Making America Garden Again

Local movement revives the push for natural, sustainable landscapes.

If we want to make America Great Again, then we must first “make America garden again,” says Steven Turner, a local landscaper. “Food security is prosperity and wealth. Health is wealth, and that means creating a healthy farm and landscape community,” he says.

Turner is the man behind a new movement in the triangle of counties, which is Pasco, Hernando and Citrus.

He is a man passionate about plants and nature. “I stumbled into it after living off the grid for several years in the Ozarks,” he said. “I gained a first-hand perspective on the importance of nature and local resources and how important it is for communities to garden together.”

Gardening brings people together from all walks of life. Young and old, diverse in background, urban or rural, but committed in something timeless and profoundly American: growing their own food, eating healthily, and contributing not only to the wellbeing of our nation but to our environment as well.

Turner communicated with the Hernando Sun recently about a local movement promoting “how to make American garden again” as well as concerns about the amount of clearcutting going on in Florida.

“Acres and acres of pristine Florida landscape brimming with native plant and wildlife is razed to the ground almost every day,” Turner said. “Beautiful mature trees are lopped down so homes, shopping centers and roads can be built to accommodate the growing population, yet we are not replacing even a fraction of what is lost.”

“It’s unhealthy,” he says. “My mission is to encourage everyone to reduce the damaging impacts on our plant, insect, and animal communities and that starts with our landscapes.”

Other solutions include creating habitats and food sources in our landscapes with native and edible plants. Also, interacting with our environments in a healthier way by not spraying pesticides and chemicals helps us feel better and be healthier, as well as keeping our waterways, aquifers, and forests pristine, his blog states.

“Millions of organisms work constantly, from soil bacteria to plant and animal life, to keep systems functioning so you and I can even live on this planet,” he added.

Steven isn’t alone in his enthusiasm for sustainable land preparation, planting, landscaping and backyard food production. His “Making America Garden Again” group meets monthly with around 40 or so other keen gardeners from Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties who are working together on each other’s properties to install native plants that provide seeds, grasses, fruit, foliage, flowers, or berries that can also provide food for us and wildlife.

“We learn and grow together,” smiled Turner. “We’re evolving and changing so much that it’s a way to gather all the new information that comes out and then share it.”

And it’s not just Turner and his local group of gardeners who are enthusiastic about reducing the damaging effects on our plant, insect, and animal communities.

“There is a massive, global movement of millions of people who are trying to foster biodiversity in our gardens and on our land in response to the ecological
destruction that we’re seeing all around us,” said Turner.

Many Floridians are turning to designing landscapes that not only welcome wildlife but our pollinators too. Three-quarters of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators to reproduce. That’s one out of every three bites of food you eat. Select plants with seeds, fruit, foliage, blossoms, or berries that provide food and a supply of water, such as a rain garden or birdbath.

“Each time the group works on a project, it’s a demonstration of the power of community coordinating strategies to achieve local food security goals,” said Turner. “Local food security is job security.”

“A hundred years ago, our lives depended on locally managed foods and services,” he stated. “We had local food security then and we can again achieve local food and resource security by Making America Garden Again.”

“It’s essential we interact with our landscapes in a healthier way so we can help keep our environments cleaner and healthier for future generations to come,” said Turner.

If you are a keen gardener and interested in joining Steven and his group, email [email protected].

Sue Quigley writes regularly for the Hernando Sun. She can be reached at [email protected] or at 727.247.6308.

Examples of Florida-friendly native plants

Here is Steven Turner’s plant list specific to central Florida that may provide the calories, protein, oil, and carbs needed for people to sustain their nutritional needs.

With organic rich soil management and plants also to feed our pollinators, I recommend blackberries, beets, cassava, moringa, katuk, papaya, cold hardy avocados, sunflowers, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and seminole pumpkins. African bush basil, rosemary, dune sunflower, tropical salvia, bidens alba, asters, goldenrods, wild cherry trees, hollies and sand live oak trees for starters.

These plants are most supportive to life in the specific growing zone and climate of central Florida.