Overalls Farm, Jacksonville, FL (2026)

10/25/2025

How many do you need?
-
-
The shorter answer is:
-
-
We are aiming for 1000 signatures on our Petition for Permission to Grow that 1)calls Jacksonville planning department to approve our neighborhood farm's operation with a certificate of use, 2) encourages city council to pass the "Free to Garden Act" that makes market and community gardens permissible uses in all zoning districts, and 3) urges civic groups to align as active partners, championing the cause specifically and generally.
-
-
But the longer answer is: more questions.
-
-
How many signatures does it take to demonstrate overwhelming community support such that our neighborhood leaders leverage their clout and connections to facilitate our forward progress?
-
-
How many voters does it take for city council leaders across the city to push the Free to Garden Act through legislatively both as the right thing to do but also because it's politically advantageous?
-
-
How many names does it take for the mainstream and independent media to start digging into the story?
-
-
How many signatures do we need for all of us to "see ourselves" and the power we have to guide the conversation, grow more, and change the way our city feeds itself?
-
-
how great do our numbers need to be to inspire other communities and perhaps even the state as a whole to pass legislation protecting the freedom to start market and community gardens across Florida so folks striving to feed their communities need not be obstructed as we have been?
-
-
I don't know the answer to these questions. But I'm eager to continue growing this movement with you and our expanding coalition of partners until we find the answers.
-
-
Here's to 1000 and beyond. Share. Send. Repost. Pass the word. Tell stories. Whisper in the halls of power. Build power. It's time for movement.

09/19/2025

FunGarden Growing Soon
-
-
In partnership with Valerie, founder and fearless leader of First Coast Urban Ag (), we've got a "FunGarden" or edible play space planned for Overalls Farm Three.
-
-
She's been working with a designer on the renderings to help visualize what it will look like. What do you think?
-
-
The idea is to provide an immersive, ecological space for kids to play in the midst of nature and food production for the sake of fun, getting dirty, early exposure to yummy edible plants, etc. I'm particularly excited about the earthen mound and culvert so that the kids can climb high to overlook the rest of the farm and and then sneak out of sight for games of tag and to escape the sun in the heat of day. Not to mention a slide! Also: the rest of the design is full of great medicinal herbs and edible fruits and pollinators and beyond.
-
-
Wish us luck. We commence another round of attempting approvals from the city for a Certificate of Use (COU). Hopefully (fingers crossed) this one will be easier since it's only for the FunGarden, and "Playground" is, literally, a permissible-by-right use in our CRO-S zoning. But, of course, we've thought that before. Lol.
-
-
By the way, Valerie has enough funding through her 501c3 nonprofit to commence the project, but we're looking for additional sponsors to bring it fully to fruition. If you know a business or grantor who might like to partner to help realize this vision, please reach out to us or her directly. Anything from $1 to $20k will be appreciated and would, of course, come with a commensurate amount of recognition and benefits. More details upon request.
-
-
If you come out to Greens and Beans tonight, you can start visualizing the Fun Garden as it will be located directly between our Farm Three compost bins and our center courtyard beds. Amazing that all this will fit in there, isn't it? Amazing what you can grow in small spaces when you're determined...

09/18/2025

B.Y.O.Art Project
-
-
We'll have a cardboard box station and a water color station. We'll have spray paint to tag one of our Farm Three beds with your handprints. I believe there is going to be some bead action. I also heard a neighbor talking about art with nature. What else?
-
-
Do you have excess acrylic paints? Do you have pastels? How about giant box of crayons and newsprint? Do you have natural dies? Or food coloring? Or colored sand to create a mandala?
-
-
Or is your medium wood carving? Sidewalk chalk? Digital design? Print making? Screen printing? Seed sharing? Guerrilla gardening? Clay sculpting ? Glass blowing? Juggling? Paper mache? 3D printing? Knitting? Felt? Photography? Puppetry? Mime? Metal work? Calligraphy? Writing? Oragami? Synthesizers? Fire spinning? Garden design? Henna? Cooking? Storytelling? Poetry?
-
-
Our Art Night is for experts and amateurs, show-ers and sharers, watchers and do-ers.
-
-
All are welcome! Come as you are. If you're able, bring a dish or art supplies to share.
-
-
Friday, 6pm at Overalls Farm Three: 125 E 7th Street.
-
-
In partnership with Neighborhood Commons and Just Food Network.
-
-
PS - mark your calendars for October's Greens & Beans Fall Festival: Oct 17th.

09/09/2025

Fresh, Local, & All-Natural
-
-
our plan is to plant Yaupon Holly in a hedge all the way around our inner courtyard at Overalls Farm Three to create a sense of enclosure. Did you know that it's the only caffeinated plant native to North America?
-
-
and then, underneath, we're going to plant a host of other herbs that are great as tea: lemon grass and lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint, chamomile, Yarrow, rosemary, oregano, lavender, stevia, tulsi basil...
-
-
Caffeinated up top. Decaf down bottom. all we will need is a little tea kettle boiler.
-
-
what other herbs & plants do you recommend that we grow in our tea garden?
-
-
by the way, since Planning doesn't believe us when we say we are a community center, we figured we would just get to work building and growing our "outdoor container" for community to gather. I'm inclined to believe that a lot of folks don't understand what and how we're growing at our locations because they don't have a template, a paradigm in their minds to file it into, so even when we present multiple times with visuals, put it in writing, and explain things verbally on repeat, we continue to get responses like...
-
-
Well, you're a retail establishment and your products are all over the front yard, which is illegal.
-
-
1)What?
-
-
While our subscription farm members do sustain our neighborhood farm operations, we haven't sold a single vegetable retail since 2018 when we tested and invalidated retail as a viable business mode for us. I'll dig up the picture one of these days. Meanwhile, the sheer numbers of unique people who visit our farms as event participants and as garden workshop attendees is outstripping farm members in recent months.
-
-
Explain to me again how we're not a community center or a non-accredited trade school or a private club again, which are all permissible uses in our zoning.
-
-
But rather than argue, we'll just grow it and show it. We'll get our paperwork situated eventually.

08/29/2025

Understandably
-
-
There's a lot of confusion around what we do. As a result, we have farm members saying they're in our Overalls (gardener) Community. We have food garden support customers thinking they have to be farm members to attend Greens & Beans. And COJ Planning still thinks our farm is a retail business.
-
-
It's understandable. We have 3 distinct biz models but their logos look almost the same. We have 3 farms that serve as space for workshops & tours. And there's Greens & Beans, hosted every 3rd Friday at Overalls Farm Three in partnership with Just Food Network and Neighborhood Commons. Also, Overalls Magic Mix has become a brand unto itself. Finally, most folks know us by *my* social media, Man in Overalls. And I won't even mention our trademarks.
-
-
Let me try to clarify things.
-
-
Man In Overalls is where it started since I was originally a one-man show.
-
-
Eventually, it made sense to "share the Overalls" with co-workers to wrap them in the aura of legitimacy they deserved so that we could be a team of farmers in Overalls. Thus "Overalls" is now the main brand & biz name.
-
-
Our first (& still primary biz model) is food garden support. We help people start and sustain raised bed food gardens. We also do some edible landscapes & school gardens. And, of course, Magic Mix is our most iconic product that helps people grow their groceries.
-
-
Our first Overalls Farm started in my backyard. After 6 months of parallel biz model experiments, we settled on our subscription uPick. Members pay a monthly fee like Netflix and can come be in our space and harvest whatever they want whenever they please.
-
-
'Overalls Community' is a network of aspiring grocery-growers & a bundle of education, resources, & supplies to make it as easy as possible. Members grow their own garden or farm; we equip them to help them succeed.
-
-
Many customers & the public at large often wonder: "How do I cook (_blank_)?" Greens & Beans was launched to provide recurring culinary education & social exchange to help people know "what to do with all this goodness." It is free & open to the public.

04/12/2025

Vitamin C
-
-
Unbeknownst to most, radishes are actually a good source of vitamin c. Combined with spicy-cleanse of the nasal passages, it makes for a great food to eat when you've a bit congested- perhaps- due to a pollen overload.
-
-
Then there's the phytonutrients and flavonoids. Specifically, radishes contain glucosinolates, which break down into compounds like isothiocyanates with potential anti-cancer properties and various flavonoids such as anthocyanins, known for their antioxidant effects.
-
-
As fancy as that beautiful color, eh?
-
-
BTW, bunches of these were harvested for another few neighbors as part of
our first harvests at Farm Three.

03/19/2025

And so it begins... (again)
-
-
Question for you (or whomever knows such things): what was the catalyst for Officer Funez delivering this warning to my door?
-
-
Here's where legality of urban farming stands in Jacksonville: gray.
-
-
So long as us urban farmers pretend we do not exist by running our farms as "accessory uses" on our house lots or the backyard of another business, the city "can't say we can't do it, but neither can they say we can." But, should one of us expand our operation, buy a lot with the explicit intention to launch a neighborhood farm, we are told that what we want to do is illegal.
-
-
Let's put aside legally defendable arguments that our member-based subscription neighborhood farm in question is, by the legal definitions, a "private club," an "essential service," "community center," "park," and "church," (all at the same time)-- all of which are permissible and "permissible by exception" uses for CRO-S zoning, and we'll ignore the precedent from around the state that the Right to Farm Act does, in fact, protect existing urban farms with their USDA Farm number, green belt exemption and a year+ of operations from municipal shut-downs; there is a larger context in play.
-
-
Here are two pieces, particularly salient at the moment:
-
-
1)Every day since we began work at Overalls Farm Three, our community has backed our progress. From the hundreds on our wait list to constant neighbors driving, walking, stopping by and joining hands with us to celebrate and encourage our progress. The question we all want to know is: what's the best legal loop hole for us to navigate so we can move forward without any more yellow slips.
-
-
2)The state of American public health is abysmal. Our rates of chronic disease like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, dementia, obesity, and gut issues are off the charts; they're all diet related. These and other health concerns are worsened by sedentary, solitary modern life. Urban Farming systematically improves outcomes for all these. So whatever solution emerges, it needs to be bigger than Overalls Farm Three.

02/26/2025

Thank you.
-
-
At least 99 of us joined hands this past weekend for Overalls Farm(3) Raising to make light work of filling our raised beds with 40'cubic yards of Magic Mix and hauling 10tons of granite gravel to our pathways. We also planted 25 fruit trees, and dined on scrumptious bites.
-
-
Special thanks to Laureen Husband, Naked Kitchen, and Colman Shepard for feeding us (before &) after the hard work. Another special thanks to 3WY Construction and Remodeling, the team that helped us accelerate our bed building, so we'd be ready in time for the Farm Raising. Plus, Eartha's Farm and Market lent us wheelbarrows. And, another special thanks to Donovan, Elizabeth, Nahiem, and Titus my co-workers along with a number of Overalls alumni who came back out of the woodwork to lend a hand in their different ways: Cecil DiChiara, Desi Garland, Holt Knight, and Chris Caccamisi. Additionally, I gotta day a thank you to Becky Boyrie and Gabby Duffie who stepped up as team leaders. Not to mention, The Well, who showed up in numbers both Friday and Saturday, and our Springfield neighbors. And, of course, we were encouraged, supported, and pushed forward by family: Mary Elizabeth, Malcolm, Sue Wiley, Jean and John Grant-Dooley.
-
-
In the end, everyone was essential. There are many wheelbarrows that would still be in a pile had it not been for your hard work. So thank you for that and also thank you for helping us grow community in the midst of Farm Three. So many moments and micro relationships were forged, and other connections deepened. The farm provided the good soil, but y'all planted and nurtured the seeds.
-
-
Thank you

02/23/2025

This is where I'm at, too, post Farm Raising.

11/01/2024

Fruit Loop Trail
-
-
We are going to surround our farm with a 1/8 of a mile walking loop just inside our edible hedge. It’s a loop surrounded by fruit. It’s a Fruit Loop Trail.
-
-
Without any preservatives or artificial dyes and colors. ;)

Overalls Farm

10/25/2025

09/19/2025

09/18/2025

09/09/2025

08/29/2025

04/12/2025

03/19/2025

02/26/2025

02/23/2025

11/01/2024

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category