Food Forest

The first day of class we went over the syllabus and the general guidelines of the class, just like every other class I've ever been in, but once we got all of that out of the way we got to go on a little nature walk through campus.  FGCU is unlike any other school, it is a "green" school, and one of the ways that it promotes environmental sustainability is by having a food forest on campus.  The food forest is a student run botanical garden that was began in April of 2011.  Starting from just a patch of land it is now home to many different kinds of plants.  Through our tour of the forest we were able to eat many different kinds of beans, which I had to try everyone, along with some fruits.  Many of the fruits were not in bloom but I did get to see baby Strawberries and Banana trees.  The Banana trees were particularly interesting to me because they would grow at an extremely fast rate but once they produced a "hand" of Bananas they would not produce again and have to be cut down.  After thinking about it, I suppose that is a good thing that they get cut down after growing a crop because otherwise they would multiply at such an alarming rate that they could take over the whole forest.  I truly enjoy going around and looking and learning about the different kinds of plants that we surround ourselves with, especially when I get to eat them.