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Community Corner

Personal Growth

New Port Richey resident Jim Kovaleski makes his living off the land.

In a neighborhood off Virginia Avenue is a cluster of houses where the ground is ripe with organic produce planted by 49-year-old New Port Richey resident Jim Kovaleski.

Kovaleski grows a variety of produce on 4,000 square feet of land divided up between his backyard, and the yards of his mother and former mother in law. The produce includes more than 40 kinds of lettuce, eight different kinds of kale, six to seven types of mustards and a variety of edible flowers.

This is how Kovaleski feeds himself and makes his living. After jobs in ornamental landscaping and grounds maintenance, he has chosen to pursue organic farming.

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“There’s an incredible opportunity here,” he said. “This is wealth being created on the land. Just sunlight, soil and water produce this stuff that I can eat and everybody can eat. To take credit for this as a farmer is kind of arrogant. I’m a species here, just like the squirrels and the bugs.”

Using seeds he’s purchased,  the seeds of former crops or compost from the city, Kovaleski is able to grow an abundance of food that he can prepare into his own meals and give to his neighbors.Whatever is left over is sold at farmer’s markets, like the one at Sweetwater Farm in Tampa or the new one at the at The Market Off Main in New Port Richey.

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A snowbird from Maine, Kovaleski focuses his efforts in New Port Richey on crops that do well in cooler weather, since he’s here from October through April. In May, he heads back up to Maine to farm at his residence there.

“If I can take care of it, it can take care of me,” Kovaleski said. “This feeds me and my neighbors and I take the surplus to market.”

He has no idea if permits are required to do the small-scale farming he does. He doesn’t really care. He said he’s using space in a practical way that benefits not only himself but his neighbors, too.

His neighbor across the street, George, was so inspired by Kovaleski’s farming that picked his brain for some start-up tips and started his own in his front yard, Kovaleski said.

Kovaleski said his gardening philosophies come from permaculture.

“You look at how nature does things and try to mimic that in human habitats,” Kovaleski said. “ It really changed the way I view gardening.”

This nature philosopher is so passionate about his beliefs that they are reflected in his personal lifestyle. Though he owns mortgage-free homes both in New Port Richey and in Maine, he spends most nights camping out in a pup tent in his backyard, reading under a tent with a table, chair and workbench set up inside and cooking in a makeshift kitchen.

“I love camping so much and do it a lot in Maine, so when I came back here, I didn’t want to stay in the house,” Kovaleski said.

Kovaleski also scavenges for fallen citrus fruit at neighborhoods within biking distance. If he knows the fruit isn’t being harvested by the owners, he knocks on the door and asks to trade produce for it.

Last year, Kovaleski was invited to the Terre Made conference in Torino, Italy, an international network of food producers, cooks, educators and students from 150 countries who are untied by the common goal of global sustainability.

These “food communities” come together every two years to “share innovative solutions and time-honored traditions for keeping small-scale agriculture and sustainable food production alive,” according to Slow Food USA.

Today, Kovaleski is presenting at the University of South Florida’s Patel Center for Global Solutions at 9 a.m. to the School of Agriculture and Community Design about his organic gardening.

“I’m spreading the possibilities,” Kovaleski said. “I really believe the world is going to be a much-changed place in the next decade, and if we don’t have skills and food, we’re going to be in trouble.”

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