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...

Time to put on your overalls. If you've been waiting for a good opportunity to start growing food, now's the time. If you already know how, it's time you started extra seeds so you can get them to friends, family, neighbors, and strangers. And it's time you start posting and otherwise sharing your grocery growing hacks with anyone interested. Right now, food shortages are largely a phantom of over-buying and everyone stocking up, but with the spread of this disease, a decentralized food system is a resilient food system, a disease resistant food system. Not even in the aftermath of 2008 has a home garden looked so good. Not to mention, in the face of disease, health is paramount. My co-worker said, "What's terrifying and yet strangely beautiful about the current situation is that it reveals the amazing power of nature to grow and spread. But that same power is available to us"-- to heal, to grow, to feed. Time for us to grow a better future. In t...

Mary Elizabeth and I spent 3 weeks of our stay in Nicaragua as students at  Hijos del Maiz  spanish language school in El Lagartillo near Achuapa. We lived with a homestay family, shared meals, conversation, riddles, day-to-day life, and lots of laughs. Nuestra familia Nicaraguense. Whalder, Yelba, Mercedes, y Margarita. (Mary Elizabeth and I are in the middle.) Everyday we received 4 hours of 1-on-1 language instruction with professional teachers who rotated weekly. Our classes were comprised of formal grammar lessons or informal conversation- based on our personal preferences. Typically, any given class was a mix of grammar, exhanges of personal & family stories, and stories about their community's history that is rooted in a farming cooperative that brought them together in the early ´80´s and the US-backed Contra's attack on their community in '84 that cost many in the community the lives of their brother and sisters . Beyond our classes, we were free to vi...

Tallahassee Democrat Sunday, June 15th 2014 Dear Editor, I’ve been growing food since I was 8, when I became known as “that boy with the garden.” These days, folks know me as the “Man in Overalls.” Though I like watching things grow, gardening for me has always been about more than aesthetics. It’s a survival skill-set against hunger and food insecurity, something — thank God — I have not truly needed. Starting when I was a child, I began visiting Gramling’s on South Adams Street for seeds, starts, organic fertilizer and environmentally safe pest products. They learned my name and watched me grow up. These days, when I stop by, Wayne, their store manager, greets me, “Overalls!” and then says, “Dirty deeds done dirt cheap,” under his breath. Every time. It still makes me smile. I write, generally, to encourage us to spend our dollars locally, to invest in Main Street, to reclaim our hometown gems, to support the businesses that know our names. Specifically, I...

What follows is a paraphrase of the presentation about emergent movements and asset-based community development that I gave at the COPE (Childhood Obesity Prevention Education) Coalition meeting on Tuesday evening, 4/30/2013. COPE is a comprehensive coalition of public and private sector agencies, organizations, institutions, and individuals in our capital city working to address childhood obesity. The focus is on holistic prevention strategies rather than weight loss. Many Tallahassee Food Network partners received $10,000 COPE mini-grants to scale-up their efforts.  Learn more on the COPE webpage. Tallahassee Food Network hosts monthly Collard and Cornbread Gatherings to connect folks and spokes of the food movement to one another around good food. Good Evening! My name is Nathan Ballentine. I'm here tonight as a co-founder of the Tallahassee Food Network . Folks around town know me as the Man in Overalls. Before I get started, I'd like to take just a momen...

For Immediate Release Monday, January 23, 2012 Contact: Nathan Ballentine maninoveralls@gmail.com Man in Overalls Grows 150lbs of Food in Small Winter Garden The yield was harvested in only three months during the height of winter. (Update: Upon moving away just 9 months after we installed and planted our 80-square-foot, front-yard food garden, my wife and I had harvested (and meticulously recorded ) 390lbs of fruit, veggies, and herbs, an estimated produce value of over $1600.) How much money has your front yard grown this winter? Gardeners in one Frenchtown household harvested over 150 pounds of food--a $600 value--in the past three months. In three raised beds with a total area of 80 square feet--the size of a very small bedroom--Nathan Ballentine, aka the Man in Overalls and Mary Elizabeth Grant-Dooley grew broccoli, collards, cabbage, carrots, herbs, and a host of other plants to eat, sell, and donate. "It's way easier to grow food than f...