Growcology International

One of the main motivations for founding Growcology was to learn as much as we can about how things grow, and to share that knowledge with our hometowns, our home country, and the rest of the world. We've been learning so much about how plants grow, how our own ideas grow, and how organizations and human systems grow, we're finally getting to the level where our projects have grown beyond our home base of Riverside.
This month, two of our founding board members, Nick and Bianca, are visiting South America. They've been given a great opportunity to link up with a Peruvian organization named ANIA, Tierra de los Ninos, and ImagineThisTV. Bianca will be speaking at an international conference in Puerto Maldonado on plants and plant medicine, and Nick will be reunited with his friends from ANIA who he worked with for 7 months and connecting them with documentary film crew to highlight the work they're doing.

Tierra de los Ninos is a truly amazing organization. Their philosophy is that children need to be empowered in their formative years, so they do a form of Asset Based Community Development with 7-12 year old children and then donate a parcel of land to the kids themselves and have them and their families fix it up. They create beautiful community gardens and playgrounds in a wide range of environments, using almost only the local resources and planned almost exclusively by the children.
At Growcology we're interested in learning from the best, and Tierra de los Ninos is one of the best non-profits around. They've got a proven track record for over 10 years, and a whole curriculum that will be invaluable for our own children's garden.

We're also working on a project called Global Gratitude Gardens, where we'll be encouraging people around the world to find out what their heritage is for food and farming techniques, then link up with local organizations and farmers to create living seed banks and social enterprise incubators. More on that later!

Growcology's New Partners

The last month has been a blur of activity and exciting new partnerships. The Growcology Learning Center has built over a dozen new gardens in collaboration with various organizations, and have embarked on several ambitious ventures for the coming year.

Our Chef's du Potager program is gaining steam, as seedlings break through the soil and the contest's participants salivate in anticipation of delicious their bounty of home-grown produce. Twenty tow students from RCC's Culinary Academy have broken into teams of two to test their mettle and see who can create the tastiest treats from their gardens at the Growcology Learning Center.

We're also excited to announce a partnership with the Master Gardener program through the UC Cooperative Extension. We've donated a section of our garden to the current crop of Master Gardener trainees to develop a "Grow Lab", where they can try out different vegetable growing techniques that they're learning. The Master Gardener phone squad will also employ the "Grow Lab" for their community outreach. An added benefit will be a whole slew of knowledgeable Master Gardeners on site at the Growcology Learning Center to help our volunteers and partners with their projects.


Stay tuned for more developments as we announce some exciting new programs! We're going to be teaming up with some international non-profits to roll out a "Global Gratitude Garden" project that will pay homage to our ancestors and fore-fathers by creating living seed banks world-wide.