ŽALIA STOTELĖ PROJECT
In 2011 Sėklos agricultural company together with Public Institution Rūpi initiated the Project Žalia stotelė.
The initiative was aimed at educating the creative and responsible young generation through gardening. The goal is to offer the opportunity for children to learn important life skills through growing plants, to develop their ecological consciousness and encourage them to explore the surrounding live environmental through sensations (smell, touch, hearing).
The project is intended for, and links Lithuanian educational institutions (kindergartens, schools, foster homes and day centres) which can establish, and established green islands in their territories and include the growth of plants in the educational process of children. Children gardening is different than conventional gardening as it promotes internal experiences of children, and creativity of the young gardeners in garden beds. Moreover, gardening is different every year as educational institutions are presented their topic of the year, for example, “A square metre garden”, “The Lithuanian garden” etc.
The initiative starts in early spring and continues to autumn harvesting. After the end of the growing season cooking workshops and healthy lifestyle classes are organised.
In 2016 the project was renamed to Žalia pėda.
THE PROJECT BRINGS TOGETHER
3 500 |
62 |
| children creating small gardens | Lithuanian educational institutions |
FOOD BANK
The company has participated in the food bank complaints for a number of times. Volunteers awarded the most generous benefactors with seeds of various vegetables, flowers and herbs, thus expressing the appreciation and the hope that the sprouts of goodness will yield abundant and available harvest in the future. Hopefully, the gifts of nature growing on the windowsill not only will bring joy to the eyes and the palate, but will be a pleasant reminder of the assistance to those whose life is not so easy.
ANTAKALNIS KITCHEN-GARDEN – THE GARDEN OF ANTAKALNIS RESIDENTS
In 2016, the company helped Antakalnis neighbourhood community from Vilnius to arrange the city garden “Antakalnis kitchen-garden – the garden of Antakalnis residents” with 18 beds. Various vegetables and herbs were sown and grown in it: carrot, pea, radish, leafy beetroot, turnip etc., along with tomatoes, peppers, bell peppers, watermelons in the upgraded greenhouse.
The company organised a cycle of seminars offering the citizen useful information about tree pruning, planting and care.
The following events were organised as part of the community initiative “Antakalnis kitchen-garden – the garden of Antakalnis residents”: “Bed installation” – involving all members in care for installation of one square metre garden beds, seeding the seeds and organising the environment; “One day restaurant” involving the community in cooking food from self grown vegetables. The variety of dishes was amazing – the menu included as many as 17 meals one of which, green tomato chutney, got the name of Žalia stotele. The meal was made of tomatoes grown in the company test fields. The centrepiece of the growing season was the “Harvest festival” with its main accent – a pumpkin, – the most abundant vegetable in Antakalnis gardens.