The Problem
Bee Disciples is a project that promotes bee populations and spreads awareness about bees and their role in our environment.
Bee Disciples carries this project by reaching out to churches in the San Fernando Valley and work with them to build vertical gardens and teaching the church community how to sustain the gardens as well as making them socially aware of bees.
This will help promote bee population as well as teaching others of the significance of bees and spreading awareness.
What is grown in the vertical gardens of Bee Disciples will then be given to food banks in order to help relieve poverty within the community.
Our Plan
Action 1: Building vertical gardens
Required Skills and Resources:
The resources needed be able to build a vertical garden would be first off wood, now it would be easier and more cost effective to use recycled wood, this would take many forms, but in reality we would be really using only the recycled wood that be most effective to us this would mostly include planks of wood. The next thing that would be required would be plastic, this plastic would be stapled to the inside of the vertical garden to keep the soil the most moist, and keep from the moisture to seep out through the wood, The next thing that is needed is to snake through a rubber hose that would allow for drip irrigation, this would inevitably stabled also to the wood. Then we would plant our native species of plants, in the vertical gardens, the final step would to cover the front of the garden with decorative wood work or not and hang the garden
Measure: we plan to plant and construct about 5 or so vertical gardens
Action 2: Planting a pollinator habitat in the center of the vegetable garden
Required Skills and Resources: To be able to do this we will need to to have a fixed center where the habitat garden will be placed, we can depending on the actual area of the space that we are working in either build a raised garden bed for the habitat or just put in the existing soil. For putting it into the existing soil we would actually first need to fix the soil. And to do that organically and sustainably we can use two different methods the first method being to actually use cover crops to break down compacted soil and put nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil, of course this would be need to be done before the planting season and then taking out after the planting season has begun. The other method that can be done is to do a correct composting method where then we would be able to put our now organic material on the soil in many inches then we would did in this organic material, the decomposition of this organic material will rejuvenate the soil and bring back nutrients and so it will be easy to plant native plants that would attract native pollinators.
Measure:. Essentially this would measured by the actually area of green space that is managed to be planted.
Action 3: set up location where bees are actually able to drink water
Required Skills and Resources: This actually is not that hard and there are many different ways to do this and the easiest really is to just have bins that are filled with marbles and water, the marbles are used so that the bees that visit the habitat will not drown in the water, eventually they would need to be cleaned because it will get significantly dirty considering it deals with the bees and it is a still body of water
Measure: We will consider this a success when about 2 of these are created
Action 4: measure the amount of bees and the different species
Required Skills and Resources: essentially this is done by creating transect lines and quadrants, along the habitat, with the quadrant we will be marking ever meter and finding a rough percentage of bees that cover the area of the quadrant, then we will further narrow it down by determining the actual species of bees in the quadrant and the rough percentage of the population that is in the quadrant, this will tell us the population density of the bees in the designated area, and so as a result we will be able to determine if it was a success if the density of bees grow.
Measure: the population density of bees in the area
Advocacy Action 1: we will be essentially advocating for local bee populations by involving the church goers in the planting, so they will understand the importance of bees
Required Skills and Resources:
Really there will be no resources required other than the ones that already had been mentioned considering the actual land will be on a church
Measure: how many volunteers we are able to accumulate
Action 1: Teach how to compost
Required Skills and Resources:
Really there is two things that can be done to get compost and the first is just to get compost from an organization for free, but that really does not teach people how to garden sustainably so to compost the first thing that is done is to create a compost pile and really this is just things that would normally be thrown away and these things include things like old vegetables or fruits that have begun to turn or when we feel them before we cook them the peelings. But don’t use garlic or onion peels because it turns away earthworms. This all can be then put into a black revolving container, or a revolving container painted black, the idea is to heat up the compost to get the microbial actions going. The combination of green items like herbs or other things they are wet and dry items or brown items that are dried up are essential to compost. It may be easier to begin if we use compost starter.
Measure:
This can be measured actually by the biomass of the plants that we are trying to grow so their height etc.
Action 2: teach how to do drip irrigation
Required Skills and Resources:
Drip irrigation is really the process by which we can water our plants but without having to spend all that much water and the flower bed is still very moist, and we do this by really just having a timer and rubber houses, where we run it through the soil and every so often it drips water into the soil
Measure: this can be measured by the biomass of the plants so their height.
Action 3: teach which plants grow in this chaparral climate
Required Skills and Resources:
There are some plants that grow best in some of these environments, really the only thing that needs to be done here is to teach about native plants and their benefits to the native bee population
Measure:this can measured by the density of the the bees that come visit, because they will be most attracted to the native plants
Action 4: teach the importance of pollinators in planting
Required Skills and Resources: This really is just teaching about the importance of bees to those who attend the church that we well be occupying
Measure: this can be measured by the attendance of the people who want to help plant our gardens
Advocacy Action 1: teach these things to people attending the church
Required Skills and Resources: nothing is really needed for this considering that the planting will be taking place on the church
Measure: this can be measured by the actual number of people who begin attending and helping with the garden
Significant Issue 3: Providing fresh produce to low income/homeless peoples
Scholarly Research:
Local Organization/ People Working on Issue: this would include things like the los angeles food bank
Action 1: harvest the food that is produced
Required Skills and Resources:
Really this is just taking volunteers form the church where we are located and we begin by having these individuals help pick the food, this is fairly simple, considering all that is required is a gentle hand
Measure: this can be measured by actually the pounds of food that is harvested
Action 2: the food that is then harvested will be donated to a local food bank
Required Skills and Resources: this can be one in two different types of ways the first thing that can be done is to begin a food pantry at the church that we have selected to be based at, and with this food pantry we can access the food and teach people how to cook healthier meals and serve the food to lower income families
Measure: this can be measured by actually the amount or pounds of food that is donated to the food pantry
Action 3: healthy diets can be taught with the food that that is produced
Required Skills and Resources:
Really since we will be only growing vegetables and fruits in our garden we will only be able to show how to cook vegan or vegetarian diets, so the first thing for us to actually make this happen is to actually start by learning how to cook ourselves and we can do this by either learning from cook books or things online, then we would need a space to actually show people how to cook theses things the food pantries may be able to help with this
Measure:this can be measured by actually the number of people that attend the class session
Action 4:create sort of a soup kitchen, where food is distributed to low income people, the same food that is grown
Required Skills and Resources:
This can be done at a food pantry or soup kitchen, we will be able to serve lower income families or the homeless healthier meals using the actual food that we have harvested and donated
Measure: this can be measured by the amount of food or pounds of food that was initially donated being converted into food at soup kitchens
Advocacy Action 1: teach about how bees and other pollinators can increase the harvest yield in agriculture, and why they are beneficial to harvests
Required Skills and Resources:
To teach individuals actually about the importance of bees in harvesting and agriculture we can just allow them to help us when we are planting and harvesting our crops in our garden, it will allow them to see that there was a significant amount of food that had been created, with the use of pollinators
Measure: this can be measured by the amount of people from the church who volunteer to help us in our garden and ints maintenance
