Coronavirus Survivor Mini-farm:

Attention everyone!

Picking up the skill to grow your own edible food plants is now more crucial than ever!

Your food garden can be on your balcony, common corridor, or front yard.

As long as you have a sunny site, you can grow vegetables, herbs, mini fruit plants and wild greens, in a variety of containers, or in the ground.

We can customise-design and set up a plot of any size and scale to suit your time and abilities.

Attention all teachers!

We can create plant study plots in your schools, of any theme, size and cost.

These in-school garden plots will be living resources for you and your students at your doorstep.

Here are several themes to get your students curious about our amazing plant kingdom:

Plant Study plot:

A curated collection of flowering and non-flowering plants to study a diversity of growth forms, leaf shapes and patterns, colours and textures. Key topics: diversity, adaptation, reproduction modes.

Strange Plants! plot:

This plot will feature plants with strange forms and incredible abilities that help them survive in their habitats. The pitcher plant is a carnivore, while the ant plant has a symbiotic relationship with ants. Others such as the air plants simply grow dangling in the air using their specialised leaves to absorb water and nutrients. Parasitic plants grow roots into their host plant victims to steal nutrients.

Evolution plot:

A curated collection of floral living fossils to showcase how plant life have evolved over millennia. Worm-like liverworts, fuzzy mosses, feathery ferns and spiky cycads have been around even before the age of the dinosaurs. And they are still here today…unchanged!

Mangrove Plants plot:

A selection of plants from our native mangrove forest ecosystem to showcase their unusual adaptations to their unique habitat.

Wall Garden plot:

This plot will showcase the cliff-hangers and rock climbers of the plant world. Their special adaptations and growth habits can be easily studied without the skill and need to climb a rock wall.

Wildflower Meadow plot:

Don’t be square, have a shaggy wildflower meadow! Is a well-manicured garden not your cup of tea?

Do you like plants to grow as they please? Does a tapestry of mixed-up flowers delight you? Then this is the perfect garden for you.

Useful Plants plot:

Food wrappers, baskets, mats, brooms, bags, tools.…these are just a few of the numerous items made of plant materials that we use in our daily life. This plot will showcase plants and their amazing variety of uses.

And also:

Fungi plot:

Watching fungi form and grow is fun! This plot will feature dead logs and leaf litter to create a suitable habitat for fungi, and also a community of leaf litter critters.

Other garden themes:

Biodiversity, butterfly & moth, herb and vegetable, fragrant plants, roof garden, pond garden.

Any other special interest themed plots can be customised, designed, created and curated.

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Contact us for suggestions and a cost quotation.

Email: contactctep@gmail.com

Check out some of the species of plants we have grown:

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stop the killing and consumption of pangolins in illegal wildlife trade

The impact of COVID-19 on the world at large is unprecedented. Thousands of lives have been lost and the virus has wreaked havoc on the economy and global trade.

As at 28 March 2020, there were over 30,419 deaths across the world, with more expected in places far removed from the virus source.

There were over 1,700 deaths in the United States. In Italy alone, the death toll has crossed 10,000, overwhelming morgues. Spain lost 832 lives in 24 hours, adding to a death toll of 5690 — Madrid had to turn an ice skating rink into a morgue.

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the illegal trade threatens public health worldwide

Pangolins were a suspected host for COVID-19 (also known as SARS-CoV-2), wrote scientists Lam, et al. (2020) in a report published in the “Nature” journal.

Their research — fast-tracked into publication in March to aid epidemiological research and the search for a vaccine or cure — identified cousins of COVID-19 or “SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) seized in anti-smuggling operations in southern China”.

The researchers conclude: “pangolins should be considered as possible hosts in the emergence of novel coronaviruses and should be removed from wet markets to prevent zoonotic transmission“.

Although the findings are disputed, the same Chinese team concluded that “Pangolin-CoV, was the second-closest relative of Sars-CoV-2 as the two viruses were 91.02 per cent identical”.

Scientists are not sure how COVID-19 moved from an animal to a human because the animal and patient zero – the first person to be infected – haven’t yet been identified.

Whatever the origin of the virus, the World Bank suggests that the illegal wildlife trade was likely the conduit through which COVID-19 carrying animals came into contact with humans. 70 percent of disease-causing pathogens discovered in the past 50 years come from animals, says the WHO.

How many more lives must be lost before we act?

View this post on Instagram

A very sad day at the office @wildaid . Repost @natural_history_museum The pangolin pit, by conservation photojournalist @paulhiltonphoto, shows the desperate story of the world's most trafficked mammal. It shows about 4,000 dead, frozen pangolins that were seized by Indonesian police. Poachers kill hundreds of thousands each year, largely because the hard scales covering their bodies are thought to be medicinal in some communities. Despite international laws protecting the pangolin, the killing continues. Click the link in our bio to find out more about the plight of the pangolin and the fight to save them: http://bit.ly/pangolin-day-20 #PangolinDay #Pangolin #Conservation #Biodiversity #WildlifePhotographerOfTheYear2016 #Photojournalism #NHMLondon #LondonMuseum #NaturalHistoryMuseumLondon

A post shared by Paul Hilton (@paulhiltonphoto) on Feb 15, 2020 at 4:07am PST

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Viruses and bacteria are spread because of human activities and we have seen this happen before.

In the case of COVID-19, human greed has exposed an otherwise elusive, nocturnal, burrowing, ant-eating animal into contact with humans — and other animals — with frightful consequences, say scientists. The New York Times reports:

We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbor so many species of animals and plants — and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses. We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.

WE MADE THE CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC, DAVID QUAMMEN, NEW YORK TIMES, 28 JANUARY 2020