Saturday, July 16, 2011

The Simple Living Institute and the Econ Farm’s Garden

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Tia Meer is the Simple Living Institute’s organization president. Tia and her husband on an environmentally friendly home located on the Econlockhatchee River, between UCF and Christmas. It is known as the Econ Farm, but without the barn animals you would normally imagine seeing. They do grow a variety of fruits, vegetables, and herbs though and own their own business called Homegrown Delights. In the blog entry before this one, I showed their compost class where we built a compost pile.

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The plants start out under a canopy as seedlings. They have there own irrigation system.

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Through the productivity of this rain barrel, the Meers collect water for irrigation. A pipe line connects the barrel to a second one to avoid it over flowing.

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The composting toilet made with planks, reminds me of the decades old one at my Grandpa’s farm.

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There are so many possibilities when it comes to gardening. This lettuce bed is kept irrigated through the use of a pipe sticking out of the side where water collects.

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This cauliflower has a head!

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Beans and tomatoes grow up a trellis made simply with sticks and strings.

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Even Styrofoam gains new life at the farm. Anyone care for a strawberry from the sustainable berry patch?

To learn more about the Econ Farm and events at the Simple Living Institute please visit their website, http://www.simplelivinginstitute.org

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