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EarthBox Education:
Junior Kindergarteners are
Top Gardeners!
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Outside the Junior Kindergarten classroom door at Rossman School in Creve Coeur, Missouri, an EarthBox sprouted lettuce, spinach, peas, and beans this past spring. The harvest was immediately enjoyed by twenty junior kindergarteners. For some, it was the first time they had eaten salad -- and to the teachers' amazement, some ate the greens without dressing!
These students were not only the consumers of this produce, but they were the gardeners as well. They planted seeds in peat pots in late February, and witnessed germination as the sprouts appeared. In early April, they transplanted the seedlings into the EarthBox, all of them helping to assemble the EarthBox, dig the holes, and water the plants each day (watering was their favorite part of the process). In May, these enthusiastic gardeners consumed the fruits of their labor.
Teachers Christie Castagno, Diane Vujnich, and Mary Dryden are delighted with the success of this first EarthBox project, and will plant again this school year. They hope to add another EarthBox to their classroom, so they can expand their growing projects with the children.
Says Ms. Castagno, "In this era of encouraging healthy eating, it was wonderful to see ALL 20 students devour the salad they made from the lettuce and spinach. We'll also plant green peas this year, because the students learned by shelling the peas that the seed is edible in the pod."
http://www.rossmanschool.org/ For
information on starting an EarthBox project of your own, click here
or contact our Education Department at 1-800-821-8838, ext. 8348 or 8369.
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We Have a Winner!
We've chosen the latest winner in our ongoing photo contest!
Brian Grasmick of Torrington, Wyoming will receive a $25 EarthBox gift certificate for his wonderful photo of tomatoes planted this past Mother's Day!
Here's Brian's winning entry:
We'll be posting more winners as we choose them -- and we're still waiting to hear from you! |
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Photo of the Month Contest
Want
to win a $25 EarthBox
gift certificate? Send us
your EarthBox success photos with the word "contest" in the subject
line of your email, and you could be a winner!
Please make sure your image is in .JPG format and
at least 640×480 pixels or 5 x 7 inches at 72 dpi. We'll pick a new winner every month, and post the
entry in an upcoming issue.
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Greetings!
I hope you've had a pleasant summer!
I don't know about you, but I've been looking forward to the fall for a while now...and it's finally upon us. The days may be nice and warm for a while yet, but the nights will soon be getting much cooler.
Some of you may have already planted cool weather crops and flowers, but don't give up completely on their warm weather counterparts yet. If you live in a warm climate, there's still time to enjoy some of them. Read on to learn more!
Happy harvesting,
 Frank DiPaolo EarthBox |
 | Cool Weather Planting
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The transition from late summer to early fall offers most gardeners a chance to squeeze in a second round of vegetables, depending on how long it takes your crop to mature and which growing zone you live in. Some of you will be enjoying an "Indian summer" from September through November, for example. You're really in luck if you have mild winters in your zone, because some plants will grow right on through the cold weather.
If you're uncertain about what to grow in the fall, you should definitely consult with your local county extension agent for the best crops for your area, as well as your average frost dates. Needless to say, you should select early variety/fast maturing crops for the best results; and if you're planting seeds, remember to check the seed packet for the number of days to harvest.
Leaf lettuces, spinach (which can be safely over-wintered), broccoli, cabbages, mustard greens, beans, and root crops such as beets, carrots, parsnips, radishes, turnips and rutabagas are all excellent cool-weather vegetables you might want to try.
For those who want to plant flowers, there are so many choices of lovely textures and colors. For example, you can try fall pansies (the classic cool-weather flower), violas, dwarf asters, mums, ornamental kale and cabbage, greater periwinkle, and various other cool season annuals.
And by the way, even if you live in a cooler climate, you can still extend the season with cold frames, mini-greenhouses and frost covers. There's no reason to stop your outdoor gardening quite yet, just because the year's winding down and Old Man Winter is on his way!
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| Fresh from the Forum
Pass the Pineapple, Please!
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Did you know that you can grow
pineapples in your EarthBox? It'll take a while, but it's definitely possible
-- and by all accounts it's worth the wait! Find out more about growing
pineapples from some of your fellow EarthBoxers right here. |
| Retailer of the Month
Mother Earth Gardens
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Each month, we at EarthBox salute one of our valued retailers. This month we highlight Mother Earth Gardens of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
 Mother Earth's philosophy and approach to gardening include the words organic, sustainable, local, family, and independently and cooperatively owned. The dedicated staff honors the pledge to follow eco-friendly principles every day, in numerous ways. Home-brewed compost tea is fed to the crops, soils contain beneficial organisms for optimum health, plants enjoy soy-based fertilizer, biological products and predatory insects keep diseases at bay, and much of the growing media is derived from discarded food crops.
In addition to healthy, robust plants, shrubs and trees, at Mother Earth the shopper will find an array of vegetables, herbs, seeds, bulbs, pots and holiday items to accent gardens and homes. They can also avail themselves of the informative seminars held periodically at Mother Earth Gardens. Quick reference guides, planting charts, articles and newsletters are just a click away on their website. A relatively new service is garden consultations, which include a drawing, a list of recommended plants, and a store discount offer.
Mother Earth's devotion to Earth-gentle gardening, energy conservation practices, and a pot recycling program are just some of the many reasons that this full-service garden center won the City Pages Best Garden Center award for 2010!
Stop by for a visit at:
3738 42nd Ave. South
Minneapolis, Minnesota
612-724-2296
Monday - Friday 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Saturday - 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sunday - 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
www.motherearthgarden.com |
| From Our Customers
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 "I
did a little taste test comparison against some blueberries I bought from Costco...and
mine won! What a difference in flavor! And mine were FREE!!!!
"My family laughed at me when I first planted these back in 2002.... They ain't
laughin' no mo'!"
Tania
Southern California
Zone 10
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| Join Our Community
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EarthBox is on Facebook! Now you can become a fan of EarthBox, joining a community of fellow EarthBox users for conversations, advice and photo sharing -- or just to check out whatever new information EarthBox has to enhance your gardening experience.
And don't forget to check out our videos! This is a members only feature, so if you're not already a Facebook member, you'll need to sign up to view the videos.
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| Ordering | |
To place an order, call us at 866-727-5532 (24/7) or visit our online store. |
| About EarthBox
| The patented EarthBox was developed by commercial farmers, and proven in the lab and on the farm. Our maintenance-free, award-winning, high-tech growing system controls soil conditions, eliminates guesswork, and more than doubles the yield of a conventional garden -- with less fertilizer, less water and virtually no effort.
It's used successfully on a daily basis by commercial farmers, educators, and consumers. Distributors are also finding it to be a popular growing system.
EarthBox is a remarkably easy-to-set-up system that can be used to grow produce virtually anywhere. EarthBox systems have been incorporated into community gardens all over the world, enabling families and neighbors to share fresh produce, while minimizing work and expenses.
EarthBoxes can even be found in classrooms. Our EarthBox Pre-K through 12th grade standards-based curriculum can bring science to life, with hands-on cross-curricula lessons that teach principles of growing and nutrition utilizing the scientific method in student-driven experiments.
To find out more, visit www.earthbox.com. To request a catalog, call 888-917-3908. |
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