Collier County second grader Elisabeth Joy Grove just launched an organic moringa tea business, Elisabeth’s Dream Farm, in the hopes of making her farm a reality someday.

Grove, 7, is a kidpreneur who picked, crushed and packed moringa into 18 bags, which sold out during her first day of sales at the indoor Hand & Harvest Market at Mercato.

During an interview at her Golden Gate Estates home, where she lives with her mother and father, Chef Daniela Craciun and Robert Grove, Grove said she sold out in 14 minutes while selling the roughly 2.5-ounce bags at her mother’s Hand & Harvest space.

She used Canva to created her own logo—a happy chicken surrounded by three yellow chicks, a rabbit and pony, all encircled by moringa leaves—printed labels and placed them on resealable bags. Now, her mother will help her open a savings account so she can learn to manage money.

The first lesson is to pay her mother $20 for 100 resealable plastic bags she purchased for her new venture. “Twenty dollars!” Grove said, her eyes widening in surprise.

But she made $90 on her first day, so that won’t be a problem.

She was born to “save Mother Earth and animals,” Grove said, and plans to save up to purchase farmland when she grows up. For now, she’s building her Fairy Garden, which already has a red and black ladybug table and two chairs, and mini fairies in houses under large cypress and maple trees. She plans a tree house overlooking the Fairy Garden.

Grove, who spends a lot of time with her mother gardening, meditating and cooking, is wise beyond her years. She loves taking care of their 25 chickens and roosters, as well as their dog and cat.

As she works inside her Fairy Garden in her front yard, she explains that moringa is good for you, is full of iron, vitamins C and A, magnesium and potassium and has other health benefits, but you shouldn’t drink it when you’re pregnant. She wants to sell it because her mother makes delicious tea, soup and other healthy products with it.

She walks over to a nearby moringa tree, one of dozens at her home, pulls down a branch and cuts it. She places it into a large wicker basket, pulls down another branch, cuts it and places it into her basket.

Then she walks back to her table, where she has many branches and vines with moringa that she’s dried out for more than 48 hours. “If it’s crunchy, that means it’s ready,” Elisabeth said. “If it’s not, you need to let it dry more.”

She clasps a vine and slides her fingers down; the dried leaves drop off into a stainless-steel container. She does that several times until she has a mound of moringa she can crush in her hands. Then she grabs a handful and places it into a bag.

Craciun says Grove won’t let her help her. “It’s my business! I need to do the work,” Grove told her.

Craciun is helping her take baby steps as a young entrepreneur. “I want to teach her to do business and I want her to see how much the bags cost, how much the labels cost, how to weigh it and ‘cost it’—everything about how a business works, but slowly because she’s still a kid,” Craciun said.

For now, the business operates under Craciun’s catering business. She’s selling the roughly 2-ounce bag of tea leaves for $5 each.

Craciun said she’ll teach her how to save money, donate to charities—a kids’ program and to help bees—and build her business, but she won’t allow her to get a Facebook business page. She’s not allowed to use Facebook or have an iPhone until she’s at least 12.

Grove wants to learn about herbs and already is learning beekeeping at the University of Florida’s IFAS Extension, where she started in the 4-H program at age 5. She plans to add honey to her business in the future.

“Without the bees, there would be no food and the planet will die,” Grove said.

She and her mother already have planted many flowers around their 2.27-acre property to attract bees. “We went to an event at the Naples Botanical Garden on Saturday and she picked a lot of seeds to plant more in our garden for pollinators,” Craciun said. “She understands the importance of the bees.”

The indoor Hand & Harvest Market is at 9110 Strada Place, Suite 3135, Naples, across from Z Gallerie, and is held noon-4 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month.

This story was originally published in The Naples Press on Oct. 13.