Green Flamingo Organics Flooding Recovery

Hi, my name is Liz and I am fundraising for my farm, Green Flamingo. Green Flamingo is in Oak Hill, Florida and has been growing food and serving our community since 2009, with lots of community outreach and through our Giving Garden. We are always looking for ways to help our community be healthier and happier. We serve Eastern Volusia County. You can find us at the New Smyrna Beach Farmers Market, at Loves Wholefoods in Port Orange and Ormond, as well as at local restaurants. Check out our website to know more about our farm.

Some of our Outreach includes our Giving Garden where we raise produce that goes to our local food bank (Gifts of Love in Edgewater, FL). We host free gardening workshops. Our Gift Economy Table at Farmers Market each week where we "gift" something free each week. We hope to continue to be a Organic Food and Gardening resource to all our community for years to come. But right now we do need help from our community.

The hurricane brought 24 plus inches of rain and wind that damaged all of our crops and many of our buildings. We sustained widespread flooding like we have never seen (like we have never imagined). This flooding has severely impacted our soil health, and because of that we will not be able to grow crops for several months while we let the soil recover. We lost many of our trees and crops (some we will be able to replant, but some we may not).

We are so Thankful to all the amazing people who have reached out to us in the past few weeks to see what they can do to help. It is because of your kind words and encouragement that we are starting this Fundraiser. Here is a list of the items we are raising funds for:

Cover Crop Seeds: We will need to plant cover crops on all our fields to help build back the soil and carbon that we lost in the flooding. We will need about 350 lbs of winter cover crop seeds and 400 lbs of spring/summer cover crop seeds. We estimate $2000

Mulch: We lost all of our mulch (it literally floated away in the flooding), and need to remulch our harvest barn, greenhouse, sprout house, and some of our parking areas. We estimate that it will be around 100 cubic yards of mulch. We estimate $1200

Road Material: Our Roadways need some more shell to help with the low spots that opened up. We estimate $600

Composted Soil Mix: We will need a little compost to help add some biodiversity into the soil. The Soil was underwater for a week or more, and that means that it will go anaerobic (without oxygen). When this happened, many many living things died (bacteria, fungus, protozoa, nematodes, plant roots, insects). The soil food web will need some time to regrow in our soil, but we can help inoculate it with some healthy compost in the meantime to help. We estimate that we will use 54-72 cubic yards of compost to help the soil. We estimate $1470

Repairs to buildings: About half of our structures around the farm sustained either water or wind damage. We need to do lots of smaller repairs (and we are still assessing this). We will need lumber, hardware, tool blades, roofing pieces, etc. We estimate $800

Labor: We would love to be able to keep working on the farm doing all these repairs and work during this time. But we will need to be able to pay Liz and Katie during this time without production. We estimate $2400

If you are interested in learning more about what flooding does to soil and how it affects agriculture here is some great links for you:

Managing Soil Fertility After Flooding

Effects of Flooding