Blog Entry 6 - CREW

CREW Site (Source: My Camera)

I had never visited the CREW site before. I had heard some things about it but actually never set foot there. All I knew was that the site was somewhere in North Fort Myers. I had initially assumed it was some sort of educational facility, teaching those about sustainable practices that could lesson our impact on the environment. When we arrived, I was a quite surprised. It looked pretty much like a small farm! One that grows all sorts of plants, from rice, to bamboo, to sweet potatoes, to bananas. The purpose of the site seemed to be to demonstrate how it is possible to grow a wide variety of plants in a small amount of land. Perhaps the most interesting plant I learned about there was the one referred to as "Moringa". This was the one we were invited to eat the leaves of while we were there. I was amazed at the amount of uses the plant had. The leaves are incredibly nutritious, loaded with protein and multiple vitamins. The seeds were also interesting as they could filter water with a high degree of efficiency. I remember at one point our guide raised two water bottles, one contained filthy water, and one contained fairly clean looking water. He proceeded to tell us that the water from both bottles came from the same source (the duck pond), but that the almost-clean looking water had been filtered using Moringa seeds. The usefulness of that single plant was truly outstanding. As we walked through the site we were also shown how man-made items, such as old tires and soda cans, could be used to grow plants in areas that lacked suitable soil. While the site was not quite what I had initially pictured it being, I think the trip ended up being a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be.

Cactus Plant (Source: My Camera)

Rice Field (Source: My Camera)