In the coronavirus outbreak, American citizens received federal stimulus checks as help. Numerous people, the federal stimulus, spent it on the essentials like food, rent, mortgage, utilities, etc.

But, on the other side, we have those people who are ambitious and spent their stimulus on a long-term project. The man is from East Tampa, Florida. He invested in building his garden at home to produce his food.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Michael Chaney, aka “Spirit Mike,” dedicated his time to gardening. It wasn’t always like this. His focus on gardening became total dedication since the pandemic outbreak when the supermarkets couldn’t handle the citizens’ requirements. All started as a hobby, and currently, gardening is his passion!

With the first stimulus check, he bought pots and started growing tomatoes. He asked for advice from the seasoned gardeners at A Land of Delight Natural Farm. He purchased some materials and a couple of pieces of advice from there.

Currently, Michael Chaney grows tomatoes, collard greens, ghost peppers, mustard greens, strawberry guava, eggplants, onions, papaya, cashew, apples, sugar cane, lemon, yucca, and lettuce, etc.

His land is three acres.

“I do bio-intensive gardening, which means planting as much as you can in a small space. I specifically picked these types of fruits [dwarf plants] because they grow fruit fast.”

From his interview, we can conclude that moringa trees are his favorite. These trees are precious because of the benefits they have, high amounts of vitamin C, antifungal, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties.

“That is the Michael Jordan and the Kobe Bryant together,”
“If you were stranded somewhere and all you have his this and water, you would not only survive, you would thrive,”
“I don’t work out. All I did was add this to my diet and add flaxseed fiber, and I lost 65 lbs.”

Also, Chaney said he owns chickens. He purchased them for $3 for one chick.
As he explained, his goal is to make zero food costs.

“So, my food scraps go into the soldier fly larvae bin; they eat that and produce more larvae. Those larvae get fed to the chickens. The chicken produces eggs; I sell the eggs and eat the eggs; life is good.”

”The successful gardener has planned his garden to manage it easily!
You must plan your garden. Do your research before you put a dollar down because you want your dollar to go as far as it can,”

Michael Chaney calls his garden “New World Growers,” and it is an example of self-determination and food independence!