Growing a SMILE takes a portion of profits and gives back internationally to support small groups to help them put smiles on other peoples faces. Thanks to Kiva for making this possible. Join us in making a world of difference…
Category: Uncategorized
Here is a great bulletin put out by SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education)
The focus is on flowering cover crops and using them as a a conservation practice while at the same time providing valuable forage for wild bees and beneficial insects. This added benefit can be significantly enhanced with some fine-tuning of management practices and thoughtful plant selection.
Download: Cover_Cropping_for_Pollinators_and_Beneficial_Insects
In association with Jane Goodalls “Roots and Shoots” grant we created a program for the children to interact with monarch butterflies. We built a small protection box to house our mature caterpillars. We would provide them clean (OE free) food and a safe space. Because of our location we have a disease that kills Monarchs called OE. This disease kills the Monarchs as the change from a caterpillar to a butterfly.
If you trim back your “Tropical” Milkweed (where the disease thrives) during the off season and allow it to regrow, OE is kept to a minimum. If you do not, it will kill the majority of Monarchs that touch the plant.
We made it our mission to save as many as we could.
The students of ‘For The Children First Inc.’ participated in helping the Monarchs grow and prosper in the Florida area this past year.
We had well over 42 Monarchs that we assisted from caterpillar to butterfly. We would find mature caterpillars and put them in a hand built cage with clean (OE free) milkweed to eat. They would finish their food and go into transformation mode!
The program was setup to combat the “OE” disease that is prevalent in FL because milkweed does not die back each year. We cut the plants down and had them grow back and under controlled environments we lost only three to the disease during this project.
Sadly, the following season we lost over 23 to the same disease because of uncut milkweed present in the area.
Images and videos by Alyson Gold Horkavy
Categories
Local Garden Education
For the Children First is a non-profit that has partnered with ‘Growing A Smile’ to create a training program for children and young adults to instill understanding on where our food comes from, how to grow it in the community successfully as well as distributing to the ones most in need in the surrounding community. Through the program we provide educational opportunities in science, technology, electronics, art and math (STEAM) This allows for real world applications and hands on reinforcement on the value of staying in school while learning how to grow healthy food.
We will grow organic food for student families and those in need. The process will go through an entire growing season to instill the processes necessary to growing healthy organic food in a community garden. We will appoint team leaders that will have specific responsiblities as well as individual responsiblities given to students for proper plant management. A Garden Manager will provide weekly guidance and lessons that incorporate soil sampling, proper watering regimens as well as pest management that will be put into ACTION to instill confidence in our children through growing food, reconnection to the soil and a broader understanding of nature.