Crops from front-yard farmlettes,
Burgeoning gardens in front yards help boost local food supply
harvested by volunteers during “swarm rides,” are making their way into the local food supply.
The salads made from ingredients Liza Boone picks from the front yard of her Audubon Park home just taste better to her.
Her burgeoning front-yard farmlette of dinosaur kale, oak leaf lettuce, arugula, peas and spinach has sprouted since November and is maintained by Fleet Farming, a program by local nonprofit IDEAs for Us.
And there’s plenty to go around.
“It’s amazing that a small piece of land can produce so much,” Boone said. “It just produces way more than we thought … I don’t do anything out front. They do it all.”
Sunday about 40 volunteers from the group spread mulch at her home around the crops, as well as at a larger plot across the street.
They met at East End Market nearby and set out on bicycles, skateboards and roller skates to maintain their gardens as they do the second and fourth Sundays of each month for “swarm rides.”
Boone often picks fresh greens from her yard with which
to prepare salads, and as part of the agreement with the nonprofit she can eat up to 10 percent of the produce grown in her yard.
The remaining 90 percent is harvested by Fleet Farmers and sold to local restaurants such as Lazy Moon Pizza and The Sanctum Cafe, as well as at local farmer’s markets.
“We primarily grow salad greens,” said program director Lee Perry. “The homeowner eats off it every day and there is just so much surplus.”
They do this to increase local food supply, while also decreasing water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in agriculture, Perry said.
As word has spread through news reports, the group’s waiting list has grown immensely.
Locally more than 2,500 people have been added to it, and others as far as Madagascar and Australia have asked for farms as well.
But because of limited people and resources, the group can only maintain about 20 farmlettes in Audubon Park and has recently planted several more in Parramore.
Fleet Farming recently received a $50,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to expand to the neighborhood and has planted three gardens thus far, according to Perry.
“It’s a great opportunity to give people from every community and income level the same access to produce,” Perry said.
Each week, its farms collectively produce about 50 pounds of produce that are sold to vendors and about 40 more pounds sold at farmer’s markets in Audubon Park and Parramore.
Soon, locals will have a new place to try its front-yard produce: The group was just accepted to Lake Eola’s weekly farmer’s market.
“In general, we live in a very disconnected world with food consumption,” said Elise de Cuba, a volunteer since 2016. “I think most Americans don’t know where their food comes from.”