Dr. Andre Baptiste, founder of Baptiste Orthodontics, building food farm in backyard

Dr. Andre Baptiste is building a food farm in his backyard, and his gardening is catching the attention of thousands across the country.

Baptiste, known to locals as the owner and founder of Baptiste Orthodontics, is also referred to by his social media persona, Andre the Farmer, who has more than 481,000 followers on TikTok alone. 

His garden has grown to encompass a plethora of fruits and vegetables, and has kick-started his gardening business, Permaculture Life, which sells environmentally responsible and sustainable apparel. 

“It is peaceful being out here,” Baptiste said. “Working in the garden to me is not really work. … This is the first time I’ve really had a hobby that I can do at home. I can just step right outside into my backyard, and it’s rewarding. You get something out of it.”

GROWING GARDEN

Baptiste and his family — his wife, Jillian, and his two sons, Weston and Lincoln — moved in 2016 to their current home in Gotha.

When the family moved in, the backyard was total brush, and Baptiste was unsure if they would even be able to carve a path to get to the lake.

When the pandemic began, Baptiste said he was off work for six weeks. So, he spent his free time in the garden for about 10 hours a day.

Although he always had been interested in outdoor activities, such as fishing, golfing and hunting, gardening was never a hobby he considered.

It started with a single mango tree. When the fruit tree birthed its first mango, one tree turned into two, which then brought on the additions of a lychee tree and an avocado tree. The growth never stopped. 

Baptiste said if it’s a fruit that can grow in Florida, it can be found in his garden. His favorites to grow are bananas and pineapples. He said the one exception that he tries to limit in his garden is citrus, because there are many citrus diseases in the state. 

In addition to fruit, he grows items such as onions, carrots, cabbage, radishes, tomatoes, peppers and avocados. He also has four beehives. 

Throughout the past few years, Baptiste has learned a lot about horticulture. 

“You learn a lot from trial and error,” he said. “I was a clean slate when I started; I didn’t know anything. I heard a saying, ‘The difference between a good gardener and a great gardener is that great gardeners kill way more plants.’ Not everything is going to be a success. You learn from your failures, you learn from your successes.”

He said he enjoys trying new and unique produce, as well as making new foods out of them. 

For example, he has learned jackfruit can be used as a substitute for meat, because it has a similar texture. He has tried vegan wings and vegan pulled pork made with jackfruit. 

Baptiste does not sell what he grows and instead gives it away to his friends or staff members. Because many of the trees are still young, there is not excess quite yet.

The garden also hosts a unique variation of visitors, including sandhill cranes, raccoons, coyotes, squirrels, bobcats, armadillos, possums and butterflies. 

“We have nature just happening here,” Baptiste said of the backyard.

PERMACULTURE PROGRESS

A big part of Baptiste’s garden is its permaculture ethos. 

According to the Permaculture Research Institute, permaculture is “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.”

Once he learned about permaculture, Baptiste said he realized it was the future.

“You grow things the way they would grow in nature,” he said. “You’re working with nature instead of working against it. We try to incorporate as many permaculture principles as we can here. … We have to be sustainable. Just by definition, if we’re not sustainable, we’re unsustainable.”

As he continued to learn, Baptiste began to share his gardening journey on social media. 

His following includes more than 481,000 followers on TikTok, more than 15,000 on Instagram, more than 1,000 on Facebook and more than 6,000 on YouTube.

Baptiste said his following shocked him, and it has changed him in certain ways.

“I used to be a little hesitant about public speaking or being on camera when we film things even for the orthodontist office, and now I feel way more comfortable in front of a camera,” he said. “I feel more comfortable speaking to people in public settings, or at lectures and workshops where I talk about permaculture. I think it’s definitely allowed me to grow as a person.”

Although Andre the Farmer is known as Baptiste’s social media persona, he said he doesn’t think of it that way. Rather, it’s his true personality on display.

As his following grew, he decided to use it to promote permaculture on a bigger scale.

This started with the creation of his business: Permaculture Life. 

The company creates sustainably sourced apparel for people that are into permaculture and gardening. For example, a hoodie is made with 100% recycled plastic bottles while a hat is made from bamboo.

One dollar from every purchase goes toward building community gardens. Most recently, Baptiste visited Oak Hill Elementary School, where he is building a garden. Because his backyard garden is between one-third and one-half acre, Baptiste said maintaining the area is a lot of work. He said growing in a permaculture ethos also minimizes the amount of maintenance, because things grow in a natural way. 

His dream is to turn the area into a food jungle, where there are food trees growing on top of food trees.

“The way they grow in nature, fighting for their own little bit of space, reaching the water table and getting their own water — that’s kind of what I want here,” he said. 

Baptiste said some may be surprised to learn there is a relatively large community of people who are interested in permaculture. Although the movement is still small and growing, he said the people involved are extremely passionate. 

He said he hopes by sharing his experiences that people will evaluate where their food comes from and make better decisions about their food. He wants to get more people growing food and gardening.

“Not so much that you shouldn’t buy food from the store; I buy food from the store all the time,” he said. “I just want people to open their minds and see that there’s other ways to do things. When I started hunting, I didn’t understand how the animal became meat on my table. There was a big sort of gap in between there. I never thought about the process and where the meat came from. You kind of learn that in the same way with gardening where you learn about the fruit and vegetables.”

MEET THE DOC

Dr. Andre Baptiste is Canadian and came in 1995 to the United States for dental school.

He practiced general dentistry in Canada for a year following graduation before returning to the U.S.

When he first came to the U.S., Baptiste could not own a business and had to obtain a green card. He worked for an orthodontist group in 2002, while it took six years to earn the green card. 

After receiving the card in 2008, Baptiste bought one of the offices in which he previously worked. In 2010, he opened another office, which was the first Baptiste Orthodontics. A couple of years later, he turned the original office into a Baptiste Orthodontics. He most recently opened the third location in 2017 in Apopka. 

Baptiste said he is inspired by his orthodontist work because of the relationships he gets to build.

“People ask me as a dentist, ‘How do you look in mouths all day?’ and I tell them that that is such a small part of my job,” he said. “Ninety percent of my job is meeting people and building relationships. That’s the part that I love the most. And seeing people transform from one person to the next person when you take something that people are self conscious of, like their smile, and help them start to heal and love their smile.”

Baptiste’s next big dream is to have his own television show. 

“Because I hunt, fish, garden and cook, I want to do everything,” he said. “I want to go to cultures that people don’t know about and I want to learn however they gather food. If they hunt, I’m going to hunt with them. If they fish, I’m going to fish with them. If they forage, I forage with them. If they harvest crops, I’ll do that with them. Then we cook the food in their traditional ways, and we have a meal and talk about their culture.”