By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Tucked into a five-acre piece of ground not far from the Florida Everglades is Gabriele Marewski’s Paradise Farms. This organic farm offers a peek into a tropical paradise of micro and baby greens, avocados, heirloom tomatoes, vegetables, herbs, edible flowers and tropical fruits.

Besides growing these certified organic products, Paradise Farms offers a unique dining experience it calls “Dinner in Paradise.” The series profiles Miami chefs, who prepare their organic specialties using products from Paradise Farms.

The food is offered on-site, where the diners eat outdoors and are offered a tour of the farm as part of the package. Part of the proceeds of the tour and dinner go to the charity, TREEmendous Miami, which plants trees in the South Miami Dade area.

The dinners are almost wrapped up for the 2008 winter/spring season, but will be repeated again in winter/spring of 2009. While the dinners are a successful way to profile local chefs and provide money to TREEmendous, this is only a small part of what Paradise Farms offers to the local organic market. Check the website in September for next season’s dates, at www.paradisefarms.net

Year-round, Paradise Farms offers its micro and baby greens and other specialties to nearby restaurants, where the chefs prepare meals from these locally grown organic products. The only time the farm is open to the public is during the Dinner in Paradise meals.
 “It started with a summer job counting bugs,” Marewski said of her unique venture. “I was 16 and worked for a canning company as a scout.”

The love of nature stuck and she went on to attend the University of Maryland where she graduated with a degree in agronomy. A trip to Brazil with the Inter American Society of Tropical Horticulture opened up new doors.

“I met my spouse, who was from Homestead, Florida, and moved there,” she said. “I migrated to Homestead, got married and bought land.”

Although now divorced, she loved the area and she and her son settled in.

“I sold land for Everglades Restoration and bought five acres next to my house. I quit my job at the county and went into farming full time and home schooled my son, who is a wonderful young man,” she added.

Paradise Farms is both home and work for Marewski. “What I enjoy most is being in tune with nature, getting back to the cycles and seasonal flow. The tree frog provides entertainment. There are no TVs. We watch the activities of nature. People from the city say it is calming, connecting with nature in a meaningful way.”

Marewski’s five acres served as an amazing outdoor schoolyard for her son and a learning experience for her, as well.

“Because my land had an abandoned Avocado grove, becoming certified organic was easy. It took three years. Then I started with one season of lettuce and had four customers. I went into microgreens and went from four customers to 10,” she said.
She keeps her customer base small and close and takes pride in offering a unique and quality product.

“I only do high-end restaurants and don’t solicit business. Chefs move around, but when they do, they take me with them. This is not about being the biggest, but about being the best,” she said.
Everything is done by hand. “We hand-mulch under the fruit and harvest by hand,” she said. “I don’t want machine energy. Workers pay more attention by hand and the work is better.”

Friend Christopher Siragusa, who has his own farm in upstate New York, assists along with a few dedicated staff members. They get a lot of assistance, too, from volunteers who work in order to learn.
“We use Willing Workers on Organic Farms,” Marewski shared.

Volunteers come to the farm and work for a minimum of a month and preferably for three months. Some even stay for a year. “Once trained, it is better and people bond and work well together,” she said.

Among her microgreens, Marewski offers a mint mix and basil mix, and beautiful and tasty edible flowers. Heirloom tomatoes have proven a nice product and soon she is planning on moving into the oyster mushroom field.

As for other plans for the future, she added, “I want to get into tinctures, flower essences both as flavors and as medicinal – that is the ultimate expression, to capture that essence is the ultimate.
“That’s where we are; we are very intense.”

Paradise Farms is run by a woman with her own way of looking at the world – nature’s way. “I like that about farming. It teaches us to think in a problem-solving way. Nature is never static,” she said.

This farm news was published in the April 23, 2008 issue of the Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.