“From the end of June through the beginning of October, we’re harvesting once a week for our office delivery, and sometimes we harvest twice a week,” said Liz Morris Otto, who owns the “Dude Ranch” land.

Those who work regularly on the crop get first pick, but every employee has access.

“People can just take a bag of lettuce that was cut just that day and take it home and it tastes better and it doesn’t cost them money,” Haberman said.

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Across_the_US_employer-sponsored_gardens_grow_999.html

Much better use for a car! Thanks to Lynn Dirk for passing this along:

Creative urban and container gardening is transforming the way we view outdoor spaces.By Brian Clark Howard

via Mobile Gardens – Urban Gardening – Movable Gardens – The Daily Green.

The Downtown Farmer’s Garden’s purpose is to provide food and inspire citizens to substitute purely ornamental plants with an edible landscapes. …growing more fruits and vegetables locally reduces energy consumption and increases the area’s self sufficiency. Growing food is a critical part of building a resource efficient Alachua County.

via Details Alachua County Florida -.

If the project gets the most votes it will be eligible for:

·         A $10,000 grant to be used toward the cost of planting an organic garden in their community in 2010 (cash grant)
·         Coaching from Organic Gardening magazine to help establish the garden, including technical assistance with design, and technical assistance and guidance to build it (estimated value $5,000)
·         An organic breakfast fundraising event and garden dedication hosted by Nature’s Path to raise funds for the winning organization. Nature’s Path will provide free breakfast at the event and give away reusable shopping bags (estimated value $10,000)
Nature’s Path will also be making a product donation to a local Food Bank in the chosen communities (value depending on size of the community and need with a maximum value of $100,000)
Please send the link to your email lists and any others you can think of who could log in and support this project.

Thanks everyone for your continued support of expanding food production in Gainesville and providing quality, fresh food to residents with low-incomes in our community.

One of the secrets to their success: worm poo.

The garden, near the baseball field at Florida International University’s main campus, 11200 SW Eighth Street, was recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a “People’s Garden” earlier this month.

FIU professors Mahadev Bhat and Krish Jayachandran from the university’s Environmental Studies Department founded both the fully organic garden and FIU’s agro-ecology program in 2005. They have incorporated the garden into their teaching.

“These students are getting hands-on training,” Bhat said. “There is learning taking place here; this is a really valuable program.”

Students from the agro-ecology department and the garden club team up once a week to tend the garden as they work to conserve energy and reduce waste.

Andrew Jungman, a senior majoring in environmental studies, said the garden uses little or no synthetic soil or pesticides.

“We always look for organic solutions,” Jungman said. “We squeeze caterpillars’ guts onto plants to deter insects, and we feed compost like orange peels to worms to use their poop or castings to create a very rich soil.”

The FIU gardeners are also cautious of how energy is used, Jungman explained.

“We use a drip irrigation system that allows water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, conserving water and fertilizer,” he said.

The garden consists of mostly companion plants, meaning those that help each other grow, according to David Trujillo, a junior majoring in environmental and religious studies.

Celia Izaguirre, a junior who specializes in growing medicinal plants, started the garden club in 2006.

She says at first the garden was strictly a place where environmental studies majors came to create their theses.

“I created the idea of opening the garden to everyone,” she said. “Now even teachers and students from other schools come here.”

Patrons can learn about more than just peppers and plants at the garden, Trujillo said. The green haven has also become a place to meditate.

Trujillo set up a sandbox in the northeast corner of the garden, used as a meditation site, surrounded by edible plants like basil and lemon balm.

The Colombia native says the site is there for anyone to come relax and connect with the earth. “My main focus is bringing nature back to the community,” Trujillo said. “ A lot of people lose that intimate connection with plants.”

Every Wednesday, the students set up the Organic Farmer’s Market, a booth where fresh produce including cilantro, purple Peruvian peppers, carrots and cherry tomatoes are sold.

“Once you grow your own food, you’re connecting with what you’re eating,” Jungman said. “When you start growing it yourself, you become enlightened.”

The recognition stems from The People’s Garden Initiative, a USDA program that challenges department employees and community members to establish environmentally friendly community gardens worldwide.”

SANTA CRUZ, CA – A University of South Florida student has discovered that a commonly used fungicide is lethal to three species of Florida’s frogs, even at concentrations previously assumed to be safe.

Taegan McMahon, A Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Interactive Biology at USF, was awarded the 2010 SAVE THE FROGS! Conference Travel Grant on June 8 for her research into chlorothalonil, one of the world’s most common – and deadly – fungicides.

The $500 prize will allow Taegan to present the results of her research at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Providence, Rhode Island this July. The award was granted by SAVE THE FROGS!, a California-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting amphibians.

Chlorothalonil is the second most commonly used fungicide in America, and is often used by homeowners on peanuts, potatoes and tomatoes.

“People use pesticides like chlorothalonil on their gardens and many have no idea how harmful it can be,” Taegan said. “Chlorothalonil is deadly to amphibians one thousand times below the expected environmental concentration.”

Taegan added that the continued use of chlorothalonil, especially on large-scale farms, might contribute to the decline of frogs, which are vital to Florida’s ecosystems. Previous research shows that rain systems will cause the fungicide to spread far beyond areas where people originally apply it. In countries like Costa Rica, chlorothalonil poses the danger of traveling – through cloud systems – into the rainforests.

According to SAVE THE FROGS!, Amphibian populations worldwide have been declining at unprecedented rates, and up to 200 species have already completely disappeared in recent years.

“There are over 18,000 registered pesticides in the United States,” said Dr. Kerry Kriger, Founder and Executive Director of SAVE THE FROGS! “Amphibians have permeable skin that absorbs the pollutants and pesticides that inevitably end up in the water bodies where they live and breed. Many of these pesticides weaken amphibians’ immune responses, and some are endocrine disruptors that actually change male frogs into females.”

Dr. Kriger, whose group is based in California, is currently working to obtain a federal ban on the use and production of Atrazine, one of the world’s most common herbicides. Atrazine has been shown to create a slew of negative effects on an array of wildlife. SAVE THE FROGS! is currently organizing the International Day of Pesticide Action, planned for Oct. 24, 2010.

“Our goal is to get 100,000 people marching through the streets of Washington DC to make sure our legislators know these chemicals don’t belong in our food and water,” said Kriger.

About SAVE THE FROGS!

SAVE THE FROGS! (http://savethefrogs.com) is America’s first and only public charity dedicated to amphibian conservation. The mission of SAVE THE FROGS! is to protect amphibian populations and to promote a society that respects and appreciates nature and wildlife.

“Frogs are cool and we need them! They need our help too, so let’s SAVE THE FROGS!” – A memorable quote from their website.

“We are told that in the US, the food on our table has traveled an average of 1500 miles and consumed 9 calories of energy for each food calorie on our plate. In a time when “oil prices are likely to be both higher and more volatile and where oil prices have the potential to destabilize economic, political and social activity”[1], we need a way to mitigate the near certain risks of much higher impending food costs.

There are a number of answers, one of which is to support local agriculture. Additionally, one can grow their own food in a pleasing, sylvan landscape. 5 years ago, I decided I was going to shift from a native plantings landscaping theme to one that turned my yard into a source of sustenance. I had read about “Edible Landscaping” and “Permaculture”, and decided that approaching tough economic times could be mitigated by growing more of my own food in a manner that did not require a large degree of manual labor. After all, we are supposed to have 2-5 helpings of fruit each day, and nuts have been shown to be very healthy sources of protein and essential fatty acids (and even lowering cholesterol). My family likes to “pick your own” at local orchards and shop at farmer’s markets, and felt that augmenting those purchases with our own fruits and nuts meant that we would reduce the need to ship food across country. So in addition to our gardening and backyard chickens, we could effectively cover 3 out of 5 of the basic food groups in the food pyramid right in our yard.”

Read the comprehensive, yet simple guide at Edible Landscaping: One Transition Step from Peak Oil – The Oil Drum.

More than 200,000 NGOs, farmers, consumers, and organic producers have asked the USDA to prohibit genetically engineered alfalfa. Organic Consumers Association members took action against GE alfalfa, sending 36,420 letters to decision makers.

As Solicitor General, Kagan is supposed to represent the interests of the American people in matters that come before the Supreme Court. Instead, she went to bat for Monsanto.

Agriculture policy has never been used as a litmus test by Senators vetting Supreme Court nominees, but, given recent evidence that genetically engineered food causes sterility, and the damage Monsanto’s RoundUp is doing, creating herbicide-resistant super weeds and ravaging the root systems of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” plants, Kagan’s position on agriculture policy has never been more important. President Obama’s pick is even more troubling in light of a White House panel’s warning that consumers should go organic to avoid the carcinogenic pesticides that lace conventional and genetically engineered food.

via Ronnie Cummins: Organic Consumers Oppose Kagan for Going to Bat for Monsanto.

After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.

Scientists who discover adverse findings from GMOs are regularly attacked, ridiculed, denied funding, and even fired. When Ermakova reported the high infant mortality among GM soy fed offspring, for example, she appealed to the scientific community to repeat and verify her preliminary results. She also sought additional funds to analyze preserved organs. Instead, she was attacked and vilified. Samples were stolen from her lab, papers were burnt on her desk, and she said that her boss, under pressure from his boss, told her to stop doing any more GMO research. No one has yet repeated Ermakova’s simple, inexpensive studies.

In an attempt to offer her sympathy, one of her colleagues suggested that maybe the GM soy will solve the over population problem!

via ShowArticle – Institute for Responsible Technology.

WHERE: New Ramana Reti Krishna Temple (meet under the big tent), 17306 NW 112th Blvd. Alachua, Florida 32615
WHEN: Saturday, June 5, 2010
TIME: 10:00 a.m.—until “the cows come home” ???? WALK/WORKSHOP
FEE: $35.00

There will be a break at 12:30 noon. Bring your own lunch and drink or Temple lunch is available for $4.00. Bring notebooks or cameras, if you’d like. Space is limited. Please reserve your space as soon as possible.
Contact: Akincina Krishna das at 386-418-2264.