Man in Overalls

  September 8th marks six years since we launched our first Overalls Farm. You may have missed it in the beginning because we didn’t post publicly about it for years. Growing up-an-alley in Jacksonville’s Springfield neighborhood- tucked in a residential backyard (mine, as it were)- it was intentionally kept on the down-low, except as far as the neighborhood was concerned.  But then, in June 2023, I shared the origin story on the stage of Florida Theater ending with the dream to replicate our neighborhood farm model.  Now, with Overalls Farms One and Two thriving, we’re growing Farm Three to fruition, and we need a little help making it happen. When we started, to ensure we were growing in service of our immediate community, we asked ourselves: 1)How can we grow food IN our neighborhood FOR the neighborhood, 2)What business model will allow us to keep growing for the long haul? And, 3) How can we cultivate neighborly community atop the farm? In other words, “How do we g...

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 ...

Amy (to whom this garden belongs) took the crew and I to dinner at Red Elephant after we'd finished.  (A first for sure!) What a kind lady!  Amy's been gardening since she was a child and this year sought to out-do the potato vine that has (for years) over-taken her in-ground food garden.  With a preliminary tilling, a double layer of cardboard in the bottom of the beds, plus landscape fabric and mulch all around, we've certainly given the potato vine a run for its money.  PS-- Did you notice that the beds are constructed out of recycled plastic material?  (Amy said she wanted them to last "forever.") Around the edges of building beds, shoveling compost, and planting seeds, I've been in conversation about, I've been exploring the idea of a Tallahassee Center for Urban Agriculture with my local community co-workers. Here's the concept idea that I drafted this afternoon: The Tallahassee Center for Urban Agriculture will serve as a hub of Tallahas...