BY MICHELE MILLER
It’s seven a.m. on a Tuesday morning and Jim Kovaleski is up and at ’em in the front yard of his New Port Richey home, pulling bunches of radishes and turnips as the rising sun gets to burning off a dewy mist that settled in overnight.
The yard is lush with growing food. Along with the turnip and radishes are starts of broccoli and cauliflower and a whole lot of lettuce, lined in colorful rows that offer a pleasant passerby vantage.
There’s the beginnings of flowers destined for bouquets – Mexican sunflowers, zinnias, snapdragons, bachelor buttons.
“It doesn’t feel like a vegetable patch so much and I think that’s important in a neighborhood,” Kovaleski says, while wrapping bunches of “snow apple” turnips with a rubber band. “I’ve had people take pictures of it and not know it’s food which is really cool. It’s a real compliment.”
Kovaleski, who once worked as professional landscaper, uses that experience and knowledge to lay out his garden, substituting food for ornamentals and bushes, and organic compost for chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Healthy soil and ecosystem are key to successful organic gardening and healthy plants, he says.
“Healthy plants don’t get pests. Pests are the messenger of sick plants.”
While it looks pretty, “there’s a lot of food here,” he says, adding that he grows about 70 different crops, using organic and heirloom seeds he starts in his own soil mix.
“When it really gets going, this helps feed 50 families,” he says.
Kovaleski literally lives off the land year-round. During fall and winter months he works the soil on the “Freedom House Farm” city plot, as well as the yard of the home next door. Come spring he makes the trek north to farm in northern Maine.
While he’s away, sweet potato vines roam freely through Freedom House Farm, a ready-to-pick autumn crop that will get him re-started, along with some late season avocados and jars of blueberries canned in their own juice (with no sugar added) that he brings back each year from Maine.
Locally, Kovaleski is known as an urban gardening guru and he has used his voice and experience to educate others about the movement and how they can join in. Strike up a conversation and it will likely lead to the city’s free mulch program, the public library’s Seed Exchange Program and community markets, and the progressive urban garden ordinances brought forth by cohorts such as Dell deChant.
There are more than a few newspaper and television stories out there about him. He’s also featured in educational videos produced by Pete Kanaris, owner of Green Dreams nursery.
Farming is a living for Kovaleski. Nurturing food from seed to market to table is a way of life.
Self-sustenance is at the heart of it; the ability to feed yourself and others and take that gift to teach others how to farm themselves, even if they live in a food desert or on a small patch of land in the city.
What is harvested today will be sold at the Tasty Tuesday Community Market held weekly (and on the second Saturday of each month) outside the New Port Richey Public Library on Main Street. What doesn’t sell there will help stock the organic produce section at Wrights Natural Foods and Cafe, a local Main Street gem that also hosts a monthly farmers market. Some produce will be packed in boxes for the local food CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) he’s part of. Some might be sold to local restaurants.
“It’s hard work,” he says, noting that he puts in 60 to 70 hours a week at the height of it. “But so is sitting in front of a computer to me.”
“It’s a living. If you live simply.”
Related – Videos/News Stories
- Jim Kovaleski Grows His Own Food in Suburban New Port Richey, USF Media
- The Grass-Fed Market, Classes by Jim Kovaleski
- Maine ‘nomadic gardener’ cuts lawns by hand, becomes internet sensation, Bangor Daily News
- Urban farming takes root in New Port Richey front yards, Tampa Bay Times
- Tasty Tuesdays organic market serves up fresh, locally-grown produce Tampa Bay Times
- Veggie gardens get added protection as anti-local rule bill passes, Tampa Bay Times
Garden Resources
- Want to start your own garden but don’t know when or what to plant? Check Florida Fresh Now out a nifty online tool courtesy UF|IFAS at the University of Florida. Just input your zip code and you’ll be rewarded with a wealth of information.
- New Port Richey Yard Debris and Mulch Program – Recycled compost is free to citizens of the west Pasco area. The city will deliver complimentary compost to properties in New Port Richey, Port Richey, and Holiday. Pick-up site is on Pine Hill Road (across from the City Fleet Divison at 6420 Pine Hill Road).
- New Port Richey FarmNet promotes local food systems – from farm or garden to table. Seedlings and CSA Check out their Facebook page.
- Tasty Tuesdays and Second Sundays Community Market at the New Port Richey Public Library. A place to shop for or sell locally grown/made goods. Word is they are looking for vendors. Table and space is free, but you have to fill out an application. Check out the related story (below)
