Want to improve women's
nutrition or generate money for women's health?
Consider doing a garden project at a Casa Materna! Read this post for
some ideas on how to get started and some tips based off my experience working
on a garden project in Rio San Juan.
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What is a Casa Materna?
Casa Maternas are places
where women from rural areas are brought at the end of their pregnancy, so that
they can have a birth attended by a doctor. They usually have limited funding
from MINSA or perhaps from NGOs, but the resources at their disposal vary widely
around the country.
Why do a garden at a Casa
Materna?
My sitemate, Christina
Palazzolo (SBD 59), had the idea of making a garden at the Casa Materna. The
rationale for the project was that by growing fruits and vegetables, the Casa
Materna would be able to provide more nutritious meals for the women staying
there, with the possibility of selling extra vegetables and fruits to raise
money for the Casa Materna. Additionally, using seed saving techniques, women
would be able to bring seeds back to their rural communities and plant
vegetables and fruits to diversify their families' diets. The ‘responsible’ was
supportive of the idea and our Casa Materna happened to have a small enclosed
plot that was ideal for a small garden.
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| Because we love veggies! |
Getting started:
Despite not having any
aggies or environment volunteers in our humble lake side department, we were
able to get to an aggie to come down and look at the site to see if it was
suitable; agriculture or environment volunteers are a great resource. If you've got connections with local farmers
or gardeners, even better! We then borrowed tools from the Alcaldia to clear
the monte from the plot. I would never have thought to go there to look
for tools, but they turned out to be very well outfitted. It doesn't hurt to
check out if this is the case in your site.
How does one call a spade a
spade en español?
I originally told a man from
the Alcaldia that we wanted 3 carretillas for the project because I
thought that was the word for hoe. He soon caught on the fact that I was faking
my way through gardening vocab. Here is a short list for those of us who didn't
learn any agriculture vocab during training.
Tools:
-la carretilla- one wheeled
cart
-la pala- shovel
-el acedon- hoe
-el rastrillo- rake
-el machete- Our Alcaldia
owned terrifyingly gigantic scymitar machetes. They looked fun although we didn’t
try them out.
Nouns:
-el vivero- nursery
-la semilla- seed
-la hilera- row
-el mecate- string
-la estaca- stake
Verbs:
-regar- water, irrigate
-chapear montear- cut weeds
or grass with a machete
Bumps along the way...sowing
seeds to SquashZilla
The responsable at the Casa
Materna requested that we grow onions, peppers and tomatoes because these were
the foods they spent the most money buying, but these plants required time in a
vivero, which we didn’t have at our disposal and we didn't have many of these
seeds. Due to what we did have, we settled on planting corn, beans, melon,
squash, cucumber and radishes (for integrated pest management). We also planted
a few jamaica plants so that they could sell the flowers for tea (a relatively
expensive commodity) and moringa, the so called "miracle tree", whose
leaves provide a significant amount of protein.
These plants were easy to
grow because they didn't require time in a vivero.
From consulting with some locals, we decided
it would be ok to plant during the start of rainy season, because it's always
kind of rainy in Rio San Juan anyway. But, conditions vary around the
country...never hurts to do a PACA seasonal calendar to find out the customary
time to plant and harvest!
Eventually, some of our
seeds germinated , and we soon had some Jack and the Beanstalk sized beanstalks
on our hands that outgrew their stakes and flopped over. I scoured the town to
find sticks that were long enough, leading a lot of people to wonder in
amusement why profe was looking for firewood.
Then, a few zuchinni plants invaded the garden, covering all the other plants
and migrating up onto the neighbor's mango tree. The final mishap with the
garden occurred when the alcaldia sent some people to chapear monte, and
since the garden hadn't been weeded in a while and didn't have labels, they
accidentally took out the jamaica and moringa trees. In the end, we didn’t have
very huge yields, or do the best job maintaining the garden, but we learned a
lot. We're going to make a more concerted effort this year, making a vivero to
grow the crops that will be most useful to the Casa Materna, and bringing in
more youth volunteers to help with the garden and learn.
Wanna do a Casa Materna
Garden? Think about these questions first...
·
Who can help you learn about agriculture at your site, assuming you don't
have those connections already?
·
Where can you get seeds? The Seed Bank at the office, INTA, MAGFOR, or
local NGOs are some good starting points.
·
What is involved in clearing the site and preparing the soil? Are there a
lot of rocks, or is the soil quality poor?
·
If you aren't working in a fenced in area, what can you do to keep animals
and bolos out of your garden?
·
If you're working with a small area, what can you do to maximize space? ie
use tires to make planters, etc.
·
Who else is authorized to go into that space (ie machete wielding Alcadia
workers)and how can you coordinate with them to protect your garden?
· Who is going to maintain your garden and when? By the time they get to the
Casa Materna, panzonas are probably not going to be very interested or able to
help with the garden (on top of the fact that there is constant turnover among
them) and responsables often have a busy workload. Better options for
sustainability could be involving a youth group, an environmental brigade from
the high school or middle school, or forming a "Friends of the Casa
Materna" group to support the garden.
·
What crops do they mainly use in meals at the Casa Materna? If you're
introducing vegetables less commonly featured in Nica cuisine, can cooking
classes be provided?
·
What grows well in your climate? What is easy and fast? What plants require
time in a nursery before being planted? How can you provide good soil and pest
management without requiring expensive inputs?
Some additional resources:
·
Information on Seed Saving Techniques
·
How to start a community garden
·
Moringa trees
--Emily Clayton, TEFL 60, Rio San Juan
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