For the HortiCulture

Lowe's plans 'SpringFest' event with free curbside 'Garden-to-Go' projects for families. How to sign up

Registration for Lowe's Home Improvement SpringFest “Garden-to-Go” pick ups begins on April 1st! Earth Day is out founder’s birthday, so you know we’re all about this type of free gift 🪴

Lowe's plans 'SpringFest' event with free curbside 'Garden-to-Go' projects for families. How to sign up Lowe’s is launching a month-long “SpringFest” celebration this April with free curbside Garden-to-Go project kits.

Our glbl wrmng family is teaming up with local recycling group Glass Half Full for the Bring Dat Glass Here glass drive to help save out coasts.

Bring your jelly jars, wine bottles, and empty hot sauces on Saturday to help rebuild the Louisiana coastline and grab your very own “504” recycled glass bead.

www.nrcs.usda.gov

Larkins believes the conservation practices he has implemented on his land have been instrumental in the success of his cattle operation. “The land is the only thing that we have. If you don’t take care of it, it won’t take care of you.” Larkins smiles, “We get the best out of our land when we follow the practices NRCS shows us.”
The future looks bright for the Larkins family. “It makes me feel great when I look around and see what we have been able to accomplish,” beamed Larkins. “I’m hopeful that my children and grandchildren will carry on what I’ve started.” Larkins believes in the importance of planning, and then following through, to make dreams become a reality. “I’m not the largest cattle operation, but there is room to grow, and with a good plan and the assistance of NRCS, anything is possible.”
Even for a New Jersey boy who now calls Louisiana home.

www.nrcs.usda.gov

For the Garden | Planting seeds - My New Orleans

“I wanted my community to feel the same autonomy that I have, knowing that they have some of their basic needs covered through their gardens,” she says.

In July 2020, Sims-Cameron founded “For the HortiCulture,” a fiscally-sponsored project restoring the culture of backyard growing for Black families in New Orleans. Its goal is to cultivate resilience in the communities most impacted by food insecurity and food-related health disparities.

Sims-Cameron began the effort with a small crowdfunding campaign, hoping to raise money for building materials for 25 small, recycled pallet gardens. She asked for $2,500 and ended up raising more than $20,000.

This community support gave Sims-Cameron the opportunity to expand her vision. She now builds different garden types for families based on space, time and financial resources.

http://bit.ly/UGiveFtHC

For the Garden | Planting seeds - My New Orleans Krystle Sims-Cameron’s first experience growing food was a plum tree. At age 6, she planted a plum pit in the corner of her yard. “My mom told me that it was pointless to plant it,” she says. “Years later, on a nostalgic whim, I drove past my childhood home. In the same corner that I planted...

We are thankful for the harvest. Grateful for willing hands and curious minds. Blessed to have a generous community with an industrious and talented lineage. We give thanks for the many contributions that made this possible and that continue to support and uplift The Work ✨

Today our new gardeners received a great lesson on composting from Lynn Serpe of Compost NOW at Crown Community Garden NOLA before receiving their own home compost bins to recycle food waste into fertilizer. We’re excited to see just how much black gold we can make for our spring gardens!

My was past ready to be . This is a powerful oil that can be added to balms and salves for and more. @ New Orleans, Louisiana

More ! Tonight it’s a few containers of known for its potato-like . @ New Orleans, Louisiana

Watching the new gardeners put together and customize their container gardens is just as exciting as seeing our crops grow! Thank you to all the donors and supporters that helped bring this vision to life ✊🏾🥕✨

This simple pallet garden was one of our prototypes for inexpensive and accessible edible gardening For the HortiCulture. Although it wasn’t our final choice, it’s still proving to be a successful way to grow healthy, nutrient dense fall veggies her in New Orleans!

Check out ~40 days of growth from installation to this morning!

Five more are coming to neighborhoods after today’s ! goodies like , , , , and are all on their way to being loved up on by each until they and ✊🏾🥕✨

My whole living room smells like and I don’t care bc my finally arrived and just in time to share with gardeners this weekend! @ New Orleans, Louisiana

I’m always so to the folks we decide to into what I’m doing with 🌱 This plethora of from Kathleen B. and these gorgeous points from Erica W. are appreciated and received with all the warmth and love with which they were sent 💕 @ New Orleans, Louisiana

The Healing Power of Garden Class

There’s some truly powerful and healing growing in New Orleans these days. We can feel it. We are a part of it. And, despite everything else happening in our world right now, it give us immense and unrelenting hope.
•
•
•
“When slavery was abolished, no one wanted to have anything to do with the land. It was such a painful place,” Dr. Denise Shervington, founder of the Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies, told me. And for many decades after abolition, that separation from nature was also forced. Discriminatory policies—like the USDA’s barriers to loan funds—robbed Black farmers of their land. Garden clubs and school agriculture clubs were long segregated or open only to white people. Until 1965, Black children in the South could not join Future Farmers of America; they had a sibling organization, the New Farmers of America. When Future Farmers and New Farmers merged, Black teachers and students lost leadership positions.

And yet, getting into nature might matter more to New Orleans children than practically anyone else: Their rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression are two to three times the national average, and nature “is one of the core ways in which we recover from trauma,” Shervington said.

The Healing Power of Garden Class Rahn Broady’s mission is to introduce New Orleans students to the magic of nature.

Headed to one of the prototype gardens this morning to set one of these pallets up as a bed for fall greens! If you’re interested in seeing how it’s done, follow along at http://instagram.com/iyanla_plantzant!

We showered the new plant babies in our teaching container garden this evening 🌧 and we’d love if our FB friends would sprinkle a li’l more lovin’ on our fundraiser tonight! Can we get to $1K by the end of the weekend?! Sure we can!

Please share the fundraiser link (https://www.facebook.com/donate/1878897875601498/) with your networks and tell them just how much this project means to you and our new gardeners!

I took some time to customize the first rack so our new gardeners get a little inspiration for how they can trick their new gardens out to match their personalities. Since this in the teaching garden, we’ve got a bit of a school room theme going on 🍎 I’ll be using waterproof chalkpens to label what’s in each 5-gallon bucket + weekly instructions, but I needed to prime the chalkboard with standard chalk first. I also added some large hooks to hold garden tools like these spades, watering can, and neem oil spray. The small hooks up front will hold bundles of herbs after they’re pruned for drying. This ladybug and her larvae seem to be enjoying it so far!

What else would you add to make this classroom garden more functional?

Whew! I bet myself I could get this container garden rack built and stable before sundown, and it’s done! Eight 5gal buckets fit into a raised shelf made of nine 8ft 2x4s cut into 24 pieces by a very patient home improvement store employee 😅This was my first time building anything that didn’t come out of an IKEA box, so I’m pretty proud 💪🏾

Support our mission by sharing it with your friends and family! Our new "Give For the HortiCulture" frame spreads the word about our project and lets everyone know where they can give to help us grow!

Go to "edit" on your profile picture, click "add frame," then search Give For The HortiCulture!

I’m excited that the okra plants in the first prototype raised bed is getting HUGE — but we let these okra go a little too long 😬 No worries! They’ll be great for seed saving, and there are plenty of okra flowers ready to give us more fresh veggies in the next few days.

For the HortiCulture updated their website address.

For the HortiCulture updated their website address.

Donate-Now

Thanks to our awesome partnership with Social Good Fund, we are now able to accept tax-deductible donations to support our gardening program for Black women and families in New Orleans!

Please check out our new donation page, share it with your plant-y friends, and let us know if you own or work for a company that would like to sow a seed 🌱 in the form of a charitable donation.

Donate-Now Check out Donate Now by For the HortiCulture!

Lots of joy and discovery in this prototype garden today! New pink containers for leafy greens, surprise cucumber, native blueberry bush from , volunteer greens (mustards, maybe?), eggplants plumping, and one very excited new gardener ✊🏾🥕✨ @ St. Rose, Louisiana

Lots of medicine making happening ahead of cold and flu season! It’ll be great to help our fall cohorts plant, grow, and harvest herbs, root, flowers, and fruits with powerful medicinal and therapeutic benefits to comfort their families 🙌🏾

Hi friends and farmily!

We are excited to announce that For the HortiCulture is now a fiscally sponsored project of Social Good Fund, a nonprofit corporation & registered 501(c)(3) organization!

Our mission + vision remain the same: FtHC is a social movement building edible gardens and teaching gardening skills to Black women and families in New Orleans.

With Social Good Fund as our partners, we can now accept larger, tax-deductible donations, increase our reach, and focus on building gardens and communities instead of fussing over "the books." We are grateful for their support and want to welcome them as part of our team!

Our Fall Cohort class schedule has been finalized! Here's what we'll be learning together this season:

- Garden Tools and Safety
- Feed the Food: Photosynthesis + Fertilization
- Bees and Things and Flowers: Pollinators vs Pests
- Cut That Out/ Give Props: Pruning for Production and Propagation
- The Scrap Yard: Reuse and Recycling in the Garden
- Top Crops: When and How to Harvest the Whole Plant
- Gettin' Saved: Preserving Your Produce
- Food Is Medicine: Herbal Remedies for the Family

Select classes will also be streamed and available online for a small donation. Stay tuned for details!

How Veggies Make the Earth Greener, Cleaner

Thanks to Vegy Vida for this sweet throwback of our founder's son in the garden!

"Many of us planted trees and cleaned creeks on Earth Day. But Krystle Sims-Cameron and her son, Khaliq, gave the earth one of the nicest gifts it could ask for: seeds for mini-eggplants, peas, tomatoes, zucchini and more.

“We’ve used ladybugs and praying mantis as pest control, planted bee balm to attract pollinators and (we) amend the soil with compost,” said Sims-Cameron, who also is growing kale, peppers, cucumbers and okra. “We want to protect the little portion of earth we’ve been granted stewardship over.”

https://vegyvida.com/veggies-make-earth-cleaner-greener-place/

How Veggies Make the Earth Greener, Cleaner Veggies are as healthy for the earth as they are for kids. Here are some of the most earth-friendly veggies and how to involve your kids in growing them.

Sometimes thinning my seedlings makes me a little sad — it means plucking or snipping plants that would have grown healthily if they only had enough room.

But there are some sprouts I’m more than happy to thin bc they go to immediate use! These radish sprouts are full of vitamins (like A, B, C, E, and K) plus fiber, amino acids, and enzymes that help with digestion. I rinse ‘em off right in the garden and have a handful as a nutritious snack while I’m working. They’re really peppery, just like full-grown radishes!

Are there any garden goodies you eat before they ever make it to the kitchen?

Nothin’ like a little tropical storm — or two? — to inspire some garden ingenuity!

Some of our fall garden seedlings are housed in these kiddie pools for bottom watering, so we grabbed a couple more, drilled a few holes in the rim, and created a shelter using zip ties to secure. The kettle bells were added for extra weight, but the water in the bottom would likely keep them grounded all by itself.

If any of y’all are in the path of Tropical Storms Marco and Laura, how are you preparing to keep your gardens safe?

We grow to eat! 😋

Straight from the garden to the kitchen! Quick pickles and a basil-infused vodka 🤩

Our prototype gardeners Stacey and Ivory have a few things ready to harvest today 🥒 🍠 🌿

Some early harvesting in one of the prototype raised beds! Giant cucumbers, long sweet potato vines, and super fragrant basil!

Did you know you could eat sweet potato leaves?! Pruning them encourages bigger tubers, and the greens are delicious in stir fry!

Two of our prototype gardeners are doing amazing work with their raised bed garden! The first picture shows young okra plants growing tall, basil 🌿 getting bushy, and peppers 🌶 poppin’ up, and even a cucumber vine 🥒snaking its way across the mulch! And do you see all those eggplant blossoms in the second photo? We can’t wait to see those become delicious fruit 🍆

What are you most excited about growing in your fall gardens?