It's a warm Wednesday morning, and 30-year-old Tanner Johnson is shoveling compost from his truck's flatbed into a wheelbarrow at its base.
It's a common sight in New Port Richey's touted "Garden District," where front-yard farming has been the norm for several years.
Theo's Harvest, named after Johnson's great-grandfather, is a half-acre of crops spread over the properties of two single-family houses.
"I'm feeding soil, and I'm feeding people,” Johnson said. “It's like the most wholesome thing you can do as a living."
How the farm got its start
Just a few years ago, Johnson was living in New York City, where his life centered around art and music — not shovels and soil.
“Making music and painting graffiti and being a juvenile delinquent and enjoying it very much,” Johnson explained with a laugh.
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But Johnson said he wasn’t feeling fulfilled. So he packed up and spent some time at a Buddhist monastery in the Catskill Mountains in southeastern New York.
“There was a head gardener there who grew a lot of the food for the folks in the monastery. And I really just loved that experience,” Johnson said. “So I kind of got into farming under this, like, romantic lens.”
Eventually, he worked on his brother’s farm in Groveland before purchasing the two properties in New Port Richey from Jim Kovaleski, a snowbird from Maine who previously ran “Freedom House Farm” there.
In the front yard, collard greens, kale, chard, radishes and so much more pop through the black "geotextile" fabric used to help keep weeds at bay.
Kovaleski only grew food there for half the year. That's changed under Johnson's lead.
"We're able to crank out food year-round,” Johnson said. “First of all, that means more community resiliency, because this farm was just empty, full of sweet potatoes for five months of the year, whereas now it's just a constant rotation.”
In the backyard next to a chicken coop, Benjamin Stonys, one of two full-time farmers employed by Johnson, can be seen packing trays with a specially blended soil that's made at the farm.
"I see a lot of people talk about food as health, like food is medicine,” Stonys said. “My viewpoint has now become that this soil is health."
Before he started working at the farm, Stonys began growing his own food during the pandemic. He started with YouTube videos and a veggie garden at home.
"We were trying to make things work on the limited income,” Stonys said. “If we put in time in the field, we can cut our grocery budget in half, especially on the veggie side."
Now he can feed his family and pay his bills because of his work at Theo’s Harvest.
Selling to the community
Stonys said Theo's Harvest sells produce to local restaurants, via a co-op where members lock in their produce prices for the season, and directly to residents at markets like "Tasty Tuesdays" at the New Port Richey Public Library.
At the market, residents can trade in money off their SNAP benefits card for pink and green plastic tokens and get double its worth on fresh produce.
"The snap tokens are a really cool benefit,” Stonys said. “The local grocer down the street has a similar program where they match any grocery purchases on SNAP with produce money."
Amanda Zborek trades in some of her tokens to get a bag of freshly plucked sugar snap peas. The mother of two said it's the only way she can afford to feed her family fresh fruits and vegetables. Without it, she said they'd struggle to afford their groceries.
“Nobody goes without food. If you need food, come visit me at any of the markets you know that we're at, and you can get food.”Amanda Zborek, New Port Richey FarmNet
"I mean, honestly, to think about it feels devastating,” she said.
The SNAP tokens also help her buy certain plants and seedlings.
"Then I can take it home and grow my own food, and then I collect the seeds, and then save those seeds, and then grow them next year. And it's, you know, just an ever-giving situation," Zborek said.
Zborek also volunteers with New Port Richey FarmNet, an organization dedicated to getting locally grown food to residents and promoting organizations and farms like Theo’s Harvest.
“We ask $3 — our suggested donation for most things,” she said. “It’s always suggested to donate more, if you'd like, less if it needs to be."
Zborek added that nobody goes without food.
“If you need food," Zborek said, "come visit me at any of the markets you know that we're at, and you can get food."
Urban agriculture is a growing trend
It's hard to quantify just how much urban farming accounts for agriculture in the Tampa Bay region and across the state. That's because it's a huge umbrella that covers everything from backyard gardening to commercial farms.
But Catherine Campbell, who studies community food systems at the University of Florida, said there’s definitely been an increase in recent years. And Florida, she said, is ground zero.
As rapid development occurs across the state, the need for local food production has grown. Campbell explained that other states are looking to model what's happening with urban farms like Theo's Harvest, and help support them.
"It's really important to think about how food and agriculture will fit in our cities to feed our growing populations and build community resilience,” Campbell said.
Access the UF/IFAS Extension urban agriculture tookit.
In New Port Richey and Pasco County, policymakers and community leaders have worked together in recent years to pass ordinances for urban farmers that not only allow them to do the work, but also encourage them to.
That’s not always the case with local and state governments, and even homeowners' associations, Campbell said.
“In a lot of cases, policymakers don't even realize there are barriers that exist within code of enforcement. They don't realize that their codes are limiting farmers from doing things,” Campbell said.
Another barrier? A lack of time and resources.
That was a key finding in the 2023 paper Campbell co-authored and published in the Journal of Human Sciences and Extension that featured interviews with 17 extension educators involved in urban agriculture programming.
Campbell is currently studying local municipalities across the state that have passed protections and provided resources.
“We pulled all of the regulations and codes of ordinances from every county and municipality around the state, and we used AI machine learning to do an analysis of what all those documents are," Campbell said. "Our next step is to look at whether there are actual, real manifestations of urban agriculture in the world.”
Making locally grown food accessible to everyone
Back at his New Port Richey farm, Tanner Johnson takes a break from mulching to wipe the sweat off his brow. He reflects on the last couple of years on his farm, where he's fought to keep prices as low as possible for the community.
“For the most part, we are competitive with what you can get at the store,” Johnson said. “I don't know if that's to our fault, but that's what — that's the way we manage it right now."
Despite that, he knows some people still can't afford his produce.
So he launched a mutual aid program to help get his food into the hands of lower-income residents. It crowdsources money to help subsidize the cost of giving away free produce.
"That's part of our mission because there's dignity in food,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he's aware of how good his family has it with eating fresh produce every day. He wants more people to have the same privilege.
“We want people to believe that this stuff is attainable for everyone because otherwise," he said, "what's the point?"
