By: Hannah Guile and Sarah Bethea

Local native Tim Armstrong is no stranger to gardening.  From a very young age, Armstrong has had a passion for plants; one that may have stemmed from his family’s long history in Florida of having to grow their own food.

In 2007, Armstrong was selling some of his edible plants at the Beaches Green Market. He noticed that people really took a liking to those plants. This sprouted his idea to start Eat Your Yard Jax.

On the westside of Jacksonville lies Armstrong Farm, Armstrong’s 40-acre plot of land that is host to Eat Your Yard Jax where he grows a multitude of plants; anything from turmeric to artichokes to pomegranates, he grows it.  In addition to the edible plants, Armstrong has two greenhouses: one where he grows succulents and the other where he exercises aquaponics with tilapia.

While Armstrong sells an assortment of plants, both edible and not, he also holds workshops where he teaches people an assortment of things related to gardening, such as classes on making herbal tea, growing succulents, organic gardening, and the like.

Armstrong’s community involvement doesn’t stop with Eat Your Yard Jax.  He also teaches at Berry Good Farms at the North Florida School of Special Education where he helped them grow from a “small garden into the microbusiness training model that it is today,” according to Armstrong.

For more information on Eat Your Yard Jax or Armstrong, visit EatYourYardJax.com.