Food for Thought – Episode 4: Teaching Diversity Appreciation Via Permaculture

In our fourth episode of Food for Thought, Anne discusses how project-based instruction using companion planting and other polyculture techniques illustrate how diversity is a natural phenomenon that can be used to maximize the benefits for all involved. It can serve as a neutral topic of instruction illustrating that understanding how things naturally work best together produces superior results than …

Food for Thought – Episode 3: Teaching How Systems Work Through Gardening

In our 3rd episode of Food for Thought, our director and creator of the Learn & Grow Educational Series discusses how to use gardening to teach kids about systems, how they work, and how they interact with each other to create larger systems. References: California State Academic Standards – https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/ Definition of “gestalt” – https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gestalt Bronfenbrenner’s Socio-Ecological Model of Human …

Let Us Make You a Garden

If you are located in Ventura, Santa Barbara, or West Los Angeles County, California, and would like a custom-built self-watering container garden, but don’t have the time to put it together yourself, we are making ourselves available to collect the recycled pieces, pre-cut the parts, and deliver your container garden to you using proper social distancing measures and safety equipment. …

Food for Thought – Episode 2: Teaching Long-Term Planning to Kids with Gardening

Learn & Grow Educational Series’ creator, Anne M. Zachry, M.A. Ed. Psych., discusses the life lessons that are naturally embedded in learning to grow food and how this is deliberately accounted for in Learn & Grow’s curriculum. Find us online: https://learn-and-grow.org Follow Us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/learngrowedseries Follow Us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/LearnAndGrowEdSeries Donate: https://paypal.me/learnandgrow Transcript of Audio from Video: Note:  The …

Food for Thought – Episode 1: Food Security During Times of Crisis

This is Episode 1 of our Vlog, Food for Thought. This episode is titled, “Food Security During Times of Crisis.” This video discusses the use of an old urban gardening technique, self-watering containers made from 5-gallon buckets, as a means of ensuring food security for individuals, families, and communities regardless of the economy and condition of the commercialized food supply. …

The Value of Patience

artichokes growing in a self-watering container in the Learn & Grow test garden

In our ever-increasingly rapid-paced world, we have become accustomed to real-time results to many of our efforts and inquiries, which amounts to instant gratification. Surrounded by these experiences, it is easy for developing young children who are still processing the world according to intuition rather than logic to misperceive this constant stream of instant gratification as the only kind of …

From Our Garden: Okra

Okra, known as Lady Fingers in some parts of the world, forms an elongated fruit from each flower. The flowers only last for a day or two and the fruits are ready to pick just a few days after that. Okra is most commonly prepared in stir fries and sautées. This okra plant is growing in a self-watering container made …