could you grow enough energ...

  With this Arctic blast headed our way, I wanted to share a quick note with a couple resources. ​ Growing Year 'Round - video ​ ​ What To Do When It Freezes (pdf) ​ ​The main takeaways are: Most cool season crops should be fine; they'll freeze, thaw, and keep growing. It's the warm season crops growing out of season you have to worry about like... tomatoes, peppers... Make sure your soil is good and moist before the freeze; this prevents dehydration burn turn off your irrigation Friday evening so it doesn't run early morning Sat/Sunday when your plants are still frozen because "flash thawing" will hurt even the freeze-tolerant crops ​In parting, here are a few cool season crops that are more tender than the rest and may benefit from extra care (see What To Do When It Freezes) beyond watering the soil cilantro, parsley, celery, dill, fennel, nasturtium. ​Stay warm out there! As needed & helpful, our team looks forward to future opportunities to support you...

There's something about coming out of the cold, darkness of winter into the warm light of spring that swells our sense of the possible, and so spring is - universally- the most popular gardening season. And for good measure: potatoes, tomatoes , squash, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, pumpkins, melons and all those other frost-tender crops thrive in the early spring warmth - before the onslaught of heat and pests to come. :) Probably for this reason, as a kid, I only ever grew a spring garden, 10 years running from 8 'till I graduated and left home for college at 18. I started in March, just after the threat of frost had past and seeded seeds and planted plants in beds that I'd banked in leaves over the summer and winter to keep the weeds down and build up the organic matter. Now, that's not a bad thing to do if you need a break, but truth is, I just didn't know that we  could  grow 12 months a year in the Deep South. I didn't know The Game of Gardening Season...

10 years ago, last night - as recorded in my journal ... - "I couldn't sleep all night long because I was up thinking about this food gardening business idea. I settled on a few things: a name and a branded persona ("Man in Overalls") as well as a few ideas on how to use such a persona and business as a food movement platform and how to make food gardening demand viral." - A few months before, once I had decided to focus my efforts on launching a food gardening biz, I concluded that of the three pillars necessary for successful biz (product, books, and marketing), I was comfortable with the first two, but how to market? How to arrange for customers to come a calling? I had not a clue. Thus it was in this all-nighter idea-storm 10 years ago that I was suddenly released like water finding a crack in a dam. - It all started with the idea about a cardboard sign. (Well, it really started with my grandfather who lived everyday of his life in overalls,...

It's time I let you in on a dream of mine. It's not fully formed, but neither can it still be understood merely as ingredients in the figurative kitchen cupboard. I think of it as a loaf of bread, not yet baked but certainly mixed and rising. In looking back at my notes, it's a dream I've been workshopping and mulling over for more than two years, a dream born out personal experience and travel, books and conversations. It's a dream shared in parts and pieces (and separately conceived of) by a growing number of people. And, though I am not certain of the path to get there, I'll be walking the road (and building it where necessary) with others bound for the same vision. Here's a rough sketch to whet your appetite: My take on this shared dream draws from a mix of personal sources: 1) 2010, I met City Farm Boy in Vancouver. He was growing veggies for 50 families on 8000 square feet (i.e., 1/5th acre). All his customers lived within 1/2mile of his ...

Hey there good folks, I've got a quick little story for you and a couple of pointers as you begin your summer garden. 1.) Story: A Hidden Garden Last week, Sundiata Ameh-El, co-coordinator of  iGrow  and I were installing raised beds around town together. Because we were in the area and because my father had told me about it, we swung by for a look at an unlikely farm. It's hidden behind a Tallahassee shopping center, behind a hedge on a steep hillside above a storm drain. It's absolutely gorgeous, everything a mini farm should be, and it's maintained by a gentleman from China who doesn't speak any English. (To protect his privacy, I'm being intentionally vague about his farm's location.) Aside from the beautiful produce, the most impressive aspect in my opinion was the terracing itself. I've always wondered how indigenous peoples the world over have farmed on hillsides without loosing their beds to the first rain. Take a look. No...