Georgia’s 2021 Farm to School Month Planning
Livin’ La Vida Okra
October is Farm to School Month and schools and early care centers across Georgia will be celebrating all things okra! Livin’ La Vida Okra is a state-wide celebration to get kids eating, growing, and participating in okra-themed activities.
To participate in Livin’ La Vida Okra at your school, home, early care center, or in your community, visit bit.ly/livinlavidaokra and sign up. Participants will receive free electronic resources to help you plan and implement your activities. Resources include standards-based lesson plans, activities, recipes, videos, school garden planting and harvesting information, and more!
The first 300 people to sign-up will be able to choose whether or not to be mailed a free packet of okra seeds, washable okra tattoos, and a Georgia Planting and Harvest Calendar for school gardens. Share your Livin’ La Vida Okra pictures and activities on social media with #livinlavidaokra. Each week during October, anyone who uses this hashtag will be entered to win a gift card and at the end of the month, there will be a grand prize winner. Questions? Visit https://farmtoschool.georgiaorganics.org/frequently-asked-questions or email kimberlykoogler@georgiaorganics.org.
UGA Extension has a fantastic publication on growing okra that could be useful for those gardeners new to the crop or for those who want to improve their harvest!
Happy Gardening!
Is the 3rd Annual Great Georgia Pollinator Census on Your Calendar?
The 3rd Annual Great Georgia Pollinator Census will be Friday, August 20th and Saturday, August 21st, 2021. This event brings citizens scientists from across Georgia together for insect education and conservation. Are those dates on your calendar? Won’t you join us?
Why Count Insects?
Understanding pollinators and other beneficial insects is imperative to Georgia’s ecosystem and our economics. A 2014 economic impact study by the University of Georgia determined that the annual value of pollination to our state is over $360 million. Any home gardener who has tried to grow watermelon, squash or cucumbers knows that if there are no pollinators there are no watermelons, squash or cucumbers.
Learning what pollinators need, their habitat, is an important part of this project. By providing a varied flower garden with nesting materials such as undisturbed ground, spent flower stems and leaf litter not only provides for pollinators but other beneficial insects as well. These beneficials can help a home garden with some of the pest insect problems.
How Can You Participate?
- Learn about creating a sustainable pollinator habitat by being a part of your local UGA Extension office programming.
- Create a small pollinator garden or build the pollinator garden of your dreams (the bees will thank you!). We have the resources to help.
- Join our Georgia Pollinator Census Facebook group to share ideas and to learn insect identification.
- Check the project website, https://GGaPC.org, for information on exactly how to count insects for the Census.
- Plan to attend one of the events listed on the website to learn even more about pollinators.
- Count insects on August 2oth and/or 21st.
- Upload your counts to the website.
- Know that you have made a real difference in pollinator conservation.
How is the Census Data Used?
The data collected from the Census will be used by researchers to spot pollinator population trends, economic valuations, and correlations between pollinator populations and other factors such as weather. By participating in the Census you are truly contributing to science!
I look forward to seeing YOUR pollinator counts this August,
Becky Griffin
Coordinator of the Great Georgia Pollinator Census
School Garden During the COVID Crisis
School Gardening is a challenge during the best of times but during the COVID-19 crisis it can seem almost impossible. As school gardens become more active there could be questions on how best to manage the garden while keeping safe. Georgia’s Farm to School Alliance has developed some resources to provide some guidance. The Farm to School Alliance is made up of partners from the University of Georgia, the Georgia Department of Agriculture, the Georgia Department of Education, the Georgia Department of Public Health and Georgia Organics.
Happy Arbor Day, Georgia!
Nationally, Americans recognize Arbor Day in April. Georgia celebrates Arbor Day on the third Friday of February each year because this is a better time to plant trees. This year Georgia’s Arbor Day falls on February 19th. By planting in February, trees have time for root growth before the heat and drought of our summer months.
Have you considered fruit trees in your community garden? They add a nice backdrop to your garden, can provide a bit of shade during the very hot summer days, and produce fruit for the gardeners.
Be warned, however, that they can be a lot of work. There are a few points to think about before you decide if you want to plant fruit trees in your community garden:
1. You need the right location. When planning fruit trees for the limited space of a community garden, location is the key. Fruit trees require at least six hours of sunlight to be healthy and to produce fruit. Eight to ten hours of sun is optimal. Also, although the shade a fruit tree provides during August may be welcome, you do not want to create unwanted shade on vegetable plots. Dwarf trees may be an answer here. They are also easier to care for than full sized trees. Remember what you plant will get bigger and taller!

2. Maintenance. Realize that fruit trees involve more care than vegetables. They may need to be properly pruned, thinned and fertilized regularly. Apples, peaches, and plums will get diseases and insects in Georgia. Someone will need to volunteer to address this by the use of pesticides, fungicides, and traps. If your garden does not allow any pesticides, growing traditional fruit trees such as apples, pears, and peaches may not be for you. Instead, you may want to try other fruit crops such as blueberries and figs. David Berle and Robert Westerfield’s publication Growing Fruits: Community and School Gardens does a great job of discussing these issues.
3. You may need more than one. Many trees need cross-pollination to produce fruit. You will need at least two different apple trees and depending on the variety you might need two different pear or plum trees. Most peach trees self-pollinate so one will still produce fruit.
If these points haven’t scared you off, check out these publications:
Home Garden Pears by Gerard Krewer and Paul Bertrand
Home Garden Apples by David Lockwood
Another way to think about trees is their value to pollinators. There are many “trees for bees” and other pollinators that do well in our Georgia ecosystems. Did you know that several trees are actually larval host plants for butterflies? Selecting Trees and Shrubs as Resources for Pollinators is a wonderful resource for Georgia gardeners.
Contact your UGA Extension agent for more information on planting trees.
Happy Arbor Day!
The Great Georgia Pollinator Podcast
The Great Georgia Pollinator Podcast has launched! University of Georgia’s Becky Griffin is the host and she designed the podcast to correspond to the Great Georgia Pollinator Census.
If you are interested in pollinating insects, habitat, and research, this is the podcast for you. It can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Anchor. Each episode is 20-30 minutes so it is easy to listen to at your office desk, during lunch, or on your commute.
The first episode explores the Connect to Protect pollinator certification program with Lauren Muller. As with other social media platforms, this podcast will concentrate on pollinator habitat during the first part of the year and transition into more insect topics as we approach warmer weather. Won’t you join us?
Using Seed Catalogs In the Classroom
The seed catalogs keep arriving. In my household that is cause for excitement. I save them until I have time to properly enjoy looking through them. What do you do with your seed catalogs after you have looked through them and placed your orders? If you throw them into the recycling bin you are missing out as these gems are full of useful information.
If you are a school gardener, or a community gardener that works with youth, the seed catalogs can be used throughout the year! To start with you can laminate the beautiful photos to use as plant markers.
You can use the information provided in the catalog for lessons:
Seed spacing guides can be used for students to create a garden bed design.
Days to harvest information can be used for students to determine the planting dates of their garden design so that all the produce is ready at the same time.
Seed package cost can be used to calculate the total cost of the garden design.
All of this information can be used to determine how much produce can be grown per square foot (inch, meter).
Marketing plans can be created to sell resulting produce at a Farmers Market. How much money can be made given the input costs?
Aspiring artists can design artistic seed packets using the information given.
English classes can pick vegetables and re-write the plant descriptions.
Of couse, students can look through the catalog and pick a vegetable they have never tried before and make a plan to grow it.
Happy browsing!