Tropical Edibles - 3 Part Montessori Cards

This is part of a cultural exchange packet we signed up for. The posts are out of order, but I'll do the full packet tomorrow. Hope they make you hungry! Tropical Edibles

Mango Festival

While most of the country gardens in the summer and enjoys the bounty of their local farmer's market, here in FL we lay low.   The growing season is opposite of most places so you only grow easy heat loving stuff like okra and the farmer's market is closed in the summer.  We do have the occasional tropical fruit event like this weekend's Mango Festival at Colorfield Farms.

The highlight of the day was the mango tasting.  The whole family thought the best variety was Lemon Zest.  Our friends we went with really liked the Kent. 

We spent some time cruising through the nursery's fruit tree stock as well.  We saw a ripe wax jambu.  I've heard of this tree but never seen one or the fruit so that was neat.  The Lancitella mango provided the biggest wow.  It was tasty enough but out on the tree it was huge.  They get up to 5 pounds each.

Another neat find was a baby preying mantis.  We don't see them that often so the toads were excited about their find.

Our only purchase was along the bug theme as well.  We have a couple milkweeds but no monarchs are visiting them currently.  The ones at the farm were covered so we brought home some new pets.

The event was supposed to have a food truck rally too.  There were only two food trucks.  We weren't sure how many you needed to be able to call it a rally but we figured at least three was a minimum.  We were glad we brought snacks.




We've been wanting to get a Longan tree and our friends gave us one.  It kept dying back in their freezes every winter and our place is a little warmer than theirs so we're going to give it a try.  This photo is from the festival not our new little tree.

We followed up the festival with a dip in the kiddie pool and BBQ with our friends so it was a lovely day.  If you'd like to learn more about tropical fruits check out this post or the book below.

Tampa Bay Staycation Tour

Slideshows of other people's vacations can be really boring...

So I thought I'd stick to the highlights of our recent staycation with links for those people planning on coming here or for those of you who like links to the education programming.  We get lots of tourists because it really is nice here.  I once posted on a large mommy listserve about vacation options for places to go for a mom and her toddler together as a vacation (back when I only had one tadpole).  My husband travels regularly and I thought it'd give the toad and I a change of scenery to go away while he was gone.  I didn't mention where we lived just asked for opinions on great places for a mom and kid to vacation.  There were 5 responses and every single person said the beach.  I sighed and we walked to the beach.

Here's our latest adventures.

Lowry Park Zoo - The animal above is an African okapi.  It's always one of my favorites to visit because they're so beautiful.  My husband hadn't been in three years so he had an especially good time.  Here's a link to the education page with PDF's for educational activities (look for self guided curriculum in the center of the page).  I took the opportunity of the vacation this week to start Zoo Story by Thomas French.  It's a book he wrote all about Lowry Park Zoo.  He used to be a reporter for the local newspaper and our recently reinvigorated Friends of the Library had him for a guest speaker at their one year anniversary which is where I picked up the book.  My grandmother used to take me to the zoo and I had not been to one in over 20 years until I had kids.  The author does a good job of talking about the specifics of this zoo and the philosophical implications of zoos in general.  There's a good bit of gender observations too which make for a good laugh.

Selby Gardens - This is only the second time we've been and we have had a lovely time both times. Here they have two PDF's for different ages to do a plant hunt.  I printed them out and attached them to handled paper bags for the kids to collect treasures (with strict instructions that treasure only comes off the ground and absolutely no picking).  I don't think they finished either one but they loved having an official place for all the seeds they found.  The PDF's were generic enough you could use them at a garden near you probably.  Also, they are known as a research institution so the website has lots of articles and resources available.

We went to the Dali for the first time since they relocated and expanded.  They did a wonderful job and the new museum was a great way to spend a morning.  My husband and I went with younger toad while the older was at preschool.  I hadn't taken him to a museum in years since they last time I did we both left in tears.  He was much better this time and enjoyed the scavenger hunt they provide the kids.

Museum of Science and Industry - Always lots to do there.  They have some online activities about water here.  They were having a kid's health fair on the day we went.  I picked up some great paper plates with the suggested portions illustrated and labeled.  The food pyramid never made a ton of sense but having portions divided into pie wedge fractions on a plate is easy to understand.  It looked like all the resources they had available at the fair were at the USDA's website here.

...and of course we went to the beach several times.  Grab your sunscreen and come some time!

Exotic Tropical Fruit

One of the best things about living in Florida is the exotic fruits you can grow.  Gardening overall is a big challenge between the bugs, poor soil and opposite seasons of everywhere else but you persevere despite the steep learning curve.

One of the best organizations we have is the Tampa Rare Fruit Council.  They put on great plant sales and a huge citrus tasting at the FL State Fair (in February since gardening is different here).

Today was their annual cooperative meeting with the Manatee & Sarasota rare fruit chapters.  One of the highlights is always the buffet table but today it included dragonfruit, ice cream bananas, jackfruit, lychees, longans, 5 varieties of mangoes, mangosteen, rambutan, sapote and lots of other 'normal' foods.

Some of these were provided by the Fruit & Spice Park in Homestead, FL.  If you plan a trip to Miami and you're tropical curious, you should plan a trip there.

Too bad Oscar didn't have room for sweet potatoes

This is our first year growing sweet potatoes.  Every year we expand the garden a little bit.  This summer season we put a cover crop (Red Cowpeas) on the area we've been using, and started a new patch.  Summer gardening is a challenge in Florida so we've got watermelon, okra and sweet potatoes.  I chose the Beauregard variety because it matures in only 90 days and it's one of the varieties recommended by the FL extension service.  Bugs are our biggest gardening problem so hopefully we'll have better luck with a shorter season variety.  Here's the traditional planting of sweet potatoes under the okra.

I've heard a lot about how easy it is to grow potatoes in a garbage can and my neighbor was throwing out a couple of old ones so we thought we'd give it a try.  You can Google the subject or here's a link for directions.

Our can with two slips.  These had been growing just in a regular pot for the last several weeks so that's why they look so big.

I'll repost at the end of the season hopefully reporting mounds of potatoes.

Update 6/19/12- I added a couple of inches of grass clippings to the can.
Update 7/1/12 - I added an inch of compost to the can.

Martha meets NASA

This is an excerpt from Yes! Magazine that I thought was so nifty I'd circulate widely. To subscribe or support their work, visit their website http://www.yesmagazine.org.

So, you’ve made the “green” energy-efficiency improvements to your home. Windows and doors are tightly sealed, and extra insulation keeps you in a comfy cocoon. But less drafty airflow can mean stale air at best, and toxic air at worst.

Here’s a “green” solution: houseplants.

Years ago, NASA scientists demonstrated that certain plants break apart the chemicals most commonly released by plastics, paints, synthetic carpets, and cleaning supplies.

Why are they such efficient air purifiers?

Most houseplants evolved in subtropical forests, where they received light filtered through the branches of taller trees. Because of this, their leaf composition allows them to photosynthesize under relatively low light conditions, which allows them to process gases efficiently. Soil and roots also play a role. Microorganisms in the soil become more adept at using these materials as a food source as they are exposed to them for longer periods of time. Their effectiveness is increased if lower leaves that cover the soil surface are removed so there is as much soil contact with the air as possible.

It takes about 16 houseplants in 6- to 8-inch diameter containers to improve air quality in a 1,800 square foot house. Some non-poisonous standouts from the NASA study: spider plant, golden pothos, peace lily, chinese evergreen, ficus, gerbera daisy, and rubber plant.

Various species were tested with trichloroethylene, used in dry cleaning, paints, lacquers, and adhesives; benzene, solvent in gasoline, paints, dyes, plastics, and foams; and formaldehyde, more common and more toxic, used in particle board, office furniture, household cleaners, fire retardants, and carpets.

This is how much of the contaminants were removed by plants from a sealed room in 24 hours:

Trichloroethylene Benzene Formaldehyde

Dracaena Massangeana
70% 21.4% 12.5%

Dracaena Deremensis
50 70 20
Ficus Benjamina
47.4 30 10.5
Peace Lily spacer
50 80 23
Golden Pothos
67 67 9.2
Chrysanthemum
61 53 41