Transforming The Manic Organic Mobile

My very first event, all set up and beautiful!

 The Transformation of my bus over the last few years has been on of the most thrilling and fulfilling projects I've ever embarked on. throwing caution to the wind and chasing a dream is something everyone should try at least once. Yeah I lost a ton of money and yeah I've been pretty broke for a while because of it, but I've learned so much from this process and I'm still learning.

I'm evolving and changing my ideas and implementing back up plans all along the way. I've never thrown in the towel or given up on this project.

As much as I enjoyed selling locally sourced, organic produce out of my bus at various events and markets the competition with conventional produce and my insistence on staying local and serving MY community was a losing combination.

There are too many cheap, conventionally grown produce stands in our area. They sell fruits and veggies from Mexico and china and they're a fraction of the price of the quality organic that I was selling. They're also riddled with pesticides, usually weeks old and rather flavorless.

Time and time again, however, people chose to go with what cost less out of their pocket. You just CAN'T make people care about the quality of their food. It's depressing...anyway...

The worse part is that often they lie to their customers and tell them that what they're buying IS local and organic. Even with the original packaging in plain sight. The frustration and profit loss I suffered competing with these guys was too much. So I shut down the operation and moved on to plan B.

I decided the best way to combat these fraudulent produce vendors in my neighborhood would be to help connect existing, local growers who have conscious and sustainable food growing practices and to help others learn how to grow food in our climate.

The result has been plant and seed swaps twice a year, gardening workshops, home garden consultations, facebook pages for local growers and supporting home made food and craft swaps in our south Sarasota County area.

I feel very accomplished with how things have been coming together and working out! I'm helping more, unused space become filled with food growing goodness in my community and I'm helping connect like minded people. Together we're forming quite a nice sub-community of people who care deeply about the food they eat and the soil it's grown in.

As for the bus! Well, I'm turning it into a mobile greenhouse now! the interior will now house growing containers for organic veggies and I'll take my bus to all the same events and markets to help teach people the the most inexpensive food comes from their OWN back yard.

I'll be blogging the progress as I go! It's very exciting and I'm totally stoked and ready to get things done! To see more photos of the bus and how things are evolving please check out the photo gallery on my website by clicking HERE!