Man in Overalls

Check it out! I've been working with the FL Dept of Ag to create a bunch of "How To" Food Gardening Videos.  For example: "How to build raised beds," "How to plant," "How to water," and all kind of other basics.  Below are a few to get your started.  For the rest (and for the ones still to be released), stay tuned to the Fresh for Florida Kids Youtube Channel . While I'm at it, I'll go ahead and show you a few other things as well. I'm super excited about this: The City of Tallahassee TV station, WCOT did an "Eco-Smart" program on the new City Community Gardening Program .  It's half an hour and contains loads of info including the new process by which neighborhood groups can apply for and get access to city land on which to start community gardens -- a program that emerged from a partnership between the Tallahassee Food Network and the City of Tallahassee. Lastly, I've got two more quick pre...

  My largest and most exciting project this spring has been the Fresh for Florida Kids Food Garden at the Holland Building, downtown on Calhoun Street. Here are a couple pictures: The garden has received a lot of press: Florida Helps Mom with Age Old Message (Tampa Bay ch 10)   Commissioner Putnam Opens Fresh for Florida Kids Food Garden (Capital Soup) Adam Putnam Plants Healthy Eating Gardens in Tallahassee (Sunshine State News)      Adam Putnam on YouTube Florida School Garden Program (WCTV) Learning We've Got to Get Ourselves Back to the Garden (Tallahassee Democrat) Amy Campbell-Smith at the FL Dept of Ag and Consumer Services (Food, Nutrition, and Wellness) has been doing a superb job of overseeing and writing about the garden.  Here's a sample of one of her fun updates written to her fellow gardeners: Happy Wednesday, everyone! Kathy Sanders and I were just outside gathering good things from our garden!  There...

Front yard gardens, school gardens, community gardens, church gardens, workshops and iGrow Buckets... it all happens at once in the spring time.  Below is a sampling of what's been keeping Wendell and I busy the past several weeks. Fresh for Florida Kids Dept of Ag and Consumer Services (Holland Building) Garden (which is going to serve as the set for You Tube Food Garden Education clips to be shared state-wide with students and teachers as part of the DOA's new Farm to School program). Seminole Montessori Preschool Garden (Lots of fun working with parents and children throughout the day.) Faith Presbyterian Church Garden (Kids grow food to give away through Manna on Meridian food pantry. Also the location for workshops that we offer on distribution Saturdays with folks coming to get food.) Whole Child Leon / Wesson VPK Garden -- TD article (Engaging kids in the 95210; encouraging children to get their five fruits and veggies every day.) Dena and Jenna...

"Kate Sullivan Garden Moves to Phase Two" Kelley Des Marais (special to the Chronicle) After months of planning by teachers, parents, school board members, Kate Sullivan Elementary School Garden Committee proudly announces the completion of phase one of the Community School Garden, completed on Aug. 19th. The finished garden is approximately 150 square feet including a spigot and three raised garden beds.  The garden eventually will include compost and vermiculture bins, bench seating and enough raised beds for each grade level to create its own garden.  The garden will be fore students as well as the community and is accessible to people with disabilities.  This space will serve as an outdoor classroom with curriculum-based activities that meet Florida state-wide learning benchmarks in most categories including math, sciennce, language and art.  Along with the Department of Education, the garden committee developed a comprehensive guide for teachers based on G...

Guest post by Lindsay , who's still in Tallahassee, still growing food About 5 months ago, I took a bus down to Tallahassee just in time to plant a fall garden with the kids from Nathan's church. I learned how to plant collards, mustards, turnips, lettuce, and shallots, and then turned right around and taught kids--from preschoolers who were barely speaking right up to sweet, awkward 5th graders--how to do the same. We planted five 4'x10' raised beds; a year before, the beds had been built and the students decided that they wanted the food they grew in "God's Giving Garden" to get donated to the food pantry that their church (Faith Presbyterian) ran along with other Meridian Rd. churches. Since then, any month when there's produce ready to be harvested, some students and other volunteers pick the vegetables, wash them, and walk the across the parking lot where they get added to the bags of food. In addition to the canned and boxed staples, folks ...

Over the course of this spring, I've had the awesome pleasure of gardening with two different sets of young people-- aged two to eleven.  I.E., I hosted two groups of kids' workshops in my front yard.  Back in February/March, we met to build, fill and plant raised beds complete with shallots, potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, and squash.  In April when we gathered again for our monthly workshop, we tended the garden: identified and pulled weeds, staked tomatoes, etc.  Finally, we're meeting in May to do some early spring harvesting.  Our main crops are potatoes, shallots, and green beans.  Although a few banana peppers are ready, the tomatoes are not.  Give it another couple weeks.  In addition, every week, we checked in on the bees in my backyard--managed by Heather Gamper, my neighbor and beekeeper extraordinaire.  Lastly, the workshops visited with my family's new chicken flock-- acquired just two weeks before the first set of w...

On Wednesday this past week, Hartsfield Elementary's Hawks, one of Hartsfield's after-school groups came for a visit to my garden.  We chatted about everything from legumes fixing nitrogen to pollinators to varieties of corn to seasonally available produce to bees and chickens.  They were especially interested in the methodology of grafting fruit trees.  Meanwhile, we tasted snap beans, fennel, sorrel, horse-radish greens, basil, and smelled rosemary and thyme.  What a great afternoon! The Hawk's visit was part of a larger program they're doing to investigate healthy food options via research on local and organic vs. conventional agricultural practices and by maintaining the Hartsfield school garden.  The culmination of their project will be to plan, prepare and serve a healthy meal to their parents that integrates local and organic produce. They were shepherded by their incredible teachers Mr. Landrum, Ms. Elsaka, and Ms Olivia.  If you know these fol...

A recent article in the Jacksonville Times-Union, Poverty, But Obseity: The Hunger Paradox describes the ways in which the lack of nutrition in "energy dense" foods and the availability of healthy food have contributed to a simultaneous obesity epidemic and increasing food insecurity.  It's a great article about kids gardens, food security, nutrition, and the growing food movement.  Also, take a look at the following video about The Bridge Community Garden.  Great things are happening in Jacksonville.

" The Man in Overalls Wants you to Have a Garden " By Kathleen Laufenberg For Nathan Ballentine, gardening began as an elementary school pastime. Now, however, the 24-year-old Tallahasseean is on a mission to grow his own food, convince you to grow your own food — and get everybody to share some of what they've grown. "I love how food is able to bring so many different and disparate communities together," said Ballentine, who also is known as "The Man in Overalls" and is a regular blogger about his gardening adventures at http://maninoveralls.blogspot.com . His gardening career — he makes a modest living mostly by building raised-bed gardens, teaching gardening workshops for kids and adults and, occasionally, substitute teaching — allows the 2004 SAIL graduate to unite his all-consuming interests of community organizing and edible landscaping. "I really like what he's doing — he's got it right," Brandy Cowley-Gilbe...

People invite me to their houses to for me to offer ideas and advice and/or to scout out sites for where I'll place their new Square Foot Gardens... and every now-and-again, they ask, "So is this all you do?"  This question always makes me smile. I know (I assume) this question originates from intrigue.  How cool , they must think, I'm able to keep busy just doing food gardens.  If they only knew... It's springtime and the soil is growing warm. Starting at 8am yesterday morning, I led a team of high school boys (who are members at my church) around town doing community and school garden projects.  We started at our church, Faith Presbyterian where we top-dressed and-- with the help of the elementary kids-- planted "God's Giving Garden."  From there, we took two trips to Hartsfield Elementary to deliver a load of compost (compliments of the Damayan Garden Project ) for their newly cleaned-up garden.  Last, the boys and I visited Bethel Towers ...

My buddy, John is always chiding me because-- though I wear overalls-- when it comes to sunrise, I am no farmer.  My cousin's boyfriend jubilantly, regularly, invites me to join his "crack-of-noon" club.  Well, I daresay, I'm not that late of a sleeper, but when Jason, who works at Tallahassee Nurseries told me last week that he woke every morning at five so he could get up, drink coffee, greet the day, read, walk his dog, etc... both my mouth and eyes opened involuntarily, and without thinking, I whispered, "Wow." So, with that grain of salt, I'll go on to tell you that first thing yesterday morning, John and I-- John , my buddy who's running around with me for the month to learn about soil, seeds, and growing food-- we loaded up the truck with tools and compost.  Then, following Sandra Wilton, a fellow gardener and friend we headed to Romac for lumber.  We planned to install a raised-bed garden at the Midway Head Start so the kids-- in Sandra...

It was a busy day today. First, I built, filled and planted a raised-bed vegetable garden at Jackie's house. Collard and cabbage plants, carrot, mustard, radish and lettuce sees. You can see the finished bed to the right. And then, I moved on to spruce up Faith Presbyterian's -my home church- children's garden before the young folks arrived for Wednesday night program: Planting the fall garden. We planted brussels sprout, collard, lettuce, rosemary, and a few late winter squash and basil plants; carrot, radish, and snap pea seeds. Last spring, the kids named it "God's Giving Garden." Any surplus food will be distributed through a food-pantry being developed in partnership with St. Stevens Lutheran, a church across the street. Take a look at the kids at work. Around the edges of work, I made a little stop-action video. It makes me laugh. If I can figure out how to upload it... A h, well, here's the link to the video on   YouTube . - - - ...