“Gardening kids are truly inspired, food providers for their families” (Kids Gardening)

Read at :

Kids Gardening

http://www.kidsgardening.com/grants/2006-evaluation-summary.asp

 Evaluation Summary ~ 2006 NGA Grant Winners

The National Gardening Association has been providing material assistance to youth and community gardens through grants since 1983, and in 2005 we started collecting data to track the impact of our grants programs via a year-end evaluation summary completed by grant recipients. Here are results for the 2006 grant cycle, based on 487 evaluations (74% response rate):

Grant Program	# responses	% response
Youth Garden Grants	116	77%
Mantis Awards	20	80%
Remember Me Rose	14	70%
Kids Growing with Dutch Bulbs	305	72%
Hooked on Hydroponics	12	86%
Healthy Sprouts	20	80%

These grants are awarded based on merit. Winners were chosen through evaluation of written applications; winning applicants indicated well-planned, comprehensive, community-supported, and sustainable youth garden programs. Because the pool of applicants and types of programs vary each year, the statistics noted here are dynamic.

Evaluation Highlights (continued with several statistics)

Here are a few comments gathered during year-end evaluations:

Number of bottle gardeners growing (Willem)

Already published on my desertification weblog on May 25, 2007

Number of bottle gardeners growing

May 25, 2007

Posted by willem van cotthem in social dimensions, horticulture/gardening, container/bottle gardening, success stories – best practices, sustainability, soil, ecology – environment, capacity building, water. trackback , edit post

Having seen the excellent results of my experiments with vegetables and young trees growing in plastic bottles (a special type of container gardening), I hope more and more people will give it a try and show other people around that “indoor” or “outdoor” gardening in bottles or bags offers some interesting advantages.

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Very promising growth of strawberries in plastic bottles. Bottles can be re-used for other vegetables, or herbs, or tree seedlings. Eventually, one should bury the “old” bottles or bags.

Promoting container gardening (Willem)

Already published on my desertification weblog on March 22, 2007

Promoting container gardening

March 22, 2007

Posted by willem van cotthem in food / food security, hunger / famine, horticulture/gardening, success stories – best practices, water, capacity building, technologies. trackback , edit post

Here is the very nice comment of “timethief” on my message “Container gardening – A summary” of yesterday. It shows how many people can be interested in this type of gardening, wherever they live :

“I live on an island that suffers drought every year usually from the end of May to November. About 425 householders here have wells that go dry every year, although it pours buckets of rain from the sky every winter.

I became a container gardener years ago due to water conservation and I have found that there are other benefits to gardening in any container I can get my hands on as opposed to tilling soil, pulling weeds and hosing.

I find interesting containers to use as planters at garage sales and recycling depots and I also put dibs on containers from friends when I see they are running low on whatever is in them.

Thanks for writing this article and for all the good advice on soil preparation in it. Happy gardening. 🙂

The first benefit is that as I’m gardening on a second floor deck I don’t have to compete with wildlife for the food I plant. The second my container gardens don’t require much weeding. The third is that they are close to the kitchen which is great when you cook with fresh homegrown herbs. The fourth is that I can intersperse containers of food and flowers on my deck as in companion planting to keep down insects. The fifth benefit is that my deck looks fabulous and all my friends prefer to be there rather than visiting in my house.”

Thanks, “timethief”; it reinforces my conviction that we should also work with school children (in particular in developing countries), offering them a chance to learn a multitude of practical and useful things at school. The food they would produce at school, can contribute to make their lunches healthier (they would be less hungry). The techniques they would learn, will be always applicable later on at the family level. Nothing but good things to be expected !

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

2003-03 : School garden of Escola Pretoria (Isla do Sal, Cabo Verde), constructed thanks to the initiatives of Etienne VAN STEENBERGHE – Belgium (sponsor) and the TC-Dialogue Foundation (Belgium). Vegetables and fruits, produced with TerraCottem in the schoolyard, were a significant contribution to the quality of the lunches at school. See the happy kids ?

2003-03 : Jardin scolaire à l’Escola Pretoria (Isla do Sal, Cabo Verde), construit grâce aux initiatives d’Etienne VAN STEENBERGHE – Belgique (sponsor) et la Fondation TC-DIALOGUE (Belgique). Des légumes et des fruits, produits avec du TerraCottem dans la cour de l’école, formaient une contribution de valeur dans les repas de midi à l’école. Vous voyez combien les enfants sont contents ?

Any remarks ?

Willem