A STUDENT GARDEN IN NICARAGUA

A STUDENT GARDEN IN NICARAGUA

By Elizabeth Blum

Coming back to the garden after a year, it looked like almost no work had been done. No more seeds were planted after we left, most fruit trees were missing, and the soil returned to its dry clay state. It looked sterile, like nothing had ever grown, and especially not tomates y chiltomas, melon, sandia, ayote, y muchas arboles de frutas. Solamente albahaca was left in the garden. Perennial basil that smelled the same as the basil I grow in the states, but the leaves are much smaller.

 After meeting with the principle, she pointed out two main issues with the first experimental garden. Irrigation (with a horrible drought) and Pollos, chickens eating some plants. But overall they said that they harvested quite a bit of food from the garden that we had started. I was happy that at least they had a temporary benefit from the garden, as it was a lot of work for Cliff and I and the students that helped us, but I was still trying to understand why it hasn’t continued.

The framework was there, in my mind. We had set up PVC pipe from the well to the garden and provided irrigation tools like a hose and a long drip irrigation hose that reached everything we planted with the kids. We had planted every fruit tree with a mix of soil, decomposed manure, sand, and other organic matter in hopes of providing the necessary drainage that the trees needed. We taught the kids with hands on techniques on how to create a healthy soil with what was available in the community. But it was a lot of work, a lot of extra work on top of everything that was expected of both the teachers and the students of La Calle Real.

I realize that our first problem was not providing enough education. Education on topics that I assumed were already known in La Calle Real. I assumed that organic gardening was the natural way, before Mercedes (the principal of the high school) informed me that almost no one in the community has a home garden. Where was the knowledge lost? The knowledge of traditional (“sustainable”) agriculture that was how people survived for centuries. Now, most agriculture in Nicaragua consists of harmful pesticides and synthetic fertilizers that are not used correctly, that are not regulated, and that are causing harm to both humans and their environment.

A few days after returning to La Calle Real, some students show me another area of the school where they have were planting lemon trees, corn, and ayote (squash). This was the first time, to my knowledge, that they had planted vegetables on their own on the school grounds. They blocked off each plot with string and wood posts from trees. They said it was because the soil was better and there was more space. I had to agree, though the area had more trash everywhere, there was a lot more space to grow larger plots of veggies. There was a more topsoil and the soil was possibly less depleted. I didn’t realize at my first reflection of the project, but gardening at the school did continue, just in a different way, in their way, which is even better.

So, I thought I would help by working the soil, but quickly found out that there were already seeds planted in every plot, mostly with the Ayote seeds I brought last year. I realized that the best way to spend my time here is to provide as much education on sustainable agriculture techniques as possible. It is not sustainable to continue creating a biointensive garden with the students without more education for them to apply to the gardening techniques that they already have started using. Returning after one year, I have a better understanding of what is actually needed and what will be most valuable in the long-run for me to do here.

I am now working on the best way to educate the garden manager as well as the agricultural students. Next week I will be teaching the 11^th graders who are in the agriculture class at the high school. In Nicaragua, high school only goes until 11^th grade, so the hope is to give these students some technical training in order to increase their chances of getting a job. I also recently found out that the following week, the students have a vacation. So I really only have one more full week to teach as much as I can about organic agriculture. I am putting together Spanish resources for teachers and I am working on coordinating with other organization who are already successful in starting community gardens.

            Above is a picture of the new area that students have started planting in. I recently bought about 20 plants to create some hedgerows for these plots. I bought rosemary bushes, many types of citrus trees, a cacao tree, a coffee plant, a mango tree, a a few medicinal plants for treating cuts and fevers. The woman who owns the vivero assured me that these plants do well in arid climates, because La Calle Real (though in this picture it was rainy) is surprisingly arid.

When the students are on vacation I will be visiting these organizations because I was lucky enough to meeting people at my hostel who are working on similar projects in Esteli. So I have coordinated with two women who run two different projects there that I think would be useful to learn about and apply to the school garden in La Calle Real.

When the school garden runs sustainably, it could be spread to the community through family gardens. It could serve as a model of permaculture rather than how most people produce food in Nicaragua. Then, as people learn organic gardening at their homes it can be expanded to a community garden, growing more food in a way that is healthy for both the environment and the people of La Calle Real.