ECHO Farm: A Botanical Garden of Edible and Useful Tropical Plants

If you are ever in Florida, you have to check this place out. I was able to catch a ride down to ECHO Farms in Ft Myers, FL with the Sustainable Urban Agriculture Coalition of St Pete for their annual open house event. I’d known about this place for years, but hadn’t ever been. It surpassed even all the amazing things I’d heard about it. These next two videos are about the established gardens at ECHO, but I’ve also got footage about the many different sustainable systems they’ve implemented at their farm and that they share with people in Third World countries to help them become more self sufficient. But these systems aren’t just for people somewhere else. They are perfectly usable anywhere in the world. I’ll be doing separate videos about those systems and about the fruit tree nursery, where you can buy potted versions of everything you see in this video, plus much more.

I’ve Never Eaten Fruit Like This Before: The Bounty of the Tropics

One of the big reasons I wanted to go to Florida for the winter was to be able to eat delicious tropical fruit in season. Like most other places, because of our inefficient market-driven food system, it’s difficult to find locally grown fruit in any local stores. I had to search everywhere. Even the St Pete farmers market had a sparse selection of in season local fruit–oranges, grapefruit, and the occasional papaya. Like most places, using land to grow food just doesn’t pay compared with using it for high rise condos and shopping malls, so even when you can find “local” produce, it comes from over a hundred miles away. Fortunately, I made it to ECHO farms (see future videos for the tour), and one of the local flea markets also featured a wide assortment of unusual, but easily locally grown, tropical fruit thanks to some southeast Asian vendors.

Wind Power: Sailing on the Tall Ship Lynx

The Amara Zee is technically a sailboat, but because it has been adapted as a theater ship, it can’t use its sails anymore. But I had the chance to take a ride on true tall sailboat, the Lynx, when it was docked across from us. The Lynx is a small replica a schooner from the War of 1812 and features 12 sails to harness the wind’s power to maximum efficiency. We invited the crew of the Lynx to dinner at the Amara Zee one night, so they offered us free rides on their ship. It wasn’t the best day for wind, but nevertheless we got to see how the crew uses the power of the wind to sail a boat the old fashioned way. It takes a lot of hands to sail a boat like this and it was inspiring to see the skilled, strong women and men on their crew working together to hoist the sails.

Hideaway Shipping Container Tiny House at St Pete Ecovillage

This shipping container tiny house showed up at the St Pete Ecovillage in the last couple weeks so I thought I’d give a little tour of it. This one has the unique feature of being able to fold up so that it just looks like a normal shipping container, which can be useful in the stealth tiny house culture. Come see it here at the St Pete Ecovillage Tiny House Festival Saturday April 1st.

For more info go to their FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/stpetehostel/

Urban Permaculture Oasis at St Pete Ecovillage

This is a more in depth tour of the garden with better quality footage to follow up on my previous garden and food forest videos.  I’m amazed at how free off pests this garden is.  It also combines fruit and vegetables in some places, so the plants can work together in true permaculture fashion.  During winter the peach and nectarine trees have no leaves, so the winter greens and brassicas planted underneath can get plenty of sunlight.  This garden produces abundant food for both the ecovillage and the surrounding community.