Scrubland Farmz Springs Forth
- Tarryn Nichols
- Apr 4
- 5 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Between farmland and Florida scrub, Sam Singleton grows a sustainable plant oasis.
It’s the season when fruit trees curl their sleeping buds into bare branches, but Sam Singleton is far from dormant. He has a hard time sitting still when his Florida plant nursery closes during winter, and prefers to tinker in the greenhouse. His latest experiment tests the potential of soapberries as rooting hormones, a chemical to stimulate plant growth.
Singleton and his wife Shanon run Scrubland Farmz, which has specialized in edible and medicinal plants since 2019. The 10-acre parcel is located west of the Ocala National Forest, past dozens of weathered farm signs and down a long pale dirt driveway that threatens to bottom out any car too hasty to reach its destination.
A fraction of the Singleton’s usual plant selection remains cradled by makeshift wire mesh tables in the cool shade of sweeping oaks and cedar trees. A lone potted Peruvian apple cactus beckons toward a battered banana tree. Though it seems the latest January freeze rendered it a crepey brown husk, closer inspection reveals green shoots pushing through the organic rubble.
All of the landscaping here is edible, so the groundcover consists mostly of plants such as Okinawa spinach, mugwort and other leafy offspring. The five acres the Singletons use are also occupied by several patches of what is called a self-sufficient food forest, where edible plants are grown together to mimic a thriving forest ecosystem.. Their beige mobile home and a temporarily wilted banana grove also share the space. Singleton describes three acres of pond that extend toward the back of the land with Florida scrub colonizing the rest.
The Singleton’s holistic approach to land management falls under the umbrella of permaculture, or “permanent agriculture,” which is when humans design agricultural systems that mimic wild nature. These systems intend to harmonize human activities with the environment and are rooted in an ethic of indigenous land stewardship. Compared to standard agricultural practices, permaculture practitioners hope to maximize the yield from their land while reducing waste.
The Singletons are currently focused on mulching, fertilizing and other quarterly maintenance tasks to prepare for spring. Scrubland Farmz reopened to the public on weekends starting March 15.
Past the Pale Dirt Driveway
A mountain of new red mulch greets guests, and to its right are aisles of leafless fruit trees being freed from their chicken wire cages. The deer pressure in the area is so great that the Singletons must take measures to prevent the mulberry trees from being grazed to the ground.
Sam has a special fondness for growing figs and mulberries, with his orchard boasting more than 55 varieties of fig.
“Which child do I love best?” Singleton says, laughing over the roar of a tractor.
Shanon whips a red tractor around a row of deciduous trees, palming the wheel like a drag racer while sporting noise-cancelling headphones over a pink baseball cap. Work has slowed on the farm since she started a new round of cancer treatments in November, but that does not hinder her from hauling heavy bags of compost and knocking out other tasks –– despite her husband’s worries.
The couple are Florida natives hailing from Fort Myers, but they were not always part of the agricultural sphere. Before the nursery, Sam made a lucrative living running supply yards for Rew Materials, a building supplies distributor based out of Kansas City.
Sam first purchased this property in 2007 but rented it to a cattle farmer who paid him in beef. When the 2009 economic crash hit, he became conscious of his family’s lack of security and started researching how to grow his own food.
“It's a large rabbit hole to go down and find out ‘Wow, I can do this, I can do that,’” Sam said. As he spoke, the sun gleamed off his neon green shirt that read “3rd Annual Scrubfest: David the Good at Scrubland Farmz.”
This research connected him with David Goodman (“David The Good,”) a local self-described “expert gardener and mad scientist” who has authored more than10 books on the subject. The two permaculturists maintain a collaborative friendship, with Goodman being a regular speaker at Scrubfest, the farm’s annual gardening and homesteading event in the fall.
The Singletons moved to the property in 2015. They officially founded the nursery a few years later, and growing plants went from a hobby to a business.
They have since found a welcoming community in this green industry. Neighboring nursery owners all have their own self-taught methods on how to work with the microclimates on their properties, which are smaller climatic differences within an area determined by the temperature, humidity, soil type and other factors.. Most people are thrilled to discuss their techniques if it gives them a chance to gush about their plants, Sam says.
“It’s a helping environment,” Shanon says, taking a break to wipe the sweat from her brow.
She makes frequent use of their homegrown herbal medicine cabinet. Every few months, she digs up turmeric root or strips the leaves from their moringa to grind into daily multivitamin capsules. When rounds of chemotherapy depleted her of vitamin C, she went on a fruit-eating stint that involved lots of berries, citrus and Peruvian cactus apples.
Their adopted 17-year-old sons Zeke and Dave also sometimes help out around the farm. The family loves their animals, including two dogs named Peanut and Butter.
Sam tends to more than 150 native and non-native species, interspersed with support plants that fix the soil and help pollinators. With the farm’s different microclimates in mind, he tries new techniques to discover what’s most effective.
The Singletons pitch their tent at the Ocala Downtown Market to serve the loyal customer base they’ve built in the area. An energetic close family friend occasionally hosts a free “Kidz Workshop” that introduces young ones to gardening techniques such as propagation.
Sometimes, curious children are the ones dragging their parents over to the plant booth, Shanon says.
Sam wants more Americans to start growing their own food, not only for security but so they connect to where it comes from. He recalls feeling inspired from his travels abroad to countries where people were more attuned to the nature around them. To encourage a cultural shift toward this, Sam wants to put food forests instead of pickleball courts in Florida’s public parks.
Scrubland Farmz will host another large family-friendly event called Scrubfest Homegrown on April 12. Sam has invited County Commissioner Carl Zalak to attend, since he is “on board” with the food forest effort. To make the event more accessible, they’ve lowered the ticket price to $20.
Permaculture has now become a buzzword in some political circles, but Sam hopes these sustainable practices will become mainstream so that everyone, especially the younger generation, can grow up with an appreciation for the earth’s resources.
“You ask kids where the eggs come from, they say it comes from the grocery store. They don't say it comes from the chicken,” Singleton said. “If we get them to say it comes from the chicken, then we're doing our job, right?”
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