Man in Overalls

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...

Spring is around the corner.  It'll be time to plant potatoes in February.  Most of the charismatic vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, green beans, squash) go in, in mid March to Mid April.  Come May, it'll be time for okra, sweet potatoes and the like. (Planting Guide here .  Additional resources here .) If you're gardening in raised beds, whether your garden currently looks like this... this...  Or this... ...before you get around to spring planting, you'll want to fill or topdress your beds with an extra layer of compost.  How much?  My general rule is to add as much as it takes to re-fill the frame.  Depending on how long it's been and how deep your raised beds are that measure can vary quite a lot. But in general, how do you figure out how much compost you need?  It's a simple length x width x height = quantity.  The complexity is that you've got to get your units all on the same page for your math to work.  Multiplying in...

In late March, I reported on the Nemours Clinic Community Garden in Jacksonville.  Less than a month later, I presented to Working Well , a "community-wide initiative...dedicated to creating a healthy workforce in Leon County."  Though the presentation was lively, and folks were joking and laughing, the real excitement began a few days before the presentation.  Glenda Atkinson with FBMC Benefits Management contacted me by email to see if I would assist FBMC's Wellness Team in developing a company employ garden. "Definitely." The day after the Working Well presentation (details available here ), I visited with Glenda at FBMC to explore their space, sunlight, and discuss food garden design possibilities. She asked that I put together something-- including a garden layout-- that she could take to her administration for approval.  I drafted a proposal that night. Then, three to four days later, after securing admin approval, we set up a time for the W...

What a gorgeous day to work on a food garden!  I hear it'd gonna rain again, and some coolness will follow.  But for the time being, we get to bask in the glory of early March warmth.  Didn't even have to burn the woodstove tonight. A new Square Foot Garden for Candie and Don.  Per their requests: Tomatoes (Better Boy, Early Girl, Heritage), bell peppers, banana peppers, eggplant, green (snap) beans, arugula, basil, cilantro, two kinds of parsley, garlic chives, dill, romaine and butter crunch lettuces and nasturtiums. Micro-Irrigation If you look real close, you can see the micro irrigation at work.  There are three mini-sprinklers spaced down the center of the bed.  Each mini-sprinkler is individually (and easily) adjustable to water a circle sized from one to five or six feet in diameter.  The whole system is on a user-friendly timer, so no worrying about not watering seeds enough or accidentally killing your starts because you ran out of tim...

This past Thursday, my buddy John and I installed an extra large Square Foot Garden that will serve as a community garden amongst three families in the Woodland Drives Neighborhood. A couple weeks back, Randy and Irene, got in touch with me about helping them start a garden.  Only...they wanted "their" garden to go in their neighbor's yard.  Come to find out, they were actually partnering with said neighbors-- in addition to another family across the street-- to start and maintain a raised vegetable ("community" or "friends") garden.  The family with the most sun offered their backyard; Randy and Irene oversaw and joined me in the work of planting, and the other family will help as needed.  When harvest time comes, they'll share the bounty. The new Woodlands Drives community garden is a beautiful model for how families can join together in order to overcome the effort/time, sunlight, and too-much-food-all-at-once obstacles to home food garde...

Two Valentine's Day Gardens this week.  This one here John Wood and I installed for Mr. O'Brien Monday and Tuesday.  It's a 3x7x2.5ft Raised Herb Garden of cedar construction treated with linseed oil, complete with a micro irrigation system filled with a well draining, nutrient rich and biologically active soil. Look closely to see the micro irrigation.  (Look VERY CLOSELY to see the micro nutrients.) Upon finishing the cedar herb garden, Mr. O'Brien came out to inspect. "It looks great," he said. He then told us: "Just got off the phone with my wife. I told her, 'Instead of jewelry like you wanted for Valentines Day, I got you a coffin full of compost.' She laughed," he finished. He then explained that she's excited about growing herbs for fresh home-cooking. We put in this Square Foot Garden as a Valentine's Day surprise.  Fritz, the man with the plan, made arrangements with me a few weeks back.  Then yesterday, he let us...

A friend wrote me to ask, "Are you getting any business amidst all the 'awareness-raising' that you're doing?" I am, I'm happy to report. Below is one garden project I worked on this past week: a food garden in Carol's backyard. Carol wanted two raised beds with a small fence around them to keep her pups from digging up her winter greens. The day before I started digging, she called with a question: "Are you familiar with the Square Food Gardening (SFG) method?" "Yes," I responded,"more or less." Many people have called my attention to Mel Bartholomew's gardening approach over the years, and I'd just perused his website at length the week before. Additionally, without even knowing it, I'd been incorporating many of his ideas into my own practices in my home garden. Carol offered me Bartholomew's book, which she'd purchased thirty years previously. "I wonder," Carol submitted, "if...