“I’m very proud of the bakery that we have at the Oakes Farms store (on Davis Boulevard in East Naples) but what we are doing here is still taking it a little bit to another level in some areas. “I feel like I’m stepping out of my comfort zone in a lot of levels here because it’s such a culinary experience that’s like above what we were doing,” Oakes said. The new store will be sort of like a farm market meets a food court meets a supermarket meets an entertainment venue with its sheer size and synergy creating a destination that cannot be simply defined nor easily compared to any other here or elsewhere. The attention to detail and variety of finishes and store sections are remarkable – even surpassing Oakes’ imaginative expectations. Seed to Table market far surpasses what Oakes has developed at his other Naples locations – Oakes Farms Market, Food & Thought and Thoughtful Threads – but it borrows and builds upon elements of each. “We feel pretty firmly that it will be Dec. Oakes Farms Seed to Table market is opening soon on the northeast corner of Livington and Immokalee roads in North Naples. It’s also way past when Oakes wanted to open the store – years ago – but his highly anticipated creation is finally almost ready to be revealed. Oakes dodged a question about the final cost of his new store, saying only that it is “way over budget.” It’s been five years since Oakes purchased the former Albertsons supermarket and its 8-acre property at 4835 Immokalee Road for $5 million.
“The original design of this store, believe it or not, from the time I sketched it out on paper five years ago is almost identical to the actual flow,” Oakes said. He’s at home sharing meticulous details about the massive project he has spent many years planning, designing and building while tweaking it at every stage along the way. Visit our Garden of Bliss blog for more stories and examples of our Seed to Table program.Alfie Oakes of Oakes Farms stands on the mezzanine overlooking his Seed to Table market under construction in late October in North Naples.Īs Oakes Farms founder Alfie Oakes gives a personal tour of his new Seed to Table market under construction in North Naples, he could be a mayor matter-of-factly pointing out his small town’s amenities, warmly greeting friendly employees along the way. The scraps from the kitchen go into the compost bins next to the greenhouse, where they become the soil for next year’s seeds. Students take their produce to our school kitchen, where they learn to cook and serve a variety of healthful and delicious meals. Throughout the spring and summer, and into the fall, fruit, vegetables, herbs, and berries are harvested. Visits to the school food forest mean weeding and mulching with friends, picking berries and flowers, and chatting with the preschoolers who love to watch the “big kids” do their work. Springtime also means watching the buds in our orchard bloom and be pollinated, and seeing the fruit set and grow as the weather warms. They watch those seeds grow over the weeks, then transplant the seedlings in the many campus gardens. In late winter, classes visit our organic greenhouse to plant seeds and dream of spring. What began as a school garden now stretches through all four seasons and over a variety of academic subjects with the help of our indoor and outdoor facilities. This curriculum is called Seed to Table because it begins in our 4,000 square foot greenhouse and ends in our classroom kitchen.
All they know is that these things are fun to share with friends and delicious!Īs our students move up through the grades, their innocent love of growing things is cultivated in our Seed to Table Program. The younger children are not even aware of what they’re absorbing as they watch strawberries grow right next to the jungle gym, water the kale, green beans, and tomatoes in the classroom garden, or wait for the cherries to turn bright red on the tree by the playground gate. Students at Maharishi School experience the possibilities of regenerative agriculture from their first day at preschool, until the day they graduate high school and move on to use and share that knowledge in their adult lives.
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