Gardens

Interview with Mia Kemp

  • Excerpt from Interview with Mia Kemp

    Q: Tell me about your family home. What does that house mean to you?

    A: That was, that was home. That was, that was home. I suffered…I was… It was trauma to move from that home. It was very, and I think not discounting anybody else's feelings. But that was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my whole life. And, I don't want to start welling up, but it affected me physically, mentally, and emotionally. And Ashanté, I thought I was gonna die. I'm telling you how much that home meant to me. I brought both of my kids home from the hospital there. I wasn't living there, but I brought them both home. Well, with my son, I was married and living in the Bahamas, but I came home, so my family, my parents, could see me pregnant with my first child, and I had the baby there, and ended up staying, and my husband at the time was going to join us after he resigned from the service, the police force. And so that means a lot to me, you know, it's the hub. It's the hub. And I remember telling my brother he's like, you know, don't think you have to hold on to this house for us, you know. Don't put yourself in financial strain. It's not about…this is home base. This is home base. This is where all the love is, all the memories, all the joy of childhood, the family gatherings. My children experienced that, and I'm so thankful that they have a memory of that home, and they too, had troubles. My daughter was younger. And she couldn't understand. She thought we did something wrong and had to leave. And I kept trying, you know, you're trying to explain things the best way to a younger one. And she says, I wanna go back. And my son said, I'll be back. We're getting this house back, you know. And I took her to church one time. We still attend the church that's down the street from the family home, and when we came out, we went to visit a friend of mine, my best friend who lived across the street. And my daughter said, I'm going into papa's garden now, and I wanna get some avocados. And I said, oh, no, sweetie, that's not our home anymore. She said, she looked at me, and she says, that's papa's house. That's not that lady's house, that's papa's house, and she wanted to go, and I was like, oh, no. You know, if I said, oh, the lady probably would have understood. But she, for her, I don't care who lives there. That's my grandparents’ home, you see, and that's how I feel, and for a couple of years, I couldn't even go visit my friend. The site of sitting across because we would always sit on her porch and look, you know, for a couple of years she would just come by, you know, she said, I know it's hard. I know it's hard. Then I gradually could do it, and I could sit on the porch, and we could talk. And as long as I didn't see activity in the house pulling up. I was okay, but I grew to, you know, we still drive by that, and it doesn't affect me that same way, you know. But it does, I do think of the memories. The lady changed some of the stuff, took out some of the trees that was just my father's garden, and that was one reason I was okay with that particular lady buying the home. I took her arm, and I walked around. And she named every herb and flower, and I said as much as I don't wanna lose this house or leave this house. She's the one. And but a few years later my son came and said, mom, she cut down those trees. I was like, no. My father planted a pomegranate tree for me there, and we had two avocado trees, lemon tree, orange tree. And Lacey, matter of fact, the orange tree sometimes the oranges were a little more tarty, sour.

    Q: She mentioned that. 

    A: And she loved it. We all did. You know she loved it so. And my dad had an array of herbs, vegetables, greens, just everything, and Swiss chard, kale. It just goes on and on, he had corn, but what he would love to do when he would harvest everything. He would pack up and go deliver to Lacey. Go deliver, you know the vegetables and fruits and stuff. And my mom, I can, oh, I can see her vividly right now sitting back because there was a paradise backyard. And I could see her vividly sitting outside in the backyard, have some afternoon coffee or tea, and just taking it in. And you know, at my age now, I can appreciate that moment of peace and serenity that she was having. You know, six kids. This is my peace now, you know, and the same thing. She would sit in the breakfast nook and have her coffee and look out that window. And hummingbirds would come to the window, things like that. So, it's just back to answering your question. That's our home. That's the home base. That's where the love, that's where the food, the laughter, the tears, the sadness, the celebrations. That's home. When you say home, that's it to me, that's it, and will always be. You know, we're at a new place, and it's not. It's our home now for my kids at night. But it's just like, this is just another place to stay. Home is over there on Verdun. Does that make sense to you? And not that we don't carry on traditions and create new traditions here, of which we have fun. They're nothing like it was at the hub. But back to what my brother said, don't feel like you have to do this, I said, well, you know what's gonna happen, once this home is sold, so the lifeline of the family is gonna be cut. And of course, oh, everything's gonna happen. We're gonna meet here. We're gonna meet here. Well, I mean, we did. But it's not the same at all.

Interview with Sarah Davenport

  • Excerpt from Interview with Sarah Davenport

    Q: Tell me a little bit more about the garden. What do you grow? Where do things go when you harvest the harvesting?

    A: Okay, yes, oh, there's I mean, Blue Trunk is, you know, it's a network. So people have gardens all across Central Florida and essentially, each one of them is a community garden. You know, we grow the food and with the intention that, like anybody who needs seeds, anybody who wants food, anybody who wants like plants or cuttings. Whatever, whoever has it, we can exchange. So, one person is like an herbalist, and she has like a totally like decked out herb garden. Somebody else does, like they do a lot of like seed starters, because they have a little greenhouse and all that sort of thing. Mine. I have two separate gardens. One is an in-ground food forest and that's just like, that's like my Agroecology Garden, that's like the jungle, you know. Throw things where they want to grow, you know. Lots of companion planting. Nothing is really controlled there. And then that's like, it's very Caribbean garden. Okay? So, I have like cow peas, you know black eyed peas, gandules, which is like these peas that if you like have any Caribbean dish site where you have like peas in it, it's probably that.

    So, gandules. I have like beans from Cuba, these red beans. I have, like Cuban oregano, papayas, all types of different spinaches that grow throughout the Caribbean. Avocado, mango, moringa, which is like a super food which is very popular in the Caribbean and, also Africa. Pineapples, tons of pineapples. I can't remember what it's called, but you use it to make legume, which is like a Haitian dish and it's like, it's a spinach. I call it Egyptian spinach, but it's called something else here. Well, the white folks that gave it to me called it Egyptian spinach. They had a fancy garden at this nice like hotel resort. But then my Haitian friend was like, oh, that's what we use to make legume. I forgot the name, but I have a ton of that. What else? Sometimes I'll get squash. This year I had lots and lots of watermelons. Yeah, I have like sorrel or cranberry hibiscus. I have turmeric, ginger, different types of hibiscus, and stuff like, yeah, that's a lot of the stuff, and then on the other side of the house, we have an aquaponics garden. So, as I was saying, my friend Didier. He’s from Columbia. He moved here like 4 years ago, and he, just through Covid, started going on YouTube and learning about aquaponics, which is where you grow your plants or your food in water and the water… The nutrients in the water are supplied by the fish. So, like hydroponics, is without the fish. Aquaponics is with the fish. And he was living with his parents, and he had this whole setup that he did by himself, and he's also a carpenter, and so… We met each other, you know, by Eatonville, and this Black run garden called Infinite Zion Farms. And he was telling me about. I was like, oh, that's so cool! And one day, we just started getting to know each other. He said, so my HOA at my parents’ house told me I have to take my system down. Is it? Would it be okay if I like stored some things at your house? And I said, why don't we just do it at my house? You know, like I don't know how long we're gonna have in this rental. But let's just do it. And then when we need to take it down, we take it down. And so, it's grown like huge. And we're probably gonna be able to be in this rental for the next 10 years. So, we've just kind of gone all in on it. And he has been like the

    mastermind behind everything. He's constructed everything. We have several tanks with like 36 fish. We are like tomato growers in that system. It's much more controlled. And it's like in a greenhouse structure. And yeah, we have, like lots of tomatoes. We grow herbs, all the things that can't tolerate as much heat here. We can grow in there because it's a little bit cooler. And yeah, my role in that is just like I'm kind of like the business partner. So, it's really his vision. And then I just I think it's great, and I like it. So, we just kind of like, go 50-50 on everything. And then I find grants. I'm the one that gets like community members out there, and he's like the builder, the constructor. He's the one that like knows the science behind the water and all that. So, I've been learning a lot of more like hard science or biology, and like chemistry through him. And geometry, too, to like building the structures and all that? And so, and those are the sort of skills that we share with the community as well. And that's why we really like to get kids out there, too, because kind of inspire them to think about like, what do I want to do? What am I interested? We paint out there all that kind of thing. And right now, we aren't like selling anything from our system. My inground garden, I'm mainly the one that works out there. That like, that's all free, that's just a like resources garden, and a lot of what I do out there is, I try to see what will grow in the heat.

    So, then I store seeds, and then we have a seed bank through Blue Trunk. And we'll just exchange seeds like these are heat tolerant, you know, spinaches, whatever. And, we have like group chats. We'll post it on Instagram, Facebook, like, hey, I have seeds, or I get pots a lot for some reason. And so, I'll always have pots, and I'll just put a post up if anybody needs pots. Yeah. And then for the aquaponics, it's more of like the workshops and things like that. And then, I think eventually we're gonna turn it into like a business like an LLC. But right now, it's just well, but the whole purpose of the LLC too is we wanna make money. Well, like it really is Didier’s thing, like I just see myself as like being the support, and I think eventually I'll just become like a silent partner or like aside cause I want him, if this is his business, you know, but part of what I do with the business is like, how do we make money so that we can make it on a sliding scale as well, so that we can produce for free. And then, you know, build aquaponic systems that are low cost or free for people. So, I find grant money for that sort of thing. And right now, we're actually working with somebody who's disabled and living in a little apartment in Paramour, right next to Eatonville actually, and so we are building them like a mini aquaponics system with like a recycled perfectly nice fish tank. We found free fish and things like that. So yeah, those are the two gardens at my house, and that's mainly what we do with those ones. Yes, and the food goes to everybody. We have a harvest. Everybody just posts it wherever and says, hey, I have a bunch of cow peas. Anybody want some?