CALUSA GARDEN CLUB GADABOUTS VISITS ECHO GLOBAL FARM FOUNDATION
On Friday, February 16, five Calusa Garden Club members visited Echo Global Farm Foundation’s demonstration farm in north Fort Myers, Florida. The members attending were Sue Oldershaw, chairman of Gadabouts, Lindy Kowalczyk, Rhonda Gloodt, Jean Voxakis and Sara Wolf.
Echo Global Farm Foundation is a Christian organization with a goal of providing information, education and training to family farmers around the world so that their farming practices better conserve their resources of soil, water and fertilizer, and so that their crops are more nutritious for their families. Echo Global Farms partners with organizations that help fight hunger across the globe. They also established Impact Centers in Asia, West Africa and East Africa where their techniques can be illustrated and taught to farmers in the region.
After a short film on Echo Global Farms’ work around the world, the group attended the 1:30 guided tour of the demonstration farm. We learned about nutritious plants such as the moringa tree and the katuk plant. Another plant that drew our attention was the cranberry hibiscus, that has more Vitamin C than oranges.
Our guide showed us a pond that is used for raising tilapia by allowing the farm’s duck poop to drop into the water to nourish the plankton and algae the tilapia eat. We learned about other techniques such as farming in holes with berms around them. The earth is mounded in ¾ of a circle around a plant, so that the farmer waters and fertilizes only the plant, and the water or fertilizer stays in the hole, and does not spread to the larger area around the plant where the plant gets no benefit from it. Leaving ¼ of the area around the hole even with the ground, and not mounded, allows the planting hole to drain and prevents downpours of rain from drowning the plant.
Echo Global Farms has a plant nursery, and the plants are for sale. We smelled a wonderful chocolate mint plant that smelled like chocolate mints! The Echo Global Farms” Global Food and Farm Festival is March 16-22. On those days, the organization will be featuring all its many farm products, selling plants, and having demonstrations of many farming practices. It is worth a visit!
VISIT ECHO GLOBAL FARMS GLOBAL FOOD AND FARM FESTIVAL MARCH 16-22!
GO TO https://echonet.org for more information.