Man in Overalls

"So, I want a garden, but I was wondering if you could build and plant it using the principles of Square Foot Gardening?" Well, "um..." I squirmed. What was Square Foot Gardening ? This was back in 2009, just as I was  putting on my Overalls . Carol, a friend and the customer asking the question offered, "I've got a copy of the book. I can lend it to you to review, and then when you come tomorrow, you can put it into practice. Does that work?" Sure thing.  So, I read it. It took about 6 hours that night, and I was a convert. Mel Bartholemew, its author, made me smile with his writing, and his story captured my heart - plus, his intensive gardening style matched my inclinations, so it was a good match. When he first started gardening, Mel saw on a seed packet that he should plant lettuce every 6in in the row, with rows 18in to 2ft apart. So he did. And it worked. But, in the middle - in the open row, the pathways- he grew TONS of weeds, so he thought, ...

Here in the Deep South, September through the end of October is the time to plant your fall food garden. When most folks think garden, they think spring: tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, green beans, peppers, etc. While I do love tomatoes, the fall-- here in Jacksonville-- is the most pleasant and bountiful season to grow! In the fall you can grow salad greens like lettuce, arugula, spinach; cooking greens like collards, kale, mustards; root crops (other than potatoes) like turnips, carrots, radishes, beets; the garlic/onion family of crops; and many  herbs (other than basil) such as parsley and cilantro, which actually do better in the fall than spring. (If you want a fall planting guide, sign up for my semi-monthly updates at the bottom of this post. Also, if you want to learn more from me directly, check out my facebook events for upcoming workshops and speaking engagements.) But let me back up. Beyond the greater range of fall options, why do I love growing food in t...

I grow my groceries in my front yard. I've been growing gardens in front yards since I was eight years old. It started that way simply because that's where the best  sunlight was, right out front. Let me ask, if you're honest, where's your best sunlight? For, I'd say, 90% of Americans with yards, their best sunlight is in the front yard. "Yeah, but ..." I hear a lot of people say, "...if I planted it out there , people would take my tomatoes!" Like their neighborhood is especially prone to vegetable thieves. Like, maybe there is a vegetable-eating gang of young people that roams their streets, who they're afraid to talk about. (Which, if you do have a vegetable-eating gang in your neighborhood, please tell me about it because I definitely want to meet these kids!) Anyway, as I was going to say: if you're afraid to grow in your front yard where you've got good sun, and you instead choose a protected (albeit shady) sp...

How does a team of dedicated youth and adults create a major food-producing, educational, and inviting urban agriculture demonstration project on a 1/3rd acre vacant lot? How much food can we raise? How many people -- especially young people-- can we engage in urban agriculture? Can we make money raising and selling healthy, green, fair, and affordable food ? These are the questions we've been wrestling with at the Dunn St. Youth Farm , the main initiative of iGrow-"Whatever You Like," the urban ag youth program of the  Tallahassee Food Network . My job as the program coordinator is connecting the team with area experts and arranging hands-on experiences, so we can discover our own answers to those questions. Youth began work on the farm in July. The picture below shows Tierra, Khadijah, and Martin smoothing out the compost-mix in a 4'x4' raised bed, which they planted with sweet potatoes. Throughout the summer and early fall, the iGrow team visited o...

  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...

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...

Food Day festivities were a whirlwind of Tallahassee's food movement.  From the New Leaf Farm tour to video screenings , garden open houses, the community gardens tour , the Youth Symposium on Hunger and Food , Food-O-Rama at Kleman Plaza, the Sustainable You conference, and the "Florida Grown School Lunch Week Kick Off" at the capital, Food Day revealed many of the organizations and efforts amidst the food movement that largely go unseen, especially the Tallahassee Food Network . On Food Day proper, Oct 24th, I exhibited in the capital courtyard with the aid of my "truck farm," which was picked up by WCTV .  (As an aside, I'm working with a team of Frenchtown Youth to manufacture and sell the garden buckets you can see in the below picture, which are improvised earth boxes (which retail $60, empty).  We'll be selling ours, filled and planted for $25-$30.) The same day, I taught a workshop at Sustainable You called "Food and Community Gardening ...