From orange trees to hydroponic onions: You pick it all at Fort Lonesome.

Orange trees and hurricanes were all that I expected when I moved to Florida over a year ago. Since then I’ve learned of the strange geographic anomaly that is Tampa Bay, which is actually protected from most hurricanes. The citrus trees, however, are very real, though having one in your own backyard is a unrealized fantasy for most Tampa residents. Luckily there are alternatives.

Fort Lonesome Farm is one of those alternatives. But they don’t stop at citrus.

Orange picking.

You-pick oranges bring in the crowds, but the you-pick hydroponic vegetables keep them coming back. Rick McHan, owner and farmer at Fort Lonesome, turned his front yard into a hydroponic farm after neighbors began asking to buy produce from his small home garden, then began requesting specific items for him to grow.

Four years later have passed and Rick now has an impressive set up of PVC pipes and irrigation piping, but he is still growing to order. “If you want it, he’ll find a way to grow it,” a farm member says emphatically, while I am waiting to speak to Rick. The man proceeds to give me a mini tour, showing the newly sprouted italian green beans (grown by request of his next door neighbor) and the overwhelming chocolate mint, which grows so quickly it can’t be contained, popping up like a weed in any pot nearby.

The takeover by chocolate mint.

The member knew a lot more than the average consumer, which highlights the close relationship Rick has with his customers. At Fort Lonesome, you become the farmer. Members get first dibs and a discount, but all customers harvest their own produce.

The transparency begins with his hydroponic system, which he is happy to teach you. The system is entirely open, with pipes, pumps, and irrigation hoses creating an easily navigable farm plot. Easily

Italian green beans in an elaborate hydroponic system.

navigable for Rick, that is. He’s spent his professional life working in the sprinkler business, where he still holds a full-time job. He’s transferred some of that knowledge into to a brilliant hydroponic system. Though everything is exposed, the knowledge of the system’s maintenance is hidden, as with many farming practices.

During my visit, Rick reflected on the difficulty of starting to farm. “Everyone acted like it was a big secret.” Inconclusive farming practices found on Internet sources, databases, and forums led him to rely on people in stores, who would speak in circles about soil chemistry and plant types. He finally went back to his roots, developing the water system he uses now. He’s also stopped using pesticides because their ineffectiveness nearly led him to quit entirely. ”It seemed the more I sprayed, the more bugs there were, and the more I needed to spray. One day I just threw my hands in the air and said ‘forget it’. I went out a few weeks later to clean up the dead plants, but everything looked beautiful!”

Kid-friendly aquaponics

Rick wants to end the sacredness of farming knowledge.  “I learn as a I go and if anyone wants to know, I tell ‘em.” Children are usually his most enthusiastic students. Fields trips and birthday parties help Rick create and maintain connections to the community, creating an opportunity for kids to learn farming basics. He provides cuttings and growing pods to the kids, and a water system made from recycled water bottles that mimics his hydroponic system.

The engaged farming experience continues with harvesting. At Fort Lonesome, you pick everything you take home, from the oranges, to mint, to the “Lonesome Luscious” sweet onions. This level of hands-on interaction with your food makes members as passionate as Rick, evidenced in my first encounter with the passionate member!

Lonesome Luscious sweet onion - sweeter than a Vidalia! "I give them out as free gifts and people always come back for more."

That passion is contagious. As I pick oranges, romaine lettuce, and a hydroponic onion, I decide that I’ll come back soon for the Italian green beans. Rick warns me that I have to be sure to arrive early. “My members are like vultures.”  The orange trees are nearly picked clean, but I’m able to bring home a nice harvest to add to the freshly foraged berries already waiting for me in my car.

I leave Fort Lonesome with a new understanding of how extreme food transparency can be, and how that can create passionate growing and passionate consumers.

Think before you eat,

Elizabeth Murray

Winter 2012 Tampa Food Warrior

Serendipitous Strawberries: Fortuitous foraging at Indian Summer Farms

“Do you want to pick some strawberries?”

The kid in me could already feel the sticky fingers and the joy of blissful red juice running down my chin. My more reserved 26-year-old self gave a cool-headed nod and said, “Sure.”

I stumbled on Indian Summer Farms through a GPS search after getting lost during a recent Food Warrior expedition. Missing my exit, I drove through Plant City, which is arguably the strawberry capital of the world, at least in these winter months – a season I must remind myself still exists as I don my Real Time Farms t-shirt and an old baseball cap in 80 degree weather in the middle of February. Florida is a sunshine state for a reason. That sunshine makes beautiful strawberries from December through April. The Plant City Strawberry signs populate the farmer’s market across Tampa Bay, but I had not yet experienced the fruit first hand, in the land of Strawberry Oz. My missed turn had become a new opportunity.

Strawberries became my new brass ring as I veered to the shoulder of I-4, pulled out my cellphone, and searched the map of my location for farm stands. A quick internet search of the names that rose to the surface gave me more insight as I quickly negotiated the distance off my path with the variables of operating hours and strawberry availability. My smart phone is perhaps the most valuable tool in this exploration of Tampa’s food systems, growing the guide for Real Time Farms.

I landed in Lakeland, just slightly east of the famed Plant City and 40 minutes east of Tampa, at a very large produce stand on the corner of two busy country roads not far from the town’s center. Greeted warmly by a young woman offering a chance for me to pick my own strawberries, I have hit the jackpot. “There is a petting zoo back there, too,” she says, handing me a bag for harvesting. Again, I try to act cool, but the 5-year-old inside of me is jumping for joy.

Several families are already in the field beside the stand, with the smallest hands holding the largest bags, eager with anticipation. Some can’t wait, and grab a few bites in the field. The berries are so lustrous I am fighting the same urges, both to fill my bag to the max and to snack along the way.

In just a few moments I’ve plucked a democratic harvest, fulfilling yet not gluttonous. I make a quick stop at the petting zoo, feeding a very large hog a handful of clover who subsequently follows me along the rest of the perimeter of the large pen. The Saturday afternoon crowd fills the produce stand as I pay for my harvest and receive as extra treasure: “Would you like some blueberries? They were freshly picked on our farm this morning. Here, try one.”

I can’t say no.

I also learn that Indian Summer Farms is a union of two families with a long history of farming who wanted to bring fresh, local produce to the residents of Lakeland, a town surrounded by farmland but with little access to the produce grown in their immediate vicinity. Indian Summer Farms sells fruit and vegetables grown on their land, with the valuable you-pick strawberries through the entire season, while also providing an outlet for other local farmers and residents to sell their produce and artisan goods.

Back in my car, I type in the address of my original destination, but not before  I take a bite of my bounty. So fresh and sweet, slightly warm from the Florida sun, I’m not sure what came before could be called strawberries. The only thing that keeps from running back to the field for more is the promise of the treasure waiting for me at my next stop: you-pick citrus. I have a new addiction: harvesting. I hit navigate and continue a’picking.

Think before you eat,

Elizabeth Murray

Winter 2012 Tampa Food Warrior

 

Edit: In increasing levels of Serendipity, this was posted on National Strawberry Day!

Innovation meets education

“My friends tell me they bought Ruskin tomatoes off the back of a truck in August. I have to tell them: that’s not local. They just don’t know.” Cathy Hume tells me about the struggles she and her husband, Dave, had when first selling their local produce. “Eating local” has become more a new trend, with open-air markets cropping up all over the Bay area, and yet people still do not know the source of their food. Just because it’s labeled local, or appears in a small store or at a market, doesn’t mean it is, in fact, locally sourced. “People ask me, ‘how do I know?’ They just need to educate themselves,” Cathy argues. Urban Oasis seeks to provide at least some of that education.

Dave and Cathy Hume, owners of Urban Oasis

The husband and wife team started Urban Oasis Hydroponic Farm four years ago, after leaving careers as a landscaper and a legal secretary. Dave’s landscaping expertise makes him able to “grow anything”, according to wife, Cathy, while her office training has clearly influenced the efficiency and effectiveness of the business.

“We just always wanted to work together,” Dave remembers. He’s owned the lot on a busy Tampa street for 18 years, living in a small house on the property and later leasing the property to a hot tub vender, who allowed the land to become overgrown. After much debate, Dave and Cathy decided to make something of it.

Dave recounts a moment of serendipity when Cathy saw an advertisement for a hydroponic growing system. They were in the midst of deciding how to best use the land. “We thought about it and prayed about it and decided that’s what we needed to do.”

The hydroponic system is a vertical growing system, where tiered pots make efficient use of water and space. Water is sprayed from above and gravity takes care of the rest as water drips through holes in the bottom of each layer. The result is the maximum use of a natural resource. The efficient setup also applies to the fertilizer and soil. Produce can be grown in small containers since the soil is infused with a high level of liquid fertilizer.

An empty hydroponic tower

The top of the tower is watered. Gravity brings it to the lower layers

Each plant sits in a bed of richly fertilized soil

Hydroponic farming is a great option for small spaces or busy towns. Urban Oasis occupies just ¾ acre, yet grows enough food to maintain a membership base and sell produce at a farm stand on site. While the system is already both environmentally and economically sustainable, the Humes go one step further, adopting organic practices to grow chemical-free, all natural produce.

A tower of parsley

Their work has been well received. Many members picked up their shares during my visit. Just as well, there are a number of new visitors daily. Dave and Cathy receive newcomers openly, answering any and all questions about local food, hydroponic growing systems, their growing practices, and even their personal story. The result is a warm ‘mom and pop’ setting where members are family, fresh customers are new friends, and everyone becomes a “houseguest”, according to new staff member John Carminati. John is the resident chef at Urban Oasis.

Questions about food preparation are directed to John. A professional chef by training, John was drawn to farming because of his love of food. “I take pride in being a chef on the farm because I take the time to grow and manage this beautiful food,” he tells me as he trims some red leaf lettuce.

Nastrutium: edible with a kick!

Moving to the nasturtium tower, full of stunning bright orange flowers, he picks one and tells me to eat it. I delicately pull a petal off. “No, the whole thing,” John tells me, “but be careful, it’s spicy.” He recommends it as a beautiful topper for a salad. And he wasn’t lying about the spice!

This is the educational aspect of Urban Oasis. They promote trying new things, especially products that are locally sustainable. Dave and Cathy are experts about all things growing, and are willing to share that knowledge, selling the type of equipment they use and encouraging people to grow at home. The farm is open every Friday and Saturday, and farm tours are offered throughout the season. Gardening workshops are offered routinely, and John offers free recipes and cooking advice in person and on his blog: featuring Urban Oasis goods.

At the end of the day, the Humes just want to provide the best possible and most

Dave Hume, master farmer.

honest products to their customers. They support the local economy, selling local eggs and raw milk in their market, along with local citrus and other produce that won’t grow in the hydroponic system. And these things really are local. “I’m not willing to lie. Some people will tell you what you want to hear,” Cathy says of other markets that may make the claim.

As for their own produce, transparency and education are key. “I have every confidence that [our produce] is as healthy as it could possibly be,” Cathy says “Bring in a brix meter to compare us to any other produce and I bet ours would be better.”

The confidence in their product and in their business is a result of their passion for growing the best they possibly can in a new and innovative way. And they’ll teach you how to do it, too. Just ask!

Think before you eat,

Elizabeth Murray

Winter 2012 Tampa Food Warrior

 

Food for the stomach, community for the heart and soul.

Collards greens are easily for small hands to harvest.

“What are we picking today?”

“Yeah, what are we picking today, Casey?”

The young sisters, perhaps 3 and 5 years old, have run up, interrupting my conversation with lead intern, Casey. They pull on each of her arms. I am amazed by their energy at 8:30 am on a Sunday morning, and their eagerness for harvesting.

“Broccoli, collard greens, fennel…” Casey begins listing the harvest ahead of us.

“Fennel?!?!” the 3-year old can’t believe her luck, her eyes wide in anticipation. “I love fennel!”

My jaw drops slightly.

I’ve seen a lot of small children in my weeks at Sweetwater Organic Farm,

Carrots are a favorite, as well!

including the two young daughters of farm manager, Roberto, who can often be found sneaking bits from the produce bins, but I am constantly floored by all the children’s enthusiasm for vegetables.

“I just want them to have these experiences, to play in the dirt, and truly understand where food comes from,” the mother of the two fennel lovers and a member of the CSA tells me on our walk back after the morning’s harvest. Later I overhear her asking her daughters, “Why are we here? Why is this important?” Their small voices don’t carry over the bustling market noise to my ears, but the girls’ body language shows their excitement hasn’t dwindled in the hours since our first meeting. This interaction typifies all this community-supported agriculture strives for.

Chickens were added, according to Roberto, "because people expect animals on a farm!" They also serve as an engagement tool for all the young visitors.

Sweetwater is a CSA in the heart of Tampa, Florida. It started in 1995 with a small group of neighbors trading produce. It has since grown to a 250 member non-profit 501c3 certified Organic CSA and education center.  If it sounds like a lot, it’s because it is! Farming is the foundation of this CSA, but their broader aims are to create a sense of locality for the social and ecological environment. “Building community from the ground up” is not only their slogan, but also the personal mantra of each member.  The community is felt at the Sunday market, held every week of the season for the past 6 years. Friends greet each other, their dogs at their sides with high noses and perky ears, as live musicians perform on the small stage.

The community is felt at the workshops put on by Sweetwater, covering such diverse activities as painting landscapes, ethnobotany walking tours, and training in permaculture. Even the executive director runs a 101 workshop on organic gardening, with the goal of having people farm for themselves in addition to, or even replacing, their Sweetwater membership.

Other education programs include farm tours the first Sunday of every month in

Painting workshop in the fields

the season, and field trips for all ages. These programs are funded by supper clubs. In these supper clubs, the host (member or non-member) receives a complimentary host package from Sweetwater and other supporters, including sustainably grown wine, local goat cheese, and fresh produce from Sweetwater, to help organize a festive dinner party for their friends and family, in exchange for a series of small donations from guests. This a fun way to support the community, advertise the farm and other local, sustainable goods, and raise funds for the education and outreach programs.

Sweetwater organic farm promotes healthy, sustainable, organic food production, and yet so much more. The community fostered at this center feeds the soul, as well as the stomach.

Swiss chard in the early morning light.

Think before you eat,

Elizabeth Murray

Winter 2012 Tampa Food Warrior