April 2nd Gardening Part 2

Melanie: 

A few of the first few things I learned in class today was Jane Goodall's TACARE program, this is a very good program that helps with health, clean water, growing food and much more. It also provides scholarships for young girls who can't go to school.

I also leaned that Tanzania has the best coffee, green mountain roasters paired up with Jane Goodall to get a good market on these coffee beans that are hard to reach, since there isn't enough road ways. 

I was to learn that even if a radioactive bomb went off the land can still find it's way back and can grow so quickly to make that land reusable. 

Florida Tree Snail was our group animal; it helps to clean up the excess algae that grow. So it is very important to have.

Florida Tree Snail

Some fun facts about how certain fruits ripen that I learned were:

Leeches- ripens on the tree

Mango- ripens on the tree and it must be yellow and soft.

Papaya- doesn’t ripen well if it is off the tree.

Pineapple- ripen at the bottom, pick when the first color change occurs.

Strawberry- berry is fully red

The Ten Fruits are:

1. Avocado

2. Bananas and Plantain

3. Blackberry

4. Star fruit

5. Citrus

6. Fig

7. Grape

8. Guava

9. Jaboticaba

10. Jackfruit

The Four Seasons of South Florida are:

-Warm and Humid Fall

-Cool and dry Winter

-Warm and dry Spring

-How and humid Summer

Cristina:
                When we first started talking about gardening, a lot of what we talked about was how easy it is to grow food and how much better for us it is. So why don't we do it more often? The chapters we talked about today really brought to light that working on a garden is hard work, and almost a science. A lot of things need to go right: ph balance, climate, time, space, and you only need one thing to go wrong, i.e. over watering to make or break your garden. A garden is an investment. But the rewards are high, not only do you get fresh fruits and vegetables but  your self-esteem is higher, you get happier, you have fun, you build relationships all of which are benefits from having a garden. While a garden can require a lot of work there are certain types such a permaculture that can eliminate the amount of work needed. I am looking forward to learning more about what permaculture has to offer and how people can adopt permaculture into their lives. I believe permaculture is a more realistic way to get people to adopt a more sustainable way of life than organic gardening simply because of the amount of work necessary in an organic garden.

Permaculture Layout

Kristin-

I enjoyed the presentations in class once again. I am actually really excited about the information that is being presented in class. It is really nice to learn things that we can actually use once graduating college. In addition, the information that has been presented in class has sparked my interest in gardening and growing my own food, or at least buying at farmers markets to get fresh homegrown food. I would really like to try to grow some of my own food and at least now I have some basic knowledge to give it a try. This last week I must admit that there was too much information for me to retain. I think the groups did a great job keeping everyone's interest and trying to allow us to soak up as much of the information as possible. Although, it would be nice to have some of that information in chart format or something I could refer back to when needed. Another thing I really enjoyed last week was that one group brought some fruit in for us to eat. It was a pleasant surprise and the fact that we ate the fruits they were talking about helped me remember which fruits they covered. Overall I think it was another day of successful presentations and I was able to learn more facts that I didn't know previous to this class! :)


Meredith:

This class provided me with a lot of valuable information about gardening in Southwest Florida.  There are a total of four season in South Florida: warm and humid fall, cool and dry winter, warm and dry spring, and hot and humid summer.  The best practices to perform in your garden are to keep soil covered, maximize soil organic matter, minimize soil disturbance, rotating crops, and maximizing diversity.  As long as plants are healthy, there will be no room for disease to intrude and destroy the garden.  Alongside permaculture, which is a permanent garden that requires no work, an organic garden requires year-round attention because things may die and need to be started again.  Four to six weeks are needed until fruits and vegetables are ready to be transplanted and spraying worm castings is a good concentrated solution to assist with maintaining  the health of the plants.  There are four different vegetable garden designs to use, including, rows, beds, square-foot, and containers.  All of these details that Professor Segal spoke about during his presentation is going to help me tremendously when I create my own garden.


Christian:

Last class we had presentations again. They were about gardening in Southern Florida. The groups talked about what plants are favorable to the unique climate we have here in SW Florida, and ways to maximize your gardens bounty. Some plants that grow well here avocados, mangoes, citrus fruits, and bananas. One of the big challenges in Florida is having to find plants that will survive in the sandy soil that is lacking nutrients. One group brought in food for us to try and it was pretty good! At the end of class Professor Segal gave a presentation about his garden. It had pictures of before it was built, the beginning, the middle, and pictures of it today. Throughout all the presentations I felt like I learned a lot about gardening in SW Florida.