This Three-Acre Farm Fuels Orlando’s MICHELIN Restaurants

"Five miles from downtown Orlando, this Certified Naturally Grown farm, launched by husband-and-wife team Mike and Nikki Garcia in 2019, is built to “go beyond sustainability” and “close the loop.” On three hand‑tended acres, biointensive beds, summer cover crops with pastured poultry, and syntropic agroforestry (stratification and photosynthesis maximization) drive production without sprays to encourage biodiversity. The Garcias tailor crops to local restaurants across Southern, Latin, Caribbean, and Asian cuisines—growing everything from green‑stem cauliflower to ube—while embracing seasonality (prime from September into early June). Locals connect directly via a weekly farm stand, a 50‑member CSA with bags of lettuce, arugula, curly kale, kohlrabi, and zucchinis, and educational farm dinners where roughly 90% of the menu is grown onsite, including resilient cultivars like South Anna Butternut Squash. A partnership with O‑Town Compost closes nutrient cycles using community food scraps and local woodchips—“true sustainability” sustained by neighbors who praise the farm’s quality and accessibility." - Michael He