Cheneats Farm

Hello, we are a suburban farm located in St. Petersburg, Florida and have organic seeds, cuttings, and plants from our own food forest garden orchard farm for sale. They are from our productive perennial or self-perpetuated plants adapted to this climate. We also have seasonal fresh chicken eggs, fertile duck eggs, ducks, and Tilapia fish for sale. Upon request, we'd be more than happy to give you a tour of our sustainable and regenerative food forest garden orchard and share our experience of best practices with you.

Seeds: Seminole Pumpkin (Florida native) Cranberry Hibiscus (aka False Roselle, African Rosemallow - Hibiscus Acetosella 2 varieties dark pink flower and dark red flower) Roselle Pigeon Pea (yellow flower black pea) Pigeon Pea (red flower red pea) Yardlong Bean (Asparagus Bean) Canna Edulis Everglade Tomato (Florida native) Thai Basil Spanish Needle Keitt Mango and 2 other varieties Cuttings / Plants: Chaya (aka Spinach Tree 2 varieties) Longevity Spinach Surinam Spinach Sweet Potatoes (3 varieties including dark purple one) Cuban Oregano Malanga Shell Ginger Shampoo Ginger Moringa Hawaiian Cassava (aka Yuca) Everbearing Mulberry Magnolia Fig Banana Plants (Dwarf Cavendish and Plantain) Papaya Plants Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia Diversifolia) Rosemary Loquat Water Spinach (aka Kang Kong, Chinese Spinach - Ipomoea Aquatica) Singapore Daisy (aka creeping-oxeye, trailing daisy, and Wedelia - Sphagneticola Trilobata) Dayflowers (Commelina) Chives Mint Edible Bamboo clumping type

We eat the freshest and the most nutritious food from our own farm. We sequester as much carbon as possible by composting all organic waste from our farm and kitchen. We create habitats for abundant, diversified and beneficial wildlife on our farm. We use earthwork such as swales to slow, spread and store rainwater and to prevent erosion on slopes. We create microclimates to grow diversified edible plants. We have a sustainable, regenerative, resilient, aesthetic, functional, productive and constantly evolving permaculture food forest garden farm. We hope that more people would join us to have a low-maintenance food forest garden even in a small scale than a high-maintenance lawn so that we can reduce carbon footprint and pollution for a better earth, a better us and a better future for our children and their children. Unlike a lawn or a conventional row garden demanding on-going high input of energy money and time, a low-maintenance food forest can sustain and regenerate itself after it's established. Come and look at what we have. We use Back to Eden permaculture gardening approach modeled after nature, no-till organic, heirloom seeds. In addition, we add layers such as overstory, understory, shrub, herbaceous, ground cover, root, vine, mushroom.

Other Plants in our garden: Papaya Avocado Carambola, Starfruit Sugar Cane Asparagus Okinawa Spinach Lemon Lime Coconut Palm Jackfruit Ginger Turmeric Gardenia Live Oak Queen Palm Cabbage Palm, Sabal Palmetto Date Palm Grapefruit Pomelo Orange Olive Pomegranate Ice Cream Bean African Mint Potato Purple Yam Cattail Cactus Dragon Fruit Lychee Lemon Guava Pineapple Guava Pineapple Aloe Katuk Malabar Spinach Green Malabar Spinach Red Brown Turkey Fig Salavatski persimmon (Russian soft seed) Papaya (Red lady) Passionfruit (yellow) Egyptian spinach Beijing grass Sassoo Spinach (Brazilian spinach)

Using Wood Chips to Fill Holes

Wood chips provide wonderful organic matter even to fill up holes. If you live in an urban or suburban area, they are free from the waste stream. All you need to do is to contact tree service companies. They'll be glad to deliver them to you for free.

The Problem

There was a big hole caused by run-off rainwater on a slope in my neighbor's property right next to mine. All rainwater from his yard adjacent to mine would carve out a gully, rush down to the hole, make it bigger, then go under the fence to my property, and cause erosion whenever it rained.

My neighbor is almost 90 years old. I don't see him pushing a wheelbarrow and using a shovel to fill the hole. So I offered to help.

Initial Solution

The first time I used fill dirt to fill the hole. Dirt is heavy. I pushed about 6 cubic yards of dirt to fill the hole and the area caused by erosion. It almost broke my back.

To my dismay, the dirt was washed away by the next heavy rain. It didn't help at all. :'-(

Final Solution

Then I thought about wood chips. There are air pockets between the wood chips where the water can flow through without washing them away. In addition, they are much lighter and easier to work with.

To my delight, they did indeed fix the problem. :-)

Photo below shows where the hole used to be on my neighbor's property. Wood chips have slowly broken down into compost but they weren't washed away even after some heavy rain for a whole year! Weeds have started to grow. The yard worker who is hired by my neighbor to mow the grass lawn will start to spray herbicide. So I need to do something very quickly.

By the way, have you noticed I use wood logs to slow down rainwater?

Today I added more wood chips.

It will be good for another year. :)

The mango tree on my property as shown below grows its roots under the wood chips. It will continue to feed on compost broken down from the wood chips and it will not be affected by any herbicides. I am sure it will be happy. So am I!

Have you seen the mango blossoms all over the tree? It's going to be a great year. We harvested at least 500 mangos from this tree last year!

In summary, I am simply mimicking how nature makes soil. Nature uses organic matter and lets them slowly break down to compost to make soil.

Peeing and Making Bio-Char

First of all, I would like to say it was not an easy task taking this photo!

The Preparation

It is cold outside. It is windy. I am just waking up. Worst of all, I need to go pee really badly while running around looking for my camera.It is cold outside. It is windy.

Finally, I get everything ready in the right place for a very important mission - taking a picture for this blog.

I have never done this before. So it is awkward, to say the least.

The Action

I dig the actor out from layers of clothes into the cold air. Oh boy, it is cold! I hear him.

While my left hand is busy holding my precious to aim the stream toward the box in the photo, I only have my right hand free to hold the camera steady in the wind.

I am also very careful to zoom in on the stream but not the actor. This is by no means intended to be NSFW. Sorry my buddy, no matter how much you complain, I just can't show you to the whole world.

Without a free finger to click on the camera to take a picture, I can only say cheese, again and again, until the camera finally hears me in the wind and clicks.

Before the stream eventually runs dry I get a clear picture. YEAH ... I am so relieved and happy :)

Life is Good :)

So what is it in the box?

Answer:
This is charcoal from sawdust. I am charging it with urine to become biochar. By the way, there is no offensive ammonia odor at all thanks to the carbon in the charcoal. There are other things that can be used to charge it, too.

What is Biochar?

Biochar is charcoal used as a soil amendment. Biochar is a stable solid, rich in carbon, and can endure in soil for thousands of years. Like most charcoal, biochar is made from biomass via pyrolysis. Biochar is under investigation as an approach to carbon sequestration. Biochar thus has the potential to help mitigate climate change via carbon sequestration. Independently, biochar can increase soil fertility of acidic soils (low pH soils), increase agricultural productivity, and provide protection against some foliar and soil-borne diseases. Wikipedia

A Precious Gift from My Friend

The city does not allow burning a big fire in my suburban backyard. Therefore, this sawdust charcoal was a precious gift from my dear friend Matt, who lives in a rural area.

He used a closed heavy duty metal barrel to hold the sawdust and cooked it slowly inside a concrete block oven as shown in the photo below to charcoal dust.

I am so looking forward to spreading the biochar in my garden after a month or so of diligently peeing and making it. :)

I'll keep you posted on the result!