Miracle fruit - what is the big deal?

We have a small miracle fruit plant growing in the Food Forest. No one is allowed to pick the berries without supervision so we can experience the miracle together. Today on the last day of garden club, Mr. Hanson brought a bag of lemons and we got to experience the before and after taste transformation. We all took a bite out a slice of the lemons to taste the sourness of the citrus. Then we ate the fruit from the miracle berry and tried the lemon again. It was amazingly sweet, without any lingering sourness.

Sophia, Kayleigh, Kala taking a bite out of miracle berry. No sour faces here!

About the Miracle Fruit from Wikipedia:

Synsepalum dulcificum is a plant known for its berry that, when eaten, causes sour foods (such as lemons and limes) subsequently consumed to taste sweet. This effect is due to miraculin. Common names for this species and its berry include miracle fruit,^[2] miracle berry, miraculous berry,^[2] sweet berry,^[3][4][5] and in West Africa, where the species originates, agbayun,^[6] taami, asaa, and ledidi.

The berry itself has a low sugar content^[7] and a mildly sweet tang. It contains a glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin.^[8][9] When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. At neutral pH, miraculin binds and blocks the receptors, but at low pH (resulting from ingestion of sour foods) miraculin binds proteins and becomes able to activate the sweet receptors, resulting in the perception of sweet taste.^[10] This effect lasts until the protein is washed away by saliva (up to about 30 minutes).^[11]

The names miracle fruit and miracle berry are shared by Gymnema sylvestre and Thaumatococcus daniellii,^[2] which are two other species of plant used to alter the perceived sweetness of foods.

Strawberries in the garden

Lucian found the one and only strawberry left in the garden. The strawberry plants are well hidden as they are growing with the perennial peanut, a hearty ground cover that adds nitrogen to the soil.

We cannot quite see the one strawberry left in the garden. It did get eaten!

Herb Spiral - a creative addition to the Food Forest

The herb spiral is a fun and practical way to grow herbs. You need rocks, mulch and some sand or debris to create the structure for the spiral and some good soil to top off it off and for planting the herbs. We put some of the heartier herbs, like rosemary, at the top and added several kinds of mint and basil. The challenge will be to keep it watered.

The start of the spiral, not bad for eyeballing the shape

Adding mulch and sand to build up the center

The stone walls lean inward for stability.

Visiting Arborist - Tammy Kovar

Arborist, Tammy Kovar came to visit the Bay Haven Food Forest and share her wealth of knowledge. The students and volunteers learned about nature's WWW, Wood-Wide-Web, the network of communication between the trees and what they are trying to tell us. We have some repair work do. Tammy gave us our first assignment, removing the black plastic from the base of the trees covering the root flair.

Tammy identified some problems with the avocado tree.  

Here are a few other things we learned from Tammy:

• prune trees when it is cold and they are dormant
• always cut at an angle when pruning 
• it takes 500 grams of water to produce one gram of a leaf
• fruit trees need a dry period in order to produce fruit. 
• must have sufficient air movement between plants

We had tons of questions. The children ran off in search of butterflies while the volunteers tried to gather as much information as possible. 

Tammy Kovar is owner of Biological Tree Services in Sarasota.  www.biologicaltreeservices.com

Butterfly hotel in the Food Forest

Who would think that a old wire fence would make a lovely place for caterpillars to transform into magnificent butterflies. Our caterpillar has formed  a perfect J shape just as nature instructed. Now she is ready to start building her Crysalis.

She has a way to go to catch up with her neighbor on floor above her who got a head start.

And by the way, there are many more caterpillars in the garden, some quite large. They find a lot to eat in our food forest. Does a large caterpillar make a large butterfly?

Spring in the Food Forest

Spring is not obvious in Florida, a place where most plants stay green all year round. But many plants are quietly dormant during the winter when there is not much rain and the sun is not high in the sky.  It was a nice surprise to see what has blossomed when I visited the garden on Wednesday, the last Wednesday in March.

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 The mulberry tree is filled with tiny green blossoms, about to become red, ripe and ready to eat. They will go fast when our  Food Forest garden bees discover them. 

There are several fig trees that now have large green leaves. Not sure when the fruit will appear. And the banana tree has another bunch developing, each little banana sprout has a flour at the tip.

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Those are flowers on the tips of the banana!. 

Getting to know our pollinators

Is Balthazar being mistaken for a flower?

          

Is it possible that this butterfly is one of the caterpillars we found in the garden last week?

Probably not!

Butterflies and moths have four stages of life: egg, larva (the caterpillar stage), pupa (the chrysalis phase in a butterfly's development), and adult. It takes a monarch butterfly just 28 to 38 days to complete its life cycle, with warmer temperatures generally being responsible for faster development

More information about the life cycle of a butterfly

Our Moringa story

Have you heard about Moringa?  It is often called the Miracle Tree. We have several in the Food Forest. Both needed to be propped up after a night of stormy weather. Apparently this has happened before so it did not come as a surprise. Since nothing goes to waste in the Food Forest, the Moringa leaves were collected and taken home for drying. Soon they will be ready to eat or drink for tea.

Wild wind and rain hits the Food Forest

We had one windy day that brought down several trees. Unfortunately the banana  tree with the weight of a large bunch of bananas couldn't withstand the wind. Nothing goes wasted in the food forest, though.

The fallen tree went back in the banana circle to provide nutrients for the remaining trees.

Growing lettuce in Earth Boxes - a success story

Mr. Hanson demonstrating how to prepare the Earth box

Earth boxes ready to grow

Bay Haven had a bumper crop of lettuce thanks to the help of students in the first and second grade s who prepared the boxes and planted lettuce and kale. The lettuce was harvested for consumption at the holiday dinner on December 15. We all got dizzy and wet that day form rinsing and spinning the lettuce. 

Learn more about the Earth Box. 

Spinning lettuce - fun if you like to get dizzy