Earning Farmgirl Sisterhood Merit Badges

The seven sections in my "Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook" cover, I think, most aspects of a farmgirl’s life: Each Other, Farm Kitchen, Garden Gate, Stitching Room, Make It Easy, Outpost, and Cleaning Up. Our merit badge structure grew from those seven sections.

Garden Gate

Be a Good Friend to the Earth

Beginner Level

  • Stop using pesticides and synthetic fertilizers in your garden
  • Research and use organic pest control

Intermediate Level

  • Research and plant native plants in your area to attract bees and butterflies
  • Maintain a complete habitat, including some sort of access to water, housing, and food for beneficial insects (remember, we need them for pollination)

Expert Level

  • One of the hidden places for pollution in your garden is your hose! Make sure all of your hoses are of the lead-free type. Usually this can be denoted by a “potable water” notation on the packaging
  • If you paint your fence, switch to an environmentally safe paint product. Commercial paint is highly toxic and outgasses into our environment. Not to mention all those little paint chips that fall away as the paint ages.
  • Research and consider planting a living fence instead of a constructed one. Learn about a technique called “Pleaching.”


Thriving Where You Are Planted

Beginner Level

  • Collect 10 native flowers and press them. When dry, decoupage or in some way mount them onto a piece of paper. Next to the flower, write a brief description of their habitat and place in the ecosystem.

Intermediate Level

  • Plant at least 10 native plants in your garden or lawn
  • At your next chapter meeting, present a brief lecture on how your chosen native plants fit into the ecosystem and how they are incorporated into your garden space

Expert Level

  • Plant at least one (more is better!) native tree in your yard. Try to find a species that is threatened or that will supply much-needed habitat for your neighborhood insects and birds.
  • Enroll in your local Master Gardeners program through your Extension Office.


Black Gold

Beginner Level

  • Start a compost heap for your yard. Maintain it for at least three months.
  • OR create a worm ranch for in-house composting

Intermediate Level

  • Continue to add to your compost heap and reap the rewards of composted soil to enrich your garden and lawn. Maintain your compost heap for an additional 6 months.
  • Find out if your community has a composting program already in place in conjunction with recycling or waste management

Expert Level

  • Continue to use your compost heap to replenish your garden soil. Maintain your compost heap for a whole year. Investigate your compost heap as you turn it to see the stages of decomposition in action.
  • Check with your local extension office and recycling depot to see if the Master Composter training course is available in your area. If so, enroll.


Everyday Gold

Beginner Level

  • Start your own chicken flock or become a patron of farm-fresh eggs
  • Tell your fellow chapter members where you found your farm-fresh egg source

Intermediate Level

  • Find a way to learn to milk a dairy animal. Many farmers will be glad to teach you. Offer to do the milking when they need a day off, as this is often a very limiting factor for dairy animal owners. If you already know how to milk, learn to milk another type of dairy animal. If you are already a master milker, teach someone else how to milk.

Expert Level

  • Stop buying grocery store prepared meats. Buy from a local meat locker or straight from a farmer or rancher. If you raise your own meats, write a letter to the editor explaining the benefits of knowing where your meat comes from.
  • Learn to make your own cheese


Protect Your Heirlooms

Beginner Level

  • As you plan your garden in the spring, look over heirloom varieties of seeds
  • Plan to replace 25% of your plantings with heirloom varieties

Intermediate Level

  • Learn how to save seeds
  • Save the seeds of your heirloom plantings
  • Plant at least 25% of your garden to heirloom varieties

Expert Level

  • Continue to save the seeds of your heirloom varieties
  • Use your saved seeds the next year in your garden
  • Plant 100% heirloom varieties
  • Offer your excess saved seeds to friends, relatives and other farmgirls. Explain the need behind saving the heirloom varieties that you have chosen

Reconnect /Recycle

Beginner Level

  • Make row markers out of tin can lids using the punched tin method. For stakes, scavenge strong sticks in your area or find a creative recycled stake.
  • Learn to sharpen your own garden tools
  • Get into the habit of wiping down your tools and putting them away properly. Don’t forget to care for wooden handles. To get into this habit, practice good tool care for at least 3 months.

Intermediate Level

  • Make your own scarecrow to be the coup de grace of your garden. Use old clothes and stuff with real straw. Take pictures and share with your farmgirl chapter members.

Expert

  • Find ways to use your broken equipment and gardening supplies in creative ways. Use old plates as a garden border or embed broken bits of clay pots into homemade stepping stones. Use your imagination. Use old watering cans as planters or even old rain boots.
  • Contact your state’s Adopt-a-Highway program. Get your chapter involved in cleaning up around your town.

 

What's the Farmgirl Sisterhood? | Logo Rules | Earning Merit Badges
Merit Badge Details: Each Other | Farm Kitchen | Garden Gate | Stitching & Crafting
Make It Easy | Outpost | Cleaning Up