Spring Gardens
It is with joy that we announce our first garden harvest in 2014. After a lean winter season the gardens are producing nicely. I would like to share these photos and discribe some of our practices and experieces. This picture, taken the first of April, shows some of our first cabbages of the year. A garden like this is a godsend. This young mother can supplement both the food needed for her family and sell a little extra to her neighbors.
Due to a blight on the coffee plants called “La Roya” (Which literally means “The Red” and is an attack from a red fungus) many villagers have not had hardly any income for two years. this lack of such a central source of income has had a serious affect on the food that is available at the dinner table thus making these gardens all the more important.
Some of our gardens have humble beginnings like this small plot of Anna. She is a single mother of three kids. Here she shows with pride her few plants. Her eldest son also has his little plot and they have a healthy competition going between themselves.
Late one night while I was passing by her home on the way to her neighbor Antonio’s I found her whole family sitting in the moonlight by their garden singing. They were as happy and content as could be enjoying the beauty of a full moon and expressing their thankfulness for life. It is a joy to help humble, positive people like Ana
This is Antonio the man I was going to visit that night. He is the garden leader for Ana and 11 other neighbors. Setting a nice example he has an organized garden with good fencing and well prepared beds. From back to front he has three new varieties of yams, followed by potatoes,then tomatoes and peppers. The front two beds are just now ready for planting. He is caring a clipboard because on the day of the photo we were making a garden evaluation of his group. By organizing our gardeners into small groups we can motivate, organize, address needs, and train much better. These leaders are vital to the program.
Here Juan is mixing dry leaves in a garden bed to add humus to the soil. Although this soil looks fertile it has almost no nitrogen or phosphorus. Both are basic necessities to a garden. Due to a lack of organic matter it also does not have the ability to retain water and dries rapidly under a sunny day. Planting green manures, mulching and the creating and mixture of bio-mass (organic matter) are all part of our trainings
Practice, training and hard work pay off as is evident with this garden of Maria’s. She is another group leader in the village of Chel. The majority of her 15 sites are equally productive. She has Swiss chard, cabbage, onions and a herb in front of her and tomatoes and wisquil ( on the trellis) be hide her. I often see a neighbors come over and pay a few coins for fresh produce for their dinner.
Here the mayor and former mayor of Los Encuentros are packaging seeds for thirty families in their village. That fact that the primary leaders in the community are so active is a good sign of the level of importance this program has for the village.
With over 125 full fledged garden sites and many more families receiving garden seeds we go through a lot of seeds. As we work towards the raising and distribution of our own seed supply we are actively seeking donations to purchase seeds. The seeds pictured on this table cost around $150 and started 34 gardens.
Seed banks like those produce backyard gardens like this one.
Which then give way to harest like this.I would like to challenge our readers to buy a 6 o 7 pound cabbage next time you are in the supermarket and cook it up to see how much food there really is in one. And imagine it all starts with a little seed!
Photo here is a new site in Xeslli. The villagers are ready and willing to work. Are we ready to help? Notice behind this garden the field is full of dry coffee plants. This photo was taken when the bushes should have been a deep bark green and loaded with red berries.
Photographied here are two groups of women gardeners receiving tomatoes trees and strawberry plants. The trees will grow to 3 meters tall and produce a harvest for 10 years. The strawberries will multiply 4 to 6 fold this year and start yielding three harvests annually.
It cost only four dollars to seed a site like this for six months. How many other things can give such a great return for only four dollars? Please join us in the fight against hunger in a place that it has no right to be.
Please enjoy the rest of the photos.
A husband gives me a gift of sugar cane form his wife's garden plot. Notice the bucket between them. It is a chicken manure tea that we feed the plants with every two weeks.
Imagine how much brocolli these seedbeds will produce.
Juana and Rosa show me there humble garden with true pride. It is just dawning on them after they have gone with me to visit other sights just how productive a garden can be. It will be fun to watch their sites devolop more. Note the condition of the home in the background
Seed banks like those produce backyard gardens like this one.
Which then give way to harest like this.I would like to challenge our readers to buy a 6 o 7 pound cabbage next time you are in the supermarket and cook it up to see how much food there really is in one. And imagine it all starts with a little seed!
Photo here is a new site in Xeslli. The villagers are ready and willing to work. Are we ready to help? Notice behind this garden the field is full of dry coffee plants. This photo was taken when the bushes should have been a deep bark green and loaded with red berries.
Photographied here are two groups of women gardeners receiving tomatoes trees and strawberry plants. The trees will grow to 3 meters tall and produce a harvest for 10 years. The strawberries will multiply 4 to 6 fold this year and start yielding three harvests annually.
It cost only four dollars to seed a site like this for six months. How many other things can give such a great return for only four dollars? Please join us in the fight against hunger in a place that it has no right to be.
Please enjoy the rest of the photos.
A husband gives me a gift of sugar cane form his wife's garden plot. Notice the bucket between them. It is a chicken manure tea that we feed the plants with every two weeks.
Imagine how much brocolli these seedbeds will produce.
Juana and Rosa show me there humble garden with true pride. It is just dawning on them after they have gone with me to visit other sights just how productive a garden can be. It will be fun to watch their sites devolop more. Note the condition of the home in the background
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