Fourteen LSU AgCenter agents attended a workshop to learn how to establish and teach about butterfly gardens. Through an Innovation Grant, the agents will establish butterfly gardens in their parishes and teach children about the butterfly life cycle and plants that attract butterflies. The document lists the agents and parishes that will receive new butterfly gardens.

1. Veggie Bytes
LSU AgCenter Innovation Grant provides 14 new butterfly
gardens across the state
Fourteen agents attended a butterfly
garden workshop on March 20 with
the intent of learning about all aspects
of growing a butterfly garden.
Agents were provided with the tools
and knowledge to establish a butterfly
garden in each of their respective par-ishes.
These agents are also equipped
with several butterfly activities to teach
children about a butterfly’s life cycle,
insect eating habits and plant propaga-tion
of butterfly nectar and host plants.
If you’re interested in starting a butter-fly
garden and live in one of these par-ishes
contact these agents, they are the
experts!
Agents that attended include:
Stephanie Gravois (Ascension Parish)
Betsy Crigler (Tensas Parish)
Ruby Miller (Cameron Parish )
Sandra Benjamin (Tangipahoa Parish)
Steve Borel (West Baton Rouge Parish)
Brandon Sostand (East Carroll Parish)
Monica Laborde (West Feliciana Parish)
Inside this issue:
Butterfly Garden 1
LSU AgMagic 2013 2
Timber Rot 2
What’s Growing? 3
Recipes 4
Book Recommendation 5
Terrarium How-to 6
May-June-July
2013
Volume 4 Issue 2
Growing Gardens!
Kathryn “KiKi” Fontenot, Ph.D.
155 JC Miller Hall Baton Rouge, LA 70803
LSU AgCenter
Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station
Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service
William B. Richardson, Chancellor
The LSU AgCenter is a statewide campus of the
LSU System and provides equal opportunities in
programs and employment.
Cathy Judd (Lincoln Parish)
Carol Sensley (Calcasieu Parish)
Kenneth Guidry (St. James Parish)
Andrew Loyd (Orleans Parish)
Veronica Del Bianco (Orleans Par-ish)
Natalie Savoy (St. Helena Parish)
Mark Carriere (Pointe Coupee Par-ish)
AgCenter agents listen to Dr. Fontenot de-scribe
the Burden Center butterfly garden

2. Page 2 Veggie Bytes
AgMagic at LSU
The last week of April, LSU hosted
AgMagic where children from
around the state were given the
opportunity to learn about Louisi-ana
agriculture including alliga-tors,
crawfish, baby chicks, dig-ging
for sweet potatoes and so
much more!
Thanks to Will Afton and Dr. Ed
Bush for the pictures!
Hopefully students won’t be yelling TIMBER at your school!
Oh no school gardeners, timber is falling… in
the garden! ‘Timber rot’, a disease in toma-toes,
is showing up in Louisiana. Timber rot is
caused by the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. It
usually occurs in wet, cool conditions like
we’ve been having this year! Symptoms of
timber rot are seen when the base of the
main trunk is girdled or cut. After several
days the top of the plant will wilt and die; you
may see white, fluffy mycelium (puffy white
stuff) growing around the area where the
base of the tomato trunk has started to rot. If
you cut the tomato trunk open you’ll see
hard, black, pea-sized sclerotia (1/4 inch) in-side
the stem. If you see these symptoms in
your tomatoes, immediately remove the
plant and throw it in the trash. Do not place
these plants in a compost bin as this may
spread the disease. Rotate your crops. Do
not grow tomatoes in your garden year
round as this may increase the likelihood
of the disease re-occurring in your school
garden! Scouting for diseases and insects is
important! Always remove unhealthy plant
materials from the garden and don’t throw
rotting fruit into the garden. Let’s hope
for a clean healthy spring garden!
We taught the children how plants can
grow below ground by letting them dig for
sweet potatoes.
Eggplant, tomato and cayenne pepper plants were on
display to show how vegetables grow above ground.

3. Volume 4 Issue 2 Page 3
Keep cool this summer with these refreshing cucumber recipes!
Book Recommendation
July:
Start seeds for broccoli, bell pepper,
brussel sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower
Direct seed collard greens, okra and
watermelons
Plant tomato transplants (Heat set ) for
fall harvest
August:
Direct seed snap, lima, and butter
beans, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts,
Chinese cabbage, cabbage, collard greens,
cucumbers, lettuce, mustard greens,
okra, shallots, and turnips.
Transplant cauliflower and tomatoes
There’s always
something to do in
the garden! Louisi-ana
gardeners are
lucky to be able to
grow vegetable
plants year round.
Remember, students only want to plant
what they can harvest. If you have plans
for summer camps, classes or activities
you may want to wait to plant until stu-dents
return in the fall.
But if you or your stu-dents
plan on keeping the
garden growing, check
out these suggestions for
the next few months.
May:
Direct seed snap, lima and butter beans
(both bush and pole), collards, okra,
southern peas, pumpkins (for early har-vest),
winter squash, sweet corn, water-melons
Transplant sweet potatoes
June:
Direct seed pumpkins (for early har-vest)
collards, okra and southern peas
Transplant sweet potatoes and toma-toes
(for fall harvest)
Tzatziki Sauce
Ingredients:
2-8 oz containers of plain yogurt
2 cucumbers-peeled, sliced and
diced
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tbsp. chopped fresh dill
3 cloves garlic, peeled
Directions:
 In a food processor or blender, com-bine
yogurt cucumber, olive oil, lemon
juice, dill and garlic. Process until well
combined.
 Transfer to a separate dish, cover and
refrigerate for at least one hour for best
flavor.
Serve with garden vegetables, warmed pita,
or baked chips
Not a science teacher but would like
to participate in the garden? Gardens
go beyond the typical photosynthesis
and life cycle lessons. All kinds of edu-cational
based activities can be com-pleted
in a garden setting. Just think
outside the garden box!
Check out the National Garden Associa-tions
Math in the Garden curriculum
book. This curriculum offers lessons that
build on student’s curiosity, promote in-quiry,
language arts, nutrition, and team-work.
Activities cover numbers, opera-tions,
algebra, measurement, geometry,
patterns, and data analysis and is age ap-propriate
for students aged 5-13.
What’s Growing?
Cool Cucumber and Mint Water
Ingredients:
12-24 ice cubes
1 gallon cold water
3 sliced cucumbers
5 fresh mint leaves
Combine all ingredients in a large pitcher and keep
cool.

4. A terrarium is a contained garden usually grown indoors under indirect light conditions.
Before planting your terrarium, you first must select a suitable container.
• Choose a clear container because plants need light to grow. Terrariums are usually glass,
but they also can be fashioned out of plastic containers such as fish aquariums.
Step 1. Clean your container. Use a 10 percent bleach solution to remove any bacteria or fungus
that may be in the container.
Step 2. Add a layer of gravel or rocks to a depth of at least 1 inch. Among the choices are fish rocks with colors, pea
gravel and river rocks. Unlike garden beds, terrariums do not have drainage holes, so the rocks serve as a drainage
layer.
Step 3. Add soil. You will need to incorporate activated charcoal into the soil to keep out unwanted odors. Some
growers add the charcoal as a layer between the rocks and the soil or you can mix the two together. Look at the
root ball of the plants you are using in the terrarium. How deep are those roots? The soil needs to be at least as
deep as the root ball of the plant. Generally, the drainage material, charcoal and soil take up about a third of the
container’s space.
• Remember that different plants have different needs. Succulent plants (cactus) require much
less water than other plants. Use sand in place of soil if growing succulents.
Step 4. Choose healthy plants that are free of insects and disease for your terrarium. Group
similar plants together in the terrarium. For example, don’t mix a cactus with a fern because
they have totally different water requirements. Place the plants in the soil only as deep as the
original root ball. Do not plant them too deep. If planting a groundcover or moss, add this last.
Have fun grouping different plants together to make a miniature garden.
Visit www.lsuagcenter.com/schoolgardens for more information on terrariums
and terrarium maintenance
Planting a Terrarium
You can make a terrarium
out of anything! We used
mason jars, cookie jars, old
lab jars and fish tanks. Use
rocks, pebbles, seashells,
colored sand, figurines and
mosses for some extra dec-oration!