Thoughts for the week

Group members have started noticing plants more in their daily lives and have discovered a knowledge of local plants. We see palm trees and plants every day but now know that the landscaping at Gulf Coast town center includes Cocoplum. Lakes park is full of native plants including beauty berry, sea grapes and royal palms.   This class has provided our group members a new appreciation for local horticulture. 

Carissa's thoughts on the Calusa Nature Center

I've learned a lot about the tropical plants here in Florida at the Calusa nature center. My favorite part was seeing the bald eagles, I think it's great that they take care of animals that have been injured

Willow

Virginia Creeper

Royal Palm Trees

 Crown Caesar Weed

Alligator Flags

Cypress Trees

Poison Ivy

Calusa trip part 2, plants

Wild coffee

 

Bromeliad 

Sable Palm, aka the tree filled with wasps.

Saw Palmetto

Our guide swamp surfing like a cypress 

A fern

Poison Ivy... Beware of the itchies!

Willow tree with an air fern growing on it. 

Alligator fans

Cyprus that has grown into the boardwalk

Beauty berry 

Rabbit foot fern (bunny foot!!!!!)

Spores of the rabbit foot fern

Calusa Nature center trip, part 1- Animals

Hawk

Massive wasp nest

Burmese Python

Albino python 

Big tortoise eating his yummy lunch

Bald eagle

Box tortoise nibbles his salad

American alligators

I see you baby gator :)

Wild IDS students view the alligators 

Nip it good

By Erin...

So I have been inspired to try and grow things in my apartment, but tend to kill plants. So to build my confidence, I started with a sweet mint plant to infuse in my water, and a catnip plant... because I have cats.  The catnip is growing ridiculously fast, to the point I have no idea what I'm going to do with this thing!  In true Erin fashion, the sweet mint is currently on life support... Maybe one day I can graduate to veggies :)  Mmmm!

More thoughts about the food forest

    - Carissa:  I really enjoyed class and our field trip to the food forest last week. I’ve learned so many things about our campus that I never knew. I think it’s great that there are plants, such as the cocoa plum right on campus for students to snack on. I also really like the bike fixing stops. They will definitely come in handy and encourage more students to ride their bikes. The all organic food forest was great; I couldn’t believe that all of that was grown by students in as short as two years! It was incredibly impressive and interesting.

    - Victoria:  With the exception of miserable weather we are having and trudging through an over grown forest, I very much going to the food forest. Not having known that there are edible plants and food all around us, gives me a comfort to know that not all is lost if stranded on campus or even in the woods. It's good to be aware of your surroundings in case of an emergency. Plus, I haven't seen so many bikes in one area, and it's great to see students using other forms of transportation---less likely that you will get hit by a car by them. Quite an awesome trip and I can't wait for the others.

Cocoplum

FGCU food forest visit 9/3/13

Beautyberry

Papaya

We visited the FGCU food forest and saw both some familiar plants, as well as plants we had never heard about.  Muscadine grapes fresh of the vine provided an amazing treat towards the end of our trip.   Christina discovered a love for Moringa tree leaves, and will probably be seen eating them in class sometime soon.  Erin was fascinated with the edible plants available on campus, and the fact our school is essentially a walk-through salad bar!  Many of the team members plan on visiting the food forest again soon!
We <3 the food forest!!

Figs

Our new friend

Our first blog

     Hello everyone!  Since this is our first blog post, it will be a little heavy on text and low on pictures.  However, we are off to the food forest this week so we will have lots of pics to share in the next blog!

     That said, today we are giving our thoughts on the first 2 weeks of class, and are all excited to visit the FGCU food forest this week!!

     Carissa - "I have really enjoyed class thus far.  Other than the debatable class discussions, what has intrigued me the most was the video we watched about Cuba rebuilding their land and society.  It really showed us an example of what may happen to the United States, as well as other countries when we run out of oil.  I think this video was actually very inspiring seeing them turn their country around.  I'm really excited about our class field trips we will be taking.  I'm especially looking forward to seeing the food forest for the first time!"

     Christina - "I am really excited about the kinds of material we will be learning in this class.  Not only are our class discussions interesting, the reading material for the class has been very eye opening.  Learning about what kind of eco-footprint we have, and striving to use our resources more wisely is not only exciting but necessary.  I can't wait to learn about different gardening techniques and to go on the field trips."

     Erin -"I'm super excited for the field trips and for the chance to learn about growing my own food.  Within the past year, I have worked to eat "greener" and would love to be able to grow food and know exactly where it comes from, without killing it as I currently do. :(  My thoughts on the first 2 weeks are that I wish we could implement some of the systems shown on the videos as far as transportation, urban gardening and sustainable watersheds instead of relying on our current unsustainable systems.  Unfortunately, the government has no motivation to change our current methods an probably won't until we reach a crisis point."

That's all we have until next week's blog, when we discuss our trip to the food forest!!