Fruits and Veggies Galore

Last week was a school garden planting day – squash, green beans, tomato, radish, cabbage, onion, and cucumber. I had kids from 2nd grade through 7th grade helping me out. I was hoping to include the littlest kids too, but they ended up going to recess sooner than I could get my hands on them. With the veggies we’re hoping to use them in the daily snack that gets provided to all of the students in the school. There is a program that provides rice and beans and a few other minor additions in order to prevent malnutrition in children – the food gets cooked by mothers on a rotating schedule in the morning for all of the kids. For some of these kids it is the biggest meal that they get all day. So adding a few veggies would be nice. If we have veggies that we don’t consume we are talking about selling them in order to get some funds for the school. What we’d do with the money, we’re not really sure…but it is a thought. Things have to grow first – we already have sprouts though! Preventing the rain from pelting them and washing the dirt away is a challenge.


In other planting news, I planted in my garden this morning in the pouring rain. (We’ve had about 3-4 days of solid rain…not kidding. Temperatures haven’t gotten above 74 degrees, though I’m not complaining.) I planted tomato and onion that I grew in egg cartons in my house first, along with green beans, soy beans, carrots, broccoli, two types of lettuce, and green pepper. Plus I was gifted four local basil plants and they have already taken well. I’m hoping to see some growth here in the next week. Plus, I’m giving some of the extra seeds to the women in my women’s group who have all supposed to have been starting home gardens (they have received a number of trainings). Hopefully my planting and extra seeds will put the fire under their butt to get going.

In more planting news, I headed out to the milpa last Saturday morning to plant some chilipuca beans. The milpa is the cornfield and nearly all of the men have their own little plot to grow corn and beans for their family for the year. Women sometimes will go there to drop off a meal for their husbands/sons/fathers, but it is rare to have a woman helping out. Because I want to experience the various aspects of life here and see what farming is like here, I headed out with my boyfriend and his brother and dad to see what a morning of work is like. The walk there wasn’t bad – nearly all downhill and early enough so it was still chilly. The work itself was sweat deserving, but at this stage (planting), it’s not the most strenuous work. More of the work comes before during the clearing of the land and afterwards in spraying the space with venom and harvesting and hauling the corn and beans. The tricky part about this job though is that here we are up in the mountains and all of the farmers are working on slopes of at least 45°, quite a slope. And a few other farmers saw me and will be talking about the gringa working in the milpa for weeks.


And speaking of farmers, I decided that I was slightly neglecting this population in my work so far. I’m working lots with kids, with women, and with youth, but haven’t touched the realm of the farmers. And they are just as important, though maybe a little harder to work with since I’m a girl and don’t have the farming expertise that they have. But I decided to give it a whirl. So I set up a charla (chat) on a natural pesticide produced from the leaves and seeds of the nim tree. I even bought several nim trees to give away to the participants to encourage the use. I had very few show up (a whopping four), but maybe as I develop the topic and start doing some practice sessions word can spread. There are many benefits to them and their families to using pesticides made from local plants rather than store-bought – both on their pockets and on their health.

Lastly, another fruit review. This fruit is called nance and around here the cosecha (harvest) is now. This small little fruit has a pit that takes up most of the space inside of this ball you see and in my opinion, it just isn’t worth it. The flavor is a little sour with barely any sweetness and the smell is overwhelming. It grows on a tree and the trees are all throughout the hillsides around here. They get a little bit yellower, but this is a “ripe” color. I guess the most important thing is that a lot of the people around here seem to like them.