The Tangerine Tree: Building Legacy Through Regenerative Soil

This is Part 3 of a meditation on Florida prairies, sacred ground, and what it means to be a steward of the land.

There is a man in Morriston with a vision. He isn't thinking about next season. He's thinking about a hundred years from now.

Anytime I struggle to understand a broken world, I think on the things that are good and right and noble... the lovely things of good report. And, with faithful patience, I think about joy filled days, full of love and kindness. I look at the long days of work and when there is no outside world barging in... just our working, in and with the dirt... well those days, I can check every single item off of the list of rightful thinking and that is how you know that no matter what, you are doing the right thing and walking in the right direction.

That makes everyday on this farm so much more important.

Some days feel more like battle than breath but always, as the sun begins to set, I find a way to understand something deeper about regenerative farming. It's not a trend. It's not a business strategy. It's a prayer made visible in soil.

The Moment: A Family Feeding a Community

The man in Morriston with a vision that spans centuries, is my husband. He isn't only thinking about next season's harvest. He's thinking about a hundred years from now. He's thinking about our grandchildren standing on the ground we built this year, in soil he worked so hard for today, tasting fruit from what he tends now, living in a landscape and a soil he's rebuilding with his hands and his patience and his faith in what the earth can become. He's so full of passion and knowledge of the unseen ecosystem below our feet and feeding 100's and then 1000's by rebuilding and providing living soil.

We stand together with him, my daughters and I. We hold his hands and work beside him. We see his heart, his passion and we believe in him. The passion that fuels him has been contagious and so, we lower ourselves to the ground next to him to wash feet and build up those feeding the hungry. We teach alongside them to ensure that it is not just today they eat but for a lifetime, they eat and teach and feed communities for generations to come. It's a different kind of planting of something that can grow into generations far beyond ours.

We understand something that connects all three parts of this meditation: Regeneration is love made visible in soil.

It isn't a trend. It isn't a business strategy.

It's the most radical act of hope—choosing to build for people you'll never meet, tending a world you won't live to see and reach its fullest beauty.

Community thrives with that understanding.

Our client and neighbor around the corner, has immersed himself in regenerative agriculture literature. And as our libraries and margins are full of notes, connections, revelations, most likely his are fast becoming that way as well. We read about soil biology the way poets read Neruda—looking for truth in the spaces between words.

Our clients mission: to transform his 10 acres of sandy Florida land into a native food forest. Not for himself. For the seven generations that follow.

I say it almost daily... "Nothing wasted, everything working toward the good."

I hear the echoes of Wendell Berry in those words immediately. Berry wrote: "We live the given life, not the planned life." This man embodies that truth. He's learning to work with what he's been given—the sandy soil that wants to drain, the drought that teaches patience, the low-lying basin that remembers ancient water, the limestone beneath his feet that holds the memory of seas that covered Florida millions of years ago.

He's not fighting the land. He's listening to it.

Central to his vision are the native tangerines on his vast prairie land property—the heirloom varieties that have thrived on Florida soil for generations. These aren't hybrids engineered in laboratories. These are survivors. Fruit that has weathered freezes and heat waves and centuries of human occupation. Fruit that knows how to live here because its ancestors learned, over generations, to flourish here.

When he grafts a new tree from this ancient stock, he's not simply growing fruit. He's becoming a link in a chain of inheritance stretching backward and forward through time. Past to present to future. He's saying to those who came before: I received your blessing. And to those who will come after: I'm passing it forward.

He's saying: I am part of this story.

That is the power of regeneration. That is intentional. That is all things working toward the good.

THE DEPTH: The Living Soil Beneath Our Feet

Here's what the world doesn't yet fully understand: you cannot build a thriving ecosystem on dead sand.

The sandy soils of Florida drain too quickly. Rain falls and vanishes into the limestone aquifer within hours, sometimes minutes. Without organic matter—without the sponge-like capacity of humus and living soil structure—the landscape becomes a desert. Plants stress. Nutrients leach away. The soil remains biologically impoverished, unable to support the density of life it was meant to hold.

This is the critical work: amending the soil itself.

Our client understands this at a cellular level. He isn't simply fertilizing. He's fundamentally restructuring the soil ecosystem. Every bucket of compost he adds is an act of ecological restoration. It's saying: I'm going to rebuild you from the inside out.

Here's the science that makes this miraculous:

When you introduce high-quality, biologically active compost into sandy soil, you're introducing billions of microorganisms—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes—along with the organic matter they depend on. These aren't inert nutrients. They're living communities.

The fungi are particularly extraordinary. Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with plant roots, extending far beyond what the root system alone could access. A single fungal network can link dozens of plants together, creating an underground web of nutrient and water exchange. These fungal networks have been called the "wood wide web"—a literal internet beneath the soil where information, nutrients, and even chemical signals travel between plants. A mother tree can send carbon to her seedlings through these fungal networks. A healthy plant can send resources to a struggling neighbor.

This isn't metaphor.

This is soil science.

When you add compost, you're not just feeding plants. You're resurrecting an entire society. You're inviting back the bacteria that fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. You're reestablishing the fungi that break down complex organic matter into plant-available forms. You're restoring the protozoa that graze on bacteria and release their nutrients in forms plants can use. You're rebuilding the physical structure of the soil—the aggregation that allows water infiltration while maintaining water-holding capacity.

The transformation is profound:

Dead sandy soil: 1-2% organic matter, poor water retention, minimal microbial life, nutrient-depleted, compacted structure.

Regenerated soil: 5-8% organic matter, excellent water retention balanced with drainage, billions of microorganisms per gram, nutrient-rich cycling, aggregated structure that resists compaction.

The difference isn't just chemical. It's alchemical. Dead sand becomes living earth.

And here's what moves me most: every bucket matters. Every cubic yard of compost added to a community garden. Every handful of amended soil in a backyard bed. Every effort to rebuild soil—whether you're working 10 acres or 10 square feet—is part of the same prayer. You're saying: I am choosing life. I am choosing to work with the earth rather than extract from it. I am choosing to build for a future I won't live to see.

This is the work our client is doing. This is the work happening right now in community gardens across Florida where we send our soil. This is the work you can do, wherever you are.

The Length: A Hundred-Year Vision

There's a profound difference between a farmer and a visionary farmer.

A farmer asks: "What can I harvest this year? How do I maximize yield? What's my return on investment?"

A visionary farmer asks: "What am I building for? What legacy am I leaving? How does my work connect to all the work that came before and all that will come after?"

Our client is thinking in centuries, not seasons.

He's studying mycorrhizal networks—those fungal webs we mentioned—and understanding that a mature forest isn't a collection of individual trees competing for resources. It's a community where trees share nutrients, communicate chemically, support the weak and celebrate the strong. Where nothing stands alone. Where everything depends on everything else in a relationship so intricate that we're only beginning to understand it, even with our modern tools.

The prairie knows this. The forest knows this. Every ecosystem on earth knows that isolation means death and connection means life.

Wendell Berry spent his life writing about these "unseen connections"—the way your work on the land affects the water beneath the soil, the way that water affects the cranes that dance in the wetlands, the way the cranes' presence affirms that your work matters, the way your willingness to tend the land affirms the cranes' right to exist. It's all one conversation. One community spanning past, present, and future. One interconnected story of which we are all characters.

Our client's 10-acre forest will take decades to reach maturity. The native trees will take 20, 30, 50 years to reach their full stature and productivity. The soil will continue deepening and enriching for a century. The tangerine trees he plants will outlive him by decades. The soil he's building will feed people he'll never meet—his great-great-grandchildren, their children, and beyond.

And somewhere in that future—perhaps in a hundred years, perhaps longer—someone will stand beneath those tangerine trees in spring, watching blossoms drift through the filtered light of the forest canopy.

They'll taste the fruit. They'll feel the cool richness of the earth beneath their feet. And they'll taste, in that sweetness, the faithfulness of a man they never knew. They'll taste the love that was willing to plant for a harvest it wouldn't personally enjoy.

That's legacy. That's regeneration. That's how the earth works toward good.

The Legacy: YOU are part of this

Here's the truth that ties all three parts of this meditation together:

We are not separate from the ecosystem. We are the ecosystem.

The cranes are woven into the prairie. The water is woven into the soil. The fungi are woven into the roots. The past is woven into the present, and the present is woven into the future. And you are woven into all of it—as surely as the trees are, as surely as the water is.

This means something revolutionary: your actions matter at every scale.

You don't need 10 acres. You don't need a thousand-dollar budget. You don't need to be able to plant a forest.

You need one bucket of compost.

You need one patch of earth that you're willing to tend.

You need the willingness to ask: What can I do, right where I am, to make this place more alive?

That's the question we're asking ourselves at Fant Farm Organics. For the past couple of years, we've been donating soil to partner organizations like Feed the Need—groups that understand what we understand: that regeneration is fundamentally a community practice. That when we give soil, we're not just giving nutrients. We're giving the biological foundation for hope. We're enabling a teacher in an underserved neighborhood to start a community garden. We're helping a family grow food where there was only concrete. We're building proof that another way is possible, neighborhood by neighborhood, garden by garden, life by life.

In the past few weeks alone, Feed the Need has either refurbished or began new community gardens with soil we've contributed. Places where children will put their hands in the earth. New places where a community will learn that they have the power to feed themselves, to restore their neighborhood, to participate in the regeneration of their own ecosystem.

This is what it looks like when understanding becomes action, when all things work together for good.

Post 1 taught us to find sanctuary. Post 2 taught us to understand the mechanism—to know that beneath our feet is an ancient, living, interconnected system. Now Post 3 asks you: What will you do with this knowledge?

Not eventually. Not when you have more time or resources. Now.

Here's what regeneration looks like at every scale:

In a backyard: A gardener adds compost to a bed. The soil darkens. The structure transforms. Plants begin to thrive. A child tastes a tomato that grew in soil the family rebuilt. They learn that they have agency. That they can make things grow.

In a neighborhood: A community garden rises on what was once vacant land. Forty families learn to farm. The soil becomes richer each season. The food grown there feeds their children. The gathering there heals their community.

On 10 acres: A visionary plants a forest. He won't taste all of its fruit. But his great-great-grandchildren will. And in tasting that fruit, they'll taste his love for a future he'll never see.

The scale is different. The timeline is different. But the act is the same: choosing to work with the earth instead of extracting from it; choosing to build for others; choosing to see yourself as part of a story larger than your own lifetime.

When you add compost to your garden, you're adding to the legacy. When you support community gardens, you're building evidence that regeneration works. When you tell someone else about this—when you share the vision—you're multiplying the impact exponentially.

And here's what happens when you do:

You step outside. You look at the earth. You see it differently now. You see the fungal networks beneath your feet. You see the cranes dancing in wetlands made possible by perched water tables. You see your neighbor's community garden and you understand it's not just beautiful—it's revolutionary. You see your own small patch of earth and realize: This is where I matter. This is where I can make a difference. This is where I become part of the solution.

You realize that there is no "away." There's no separate place where the broken world happens and the healed world exists. There's only this—the earth beneath your feet, the community around you, the future you're building with every choice you make.

The broken community you see around you needs this vision. It needs to know that healing is possible in every way. That regeneration isn't just an agricultural practice—it's a way of being. That you don't have to have all the answers to start. You just have to be willing.

The earth is waiting. It's patient. It's ready to work with you.

All you have to do is add the compost.

All you have to do is listen.

And in listening—in paying attention to the cranes, the water, the soil, the community around you—you'll hear something that sounds like the voice of every generation before you and every generation to come. You'll hear the cranes calling. You'll hear the water rising in what seemed like drought. You'll hear the soil itself whispering something that sounds like welcome.

You belong here. You are part of this. Your work matters. Together—all of us, across all scales, across all time—we are making the earth work toward good.

This is the love story of regeneration. This is why all things matter. This is what it looks like when a community remembers that it's part of an ecosystem.

This is what it looks like when one passionate, curious man decides that what looks like waste to be destroyed should be renewed, re-imagined, resurrected and regenerated.

Join the Regeneration Movement

Ready to make a difference in your community? Support regenerative agriculture and community gardens. Contact us to learn how you can get involved with Fant Farm Organics, or reach out to Feed the Need to volunteer or donate to your local garden initiative. Every bucket matters. Every action counts.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Join The Common Ground Newsletter

Join “The Common Ground” Newsletter Email List

We believe that soil is sacred. That nothing is wasted. That we grow stronger when we grow together—across generations, across divides, across the earth itself.

Join our community of farmers, dreamers, gardeners, and seekers who believe that regeneration isn’t just about crops. It’s about culture. It’s about healing what’s broken. It’s about remembering that we are all connected through the soil, the water, and the unbroken web of all things.