Gardening Month is Here!!

Since this is Gardening Month, I want to let everyone know that I am one of the dynamic speaker at the 7 days Spiritual Body Building Tele-summit where my discussion topic is on Changing Your Temple:  Gardening with Planting: The Right Foods! I would love for you, your friends, coworkers and family to be a part of this very special tele-summit .  For more information to sign up for the 7-Day Tele-summit – Spiritual Body Building click here:  http://resultsbyrenee.com/spiritual-body-building-telesummit/

April is Gardening Month and this year I have decided to plant an indoor seedling gardening.  This is my very first time doing this and I decided to use a seedling gardening kit with organic gardening soil. I always wanted to be a part of the seed to sprout process of growing vegetables and flowers garden.  What I have done in the past, like many people, was purchase my plants from fellow gardeners and plant it in my little garden.  I never did thought how they were able to start off with a tiny seed  and produce a little sprout which would later become a healthy plant.  This year, I wanted to experience this by planting cucumbers, lettuce, squash, spinach, marigolds (for keeping the pest away from the tomatoes), zinna flowers, cosmos flowers, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers and  carrots. Check out the pictures below on how I started my gardening adventure:

To see pictures of the different seeds that I use for my garden click here!

Next week, I will discuss about my day at the Atlanta Home and Gardening Show!

 

Hydrangea Festival – Part 2 – Standard Flower Show Results and Festival Market

Back again to Hydrangea Festival, I had a chance t0 visit the Festival Market at the Douglasville Courthouse.  The Festival Market has given a chance of local artisans, crafts-persons and gardeners to display and sell their goods.  One craftsman was selling bird houses but these houses were not your ordinary bird houses.  Some of the birdhouse were shaped and made as a church, log cabin and even a clay house.  These houses were made for rich birds!  Click here to see more birdhouses.

Also at the Festival Market, there were alots of artisans that where selling their art work such as self portraits .  Another crafts-person was selling their beautiful jewelry and handmade bags.  Gardeners and Farmers where selling their unique plants, herbs, gardening accessories and flowers especially hydrangeas.  Click here to see more!

The standard flower show  was such a beautiful arrangement and so many different flowers that I have never seen before.  Last year the flower show title “The Royals” had 398 horticulture exhibits, 24 exquisite dining table designs, plus 34 youth and two educational exhibits. This years flower show had feature the “Blushing Bride” hydrangea.  The show qualifies for entry into the State and National award categories which was awarded in April and May 2013.  This event generated visitation from 56 Georgia cities, 12 states and 5 foreign countries.  Click here to see some of the flowers that were presented at the Standard Flower Show.

I had such a great time at the Standard Flower Show and Festival Market but the best is yet to come.  Next week, I will talk about Daytime Garden Tours!!

Georgia Organics – Cultural Farm Tours – Part 2

Farm tours are the best way to learn about farming so I had a chance to do a second farm tour at the Georgia Organics Farm Rx 2013 Conference.  The first tour stop was the Umurima, The Burundi Women’s Farm which was truly enlightening and inspirational experience.  Then second stop is Decatur’s Kitchen Garden at the United Methodist Children’s Home.  This facility is a Global Growers Project which offers market garden plots to more than 30 community producers, primarily from the nearby international refugee community.  Community producers come from cultures that include Nepali Bhutanese, Burmese Chin, Burmese Karen, and Burmese Zomi, and share their unique growing traditions and specialty crops in this 1.5 -acre garden and reclaimed fruit orchard.  Many of the refugees did not know how to do anything but farm when they arrived to America. They had faced genocide or lived for years in refugee camps in their native countries. When they arrive in the United States, they are often bewildered by the interstates and fast food lifestyle of metro Atlanta.  The Global Growers Network gave the refugees a comfort zone and provides a chance for them to make money and learn new skills and the American way of farming.

“This market garden is designed to foster community, offer education about healthy food traditions and growing practices and enhance biodiversity through cutting-edge sustainable resource management.”  Quote from Global Growers Project

The Decatur’s Kitchen Garden has a demonstration garden and a small orchard on the United Methodist Children’s Home grounds.   We had a chance during the tour to see the each gardeners garden plots and the types of foods that were being grown there.   This garden is located in the back of the sprawling grounds of the United Methodist Children’s Home next to a lake where the farmers use their specialized green friendly irrigation system. As we traveled through the muddy dirt path we had noticed that each farmer has their own plot which is tagged with the farmer’s name, their community location and language background.  The Farmers are allowed to plant their native countries fruits and vegetables on these plots and then have the chance to sell their produce to the local farmers markets and at the United Methodist Children’s Home. The Decatur’s Kitchen Garden successful cost effective format is based on having a self-sustaining green living garden.  The Farmers everything from the garden and there is no such thing waste here.  They use the different bins labeled as Compost, Landfill and Recycle and everything if possible is being reused for the land, for profit from the landfills or made as a gift for sale.

One of the items that were for sale was the baskets that were made from the wide spread grown problem weed called Kudzu.  Some of the Bhutaneses people basket weavers would take Kudzu, bamboo, local vine and made a distinctive  beautiful basket.

Another thing that the Farmers will do is to offset the cost by volunteering time with the Global Growers Network as part of the farmer’s teaching training program.  The Global Growers Network (GGN) does not charge any refugee farmer for their plots but a portion of the monies of the produce sold does go back to GGN programs.

Immediately following the second tour, The Spotted Trotter held a open house tasting of their cheese and cured, salted, and smoked meats.  It is a boutique charcuterie owned and operated by Kevin and Megan Outzs.  They work with local producers, like the Global Growers Network to ensure humane-treatment and sustainable practices are used in the production of all of their ingredients.  All of the food from the The Spotted Trotter was very delicious and tasty.

I truly had a great time at all of the the Georgia Organics Cultural Farm Tours.  I embrace all of these farmers styles of gardening and their love for the Decatur, Georgia Communities.  Since being on these Farm Tours I have now open my mind up to the green way of living and trying culturally diverse organic foods. So the next time you decided to come to a Georgia Organics Farm Rx Conference make sure you do a Farm Tour and be open to a new way of farming!  Click here for more photos of the Cultural Farm Tours.