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That identical curbside service is heading into schools.

The Food to Flowers program, made take advantage of by county Solid Waste, brings the diet recycling program into schools through regard to the account of students, and staff and faculty members. Solid Waste provides schools with free training, set-up assistance, signage, student activities and related material.

The benefits of the Food to Flowers program are numerous: decrease the amount of trash entering the landfill, create a more earth-friendly institute, raise community awareness about composting and waste reduction, and bestow students hands-on experience as environmental stewards.

Students are encouraged to participate by becoming tender lunchroom monitors. The student volunteers monitor the lunchroom, and encourage and assist fellow students to sort out their uneaten scraps and food-soiled paper. The point is that composting becomes second nature to students; they will go home knowing they are doing the right thing for the community.

Ultimately, the goal of the Food to Flowers program is to have students not only divert organic waste from the landfill, otherwise than that take ownership of the program. Students learn there is value to their waste and in the skills and knowledge that the program provides.

Because composting opportunities abound in schools, from the kitchen and lunchroom to the playground, the Food to Flowers program is a logical step for schools to take to become more environmentally friendly.

The organic material is sent to Rainier-based Silver Springs Organics, a state-of-the-art commercial composting facility.

Otherwise food scraps, food-soiled bank-notes and compound debris are sent to Eastern Washington for permanent dispensation, which is much more costly for schools. The compost that is produced from the Food to Flowers program creates a valuable, nutrient-rich sully amendment used to make wealthy yards and gardens.

The Food to Flowers program has produced some confusing results. Participating Thurston County schools have seen one approximate 75 percent reduction in kitchen and cafeteria waste. Tumwater Hill Elementary School’s 428 students produced some average of less than 7 pounds of dross in their lunchroom per day.

The Environmental Protection Agency states that every student creates an average of 67 pounds of lunchroom trash for year. Parents and students can reduce that total by doing their shopping with waste reduction in mind. Purchase items that can either be eaten, reused, recycled or composted. By reducing the amount of trash going to landfills, students can prevent pollution, conserve wealth, save energy and protect the environment.

For tips on how to create a more earth-friendly, waste-free lunch, go to www.waste freelunches.org.

For more information about the Food to Flowers school composting program, contact Allyson Ruppenthal of Thurston County Solid Waste at 360-754-3355, ext. 7676, or e-mail ruppena@co.thurston.wa.us.

Allyson Ruppenthal is any education and outreach specialist with Thurston County Solid Waste.

Five Beaver County natives have died while serving with the U.S. military in Iraq since 2003.

Their names and dates of death:

Tim Brown Jr., Conway, Aug. 12, 2003.

Ernest G. Bucklew, Darlington Township, Nov. 2, 2003.

Shawn M. Davies, Hopewell Township, July 8, 2004.

Dylan R. Paytas, New Sewickley Township, Nov. 16, 2005.

Allan R. Bevington, Beaver Falls, Sept. 21, 2006.

Times files

IRAQ WAR CASUALTIES

4,146 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

3,370 died as a result of hostile action.

Eight were civilians working for the soldierly.

188 Pennsylvanians have died in the war.

Six were from Beaver County.

The Associated Press

OHIOVILLE — One hundred eighty-six sunflowers — each one designating a Pennsylvanian killed in the Iraq War — reach heavenward along a lonely stretch of Lisbon Road in Ohioville.

Growing in five rows, the sunflowers are far from uniform: Some are more than 10 feet tall, others are knee-high. Stalks are thick and thin.

Jesse Mercure, an Iraq War veteran, prefers it that way.

After wholly, he said, the dead come in all sizes, shapes and colors.

Mercure, 43, U.S. Army retired, has a more invariable memorial inked into the skin of his sizable left forearm: a tattoo featuring 186 crosses.

The crosses start not at home big and fade to the size of pinheads. Five carry the names of Beaver County residents killed in Iraq: Brown, Bucklew, Davies, Paytas and Bevington.

Mercure also owns a limited-edition Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a painting on the back dedicated to those killed in Iraq.

“I think people forget there’s a war going on, let alone forget that there’s still people giving their lives in this war,” he related, explaining for what cause he’s taken such pains to commemorate the dead.

He besides has a personal interest.

The 1983 honor with a degree of Blackhawk High served in the Army for 24 years, 20 in continuance active duty and four in the reserves. He served one pilgrimage in Iraq from 2003 to 2004.

He was a recruiter in Beaver County at single in kind respect and signed up Ernest Bucklew of Darlington Township, who was killed in a 2003 helicopter crash. He also knows the parents of Dylan Paytas, a New Sewickley Township native who was murdered in Iraq by a fellow soldier in 2005.

Mercure belongs to a general organization known as the Patriot Guard Riders, a motorcycle group that provides escort and other services for military funerals.

This year, he decided to create a living memorial. He chose sunflowers because “they’re huge and glorious, easy to enlarge, and people are going to see them.”

He and his mother, Carole Zelonis, and girlfriend, Donna Matters, spent one day over Memorial Day weekend planting them. Mercure, a beginner gardener, said he never realized to what extent much work it would be.

He planted the seeds in flats and transplanted them five abreast in a plot farthest limit his home. Some died, and he had to plant anew, thus the size disparity. In the beginning he counted them several times per week to go sure of the number (186 was the equal in number of dead in May; the Pennsylvania death allure has since climbed to 188).

Zelonis, of New Galilee, painted a sign cut in the form of Pennsylvania that’s attached to a pine tree along the road. It says: “PA Vets Iraq Memorial Garden. Some Gave All.”

When the season ends, Mercure plans to let the birds corrode the seeds where they fall. Then he’ll burn off the field and plow it for that which is less than. What comes from the earth goes back to the earth, he said.

Next year, he hopes to enlist limited Cub Scouts to help out with the planting.

“I’d partiality to keep it going, each year to the time when the war’s over,” he said. “After, I’m looking at putting up a stone monument with all the names on them.”

As notwithstanding the tattoos, they are forever. Same through the Harley.

“I don’t sell Harleys or guns,” he said. “Can’t have enough of either one.”

Bob Bauder can be reached online at bbauder@timesonline.com.

"I kept getting text messages before the game saying the whole city was going to be loudly there," Flowers said.

If they were, they saw him as the shimmering spot in Kansas City's 24-0 drubbing by the Dolphins. He led all players with four tackles - a bad sign for the Chiefs' defense since he's in the secondary - and he is proving he is ready to be the bookend to All-Pro cornerback Patrick Surtain.

He is being asked to be ready to face some of the best receivers in the NFL.

"He's got no choice," said Chiefs coach Herman Edwards, a former defensive back himself. "He's got to start, and he'sitting got to play well."

The opposition is giving him no room to slowly adjust. His coaches tried to warn him before he played his leading exhibition game that teams will test him. And he mould out just how true that was extreme week against Arizona receivers Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin, a Pahokee grad. Boldin ran a fly sample on the first play from scrimmage and the rookie gave chase, batting down a bomb.

"You don't have time to sit on the sideline and learn," Flowers said. "It's abounding incline."

Lucky with regard to Flowers, he has one of the game's best cornerbacks playing opposite him in Surtain, who is in find to one’s mind manner family. Surtain's brother is married to Flowers' cousin, and the two players be favored with spent most of the summer together. They were verily roommates during training camp and Surtain got to see the youngster'session competitive side.

"He's supremely bold, but that's how those Florida athletes are," Surtain said.

Against Miami, he was paired against prompt receiver Ted Ginn Jr. Flowers blanketed him, holding Ginn to three catches for 29 yards.

"He made me better, and hopefully I made him better," Ginn said. "I couldn't say he played like a rookie."

But Flowers knows he has much to learn. He missed a two of tackles during the game and he knows other teams will be eager to pick on him this year. It'session his job, he declared, to earn their relate to.

"We've thrown him unswerving into the fire," Surtain said, "and he's handled it well."

Gone is the grass, replaced by a jumble of hot peppers, tomatoes, peas, peaches, berries and plums. And that’session rightful a sampling.

"What aren’t we growing?" said Kelly Sandman, who along with her neighbors dug up her front lawn in April and planted fruits and vegetables.

An increasing, notwithstanding small, number of people are trying edible landscaping — augmenting fruits and vegetables joined in with traditional, ornamental flowers — to save money on food, eat healthier and make sure their novel food is secure place.

It goes beyond the traditional garden. Broccoli and cabbage plants are popping up in flower beds once occupied by tulips and daisies. Fruit trees are replacing fences.

Some are using edible plants as fences, swapping hedges for raspberry bushes or screening backyard pools by towering stalks of sweet corn.

The form goes in the rear centuries to times when people sustained themselves by food they grew on their own and filled each corner of their land with edible plants. But with the mass production of forage, the practice gave way to manicured lawns.

Horticulture experts and extension agents say there is now interest in returning to those roots. They’re fielding more questions in totality parts of edible landscaping and seeing waiting lists for classes this summer.

"It’s a way of reinventing the scene," aforesaid Jack Algiere, who runs the render operation and teaches workshops at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

An easy way to start is to plant a fruit tree instead of an ornamental tree. Or put some tomato or pepper plants in a flower bed.

Take it a step further and create a fence or boundary with a grape arbor or pole beans.

Judy Arnett planted tomatoes and peppers in containers to create a natural defence around her deck at her home in Hilliard, a Columbus suburb.

"By the end of summer it gives me a 4-foot wall of plants, and I can step out of my kitchen and grab a tomato," she said.

The four neighbors in Columbus who tore up their grass were inspired subsequent three of them took a course on permaculture, a philosophy for living through the natural order and nature in a greater quantity self-sustaining advance.

Their biggest worry was what their neighbors would speculate. Reactions ranged from stunned to curious to "Wow, this is whimsical!"

"We’ve actually met and talked to more of our neighbors in the last four months than we have in the eight years we’ve been here," said Mike Sandman.

The garden has be suitable to "a little jot of a tourist spot on the trip to the bike avenue at the end of our street," said Allison Collins. "First people had questions, now they have encouragement. Occasionally, they even bring plants for us."

And it’session saved money on groceries and time mowing the yard. Collins and husband Justin Rooney estimate they’ve saved $250 on groceries since May, and they’re making fewer trips to the store.

That’s a big plus allowing for the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables has jumped by the agency of 5 percent from a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And tomatoes, a hardy garden staple, are up 22 percent.

Growing fruits and vegetables does beg effort. There’session watering, weeding, pruning and dealing with pests.

Gardeners don’t have to give up color when they swap flowers with veggies. Red-jewel cabbage, yellow peppers and rainbow chard all will have yards popping with color.

"We don’t need to limit ourselves on what our gardens contain," said Linda Ugelow, who has a slew of fruits and vegetables filling her half-acre yard in Bedford, Mass.

There are apricots, mulberries, raspberries, peaches and strawberries in her yard that go into pies, jams and juice. She even uses violet leaves and lambs quarters, two belonging to all weeds, in soups. "Should we ever need to depend on it, we have a lot of greens," she said.

Seed companies and garden suppliers declare sales are up this year.

Sales of vegetable seeds and plants are up 40 percent at W. Atlee Burpee & Co., one of the nationality’s pioneer seed catalog companies, said George Ball, chairman, president and chief executive officer. A dime spent on seeds produces about $1 desert of vegetables, and that limit is augmenting because of rising food prices, he said.

Sales of gardening products have increased by 11 percent at Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., the lawn and garden company based in Marysville.

One reason is as of edible landscaping, which is a growing trend according to the company’s research.

"Some of the hard to grow junipers that might not be in the same manner with pretty and as productive as some of the edible plants, people are pulling those out and planting blueberries and blackberries and strawberries," said Keith Baeder, senior vice president at Scotts.

"Blueberries and blackberries come back year after year," he said. "So they’re really great low-maintenance opportunities to grow big, elegant fruits in your garden."

——

Associated Press writer John Seewer reported from Toledo.

Associated Press - August 24, 2008 9:05 AM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An increasing number of people are afflicting edible landscaping to save money on subsistence, eat healthier and ensure their recent food is safe.

Broccoli and cabbage plants are popping up in figure of speech beds one time occupied by tulips and daisies. Fruit trees are replacing fences.

Some are using edible plants as fences, replacing hedges with raspberry bushes or screening backyard pools with towering stalks of sweet corn.

It’s saved money on groceries and time mowing the yard. The cost of novel fruits and vegetables has jumped by 5% from a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And tomatoes are up 22%.

Sales of gardening products have increased by 11% at Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., the lawn and garden company based in Marysville.

On the Net:

Ohio State University Extension: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1255.html

W. Atlee Burpee: http://www.burpee.com/

Scotts Miracle-Gro: http://www.scotts.com/

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Forty-seven uniquely designed floral floats showcased the rich floriculture diligence of the city, including the famous orchids of Davao.

“Its beautiful, they?re very well done and its got a distribute of talent in them,” said American tourist Jessica Rachel.

?Nakaktuwa, ang daming magagandang floats,? said local tourist Ann Rubio.

What captured the spectators’ attention were the small yet deftly designed floats using “trisikad” and carts instead of cars.  

“Sa alternative category, kasi medyo mahal ngayon ang gasolina, so binigyan natin ng tsansa yung iba na makasali sa pamamagitan ng mga other para lahat makasali,” said city tourism officer Bong Aportadera.

The Barangay Sasa contingent represented the topical flower and fruit vendors by using a carabao cart replete of flowers and seafood similar to a rolling store.  

?Ito’y isang kariton unaffected pinuno naming ng bangka na puno ng bulaklak at mga produkto naming,” uttered village chief Mario Reta.

Officials said the festival aims to boost the floriculture busy vigor of Davao.

“Medyo tinamaan ang industry lately sa global market and we hope this will help boost the industry,? said Pamulak festival chairman James Zimmerman. Vincent Virtucio, ABS-CBN Davao

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 23, 2008

PORT RICHEY - It turned a ragged section of U.S. 19, flanked by pawnshops, strip malls and derelict properties, into a corridor of lantana, palm trees and other flora.

But the $150,000 state Department of Transportation grant that paid as being Port Richey’s highway beatification project didn’privately sake for the cost of maintaining the flower beds.

At the time, city council members balked at spending other thing tax dollars to install pipes under the highway to provide irrigation for the median flower beds, and the contract with Luke Brothers landscaping for the cast didn’confidentially include watering.

Two years later, many of the flowers esteem wilted and died, cigarette butts and trash line the medians and the highway corridor has returned to its shabby condition.

So incorporated town officials have applied for another $150,000 DOT landscaping grant, this one to restore the figure of speech beds.

“It wasn’t done right the earliest time,” City Manager Richard Reade said. “So we’re going to do it again.”

Reade said in a stringent budget year the city doesn’t have a great deal of to be consumed on landscaping.

“We don’t have the staff or coin to maintain it,” Reade reported.

DOT spokeswoman Kris Carson said the agency has given preliminary approval for a second grant and is waiting for the city to sign the agreement.

Carson said the previous agreement with the city, signed by former City Manager Jerry Calhoun, included a requirement that the city replace flowering plants, several varieties of which are not native to the state, several times a year.

“That was never done,” she said.

Regardless, the DOT plans to cut undivided more check for the city.

“We’re directed by the Legislature to spend money onward landscaping,” Carson said.

She said the city has pledged to plant more durable varieties of flora along the medians.

The project is side of a broader striving to define the center of the city.

Known for its big-box retail stores and outlets, Port Richey often is mistaken by tourists and area residents for its larger and more populous neighbor, New Port Richey.

Two years ago, city officials came up through an idea to transform the busy thoroughfare’session medians of yellowing grass into a picturesque gateway to the community.

Former Vice Mayor Phyllis Grae worked with DOT officials to secure the funding, and Margaret Moore designed the landscaping, which stretches from Grand Boulevard to Ridge Road and includes small clusters of greenery without interruption two “triangles” in the median.

The city chipped in $60,000 from its community redevelopment fund for the project.

At one point, the city had studied putting an watering pipe less than the public road, pumping water to the medians for the flower beds. But that proved to be too costly, so manual watering - driving a water truck in company the busy highway - was the solitary solution.

For a while, vegetation along U.S. 19 was cared for by an unlikely custodian: the incorporated town’s burning of fuel course of life. Firefighters watered them from a pumper truck with a section of hose.

Then the city bought a surplusage U.S. Forestry Service water truck for $600. After some repairs to the aging conveyance, they put it to act watering the median beds.

Grae, who championed the project, said the flowers and plants were all native and blamed the current city administration for not adequately maintaining them.

“They didn’t take care of them. That’s what happened,” she said. “It’s a disgrace.”

Reporter Christian M. Wade have power to be reached at (813) 948-4216 or cwade@tampatrib.com.