By B.C. Manion
There’s a place off the beaten path in Lutz where patrons can check out enormous beets, fresh leaf lettuce, avocados, sugar cane and other organic fruits and vegetables.
The shop, called Cheyenne’s Country Thangs, 19319 Holly Lane, is open only on Saturdays and represents a love of gardening that dates back to when Lisa Hunt was just 5 and was learning how to grow things from her Native American grandfather.
“He knew the natural way to fertilize. He didn’t call it organic, but he knew the natural way,” said Lisa, who is now passing along her love of cultivating fruits and vegetables to her 5-year-old granddaughter, Cheyenne.
The little girl was at the shop last weekend, nibbling boiled peanuts, drinking lemonade and eating a nectarine. After she finished the fruit, she planted its pit beneath a pile of mulch.
That’s just like her, her grandmother said. Cheyenne was just a year old when she started scattering seeds. She was growing flowers by herself by the age of 4. Now, she’s a big fan of the garden – especially of the many treats that grow there.
Over decades of organic gardening, Lisa has given away many of the fruits and veggies she’s grown to family and friends.
The Lutz woman decided to turn her passion into a business earlier this year, however, after the family’s other business Suncoast Directional Inc. fell into hard times.
The slump in construction hurt the directional boring company, which, at one point had 16 employees and is now down to five, said Darrel Hunt, the company’s president.
“We take care of both of our parents,” Lisa said. “We had to find some other means to try to continue to help them. This helps some.”
The garden shop is a family affair. Lisa and Darrel are there every week, and Cedric – who is Cheyenne’s dad – pitches in twice a month.
Besides helping the family’s income, the shop also provides Lisa a venue for sharing her love of organic gardening with others.
As she walks around her outdoor shop, she points out some of the organic herbs she’s grown – including lemon grass, garlic chives, lemon basil, oregano, thyme and dill. The herbs sell for $3.
She also brags about the shop’s produce. She grows some herself and buys the rest from a certified organic supplier based in Sarasota.
At her place, buyers need not beware of the fruits and vegetables she sells: If they want to taste something, she’ll gladly rinse it, slice it and give them a sample.
She also stands ready to offer advice for planting success and to suggest natural ways to battle bugs in the garden. She plans to begin offering gardening classes soon.
When potting a plant, Lisa recommends a potting mixture of two-thirds potting soil and one-third peat moss.
She also offers a recipe for natural pesticide and encourages the use of ladybugs to combat unwanted pests in the garden.
Although her shop is not visible from any main road, patrons seem to be finding it and seem to like it, too.
“It’s really cute,” said Melissa Grantham of Odessa, who was visiting the shop for the second time.
Ruth Riggins of Lutz was there looking for herb plants and produce.
She was impressed by the selection and prices of the veggies, and by the condition of the plants at the shop.
Ginger gold apples go for 50 cents each; green leaf lettuce is $2.75 a head; garnet yams go for $1.25 each and blood red beets go for $2.50 for a bunch of three.
The plants are very healthy, especially for being grown organically, Riggins said. “It is real hard to do organic here in our state,” she said, adding she knows because she’s tried. “I failed many times,” Riggins said.
Aside from the shop, which is at the front of the property, there are fruit trees galore growing on the 2.5-acre tract. There’s also a shade house and a garden out back, as well as a place where Lisa nurses sick plants back to good health.
Fruits grown on the property include tangerines, kiwis, figs, peaches, pears, mangos, kumquats and bananas.
Darrel said his wife has been crazy about gardening for decades.
“We’ve been married going on 29 years. We dated five years. Ever since I’ve known her, she’s liked plants,” he said.
He recalls frequent shopping trips with Lisa and her mom, and the women’s enthusiastic purchase of plants on nearly every trip.
“We’d come home with a back seat full of plants. I hardly had room to sit,” he said.
The couple wants to pass along that same love of gardening to their granddaughter, Cheyenne.
“Who knows what good it could do for her,” Darrel said.
For more information, go to www.cheyennescountrythangsinc.com.
Lisa’s recipe for organic pesticide
Ingredients
1 small piece of soap
1 dried chili, crushed
1 tablespoon garlic, crushed
12 cups of hot water
Directions
Mix all ingredients into a spray container, then let stand for two weeks – except for an occasional shaking of the container. Once the concoction is ready, spray it on your plants once they reach about 8 inches to 10 inches, as a preventative.
