Winter Abonos Verdes Take Hold

Hello again after a long winter break. In the middle of April the cold began to hit the region and country of Paraguay. What I had previously described as a Northwest summer soon turned into a real winter with cold rains, bone chilling winds, and even minor frosts.

Picking up where I left off, I hit the road in my community at the time that all farmers were finishing up with there corn and beans and entering into the dormant winter season. It was my goal to spread the word about the benefits of winter covercrops. In my case I highlighted black oats (avena negra) and lupino, a hearty winter bean. Both crops are rustic in nature and able to withstand the extreme temperatures of the Paraguayan winter. The combination of both crops in a field for their duration is extremely beneficial to the soil providing coverage and ample amounts of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium, the three main nutrients needed for abundant plant growth. The coverage given will in turn provide protection from wind and water erosion and is also beneficial because it prevents the growth of weeds and grasses. In the tradicional agricultural systems of small scale farming in Paraguay, the plant matter of fallow fields will eat existing nutrients from the soil and are then burned off or plowed under returning a minimal amount nutrients to the soil.

There are also fringe benefits to this combination covercrop. The oats are an outstanding source of protein and carbohydrates for chickens, pigs, and even horses if produced on a large scale. The seeds from both crops have long shelf lives and a good resistence to pests and mildew. They also both produce close to ten times the ammount of seed that is originally planted. This means that if properly saved and harvested, a farmer needs only once to invest in the seed to provide an almost unlimited potential for the use of these crops.

My greatest tool in the dispersement and dissemination of this knowledge was my community contact. Karai Luis Santander was one of the few farmers in my site able to set aside the cultural barriers and obstacles for men working with women in the field, and actually began to use abonos verdes with the volunteer before me. I feel fortunate that while in many cases she was unable to actiely participate in work in the fields, she was persistent and successful in building awareness of abonos verdes as a sustainable agricultural practice. Throughout the month of May I brought a total of 8 farmers to view the results this covercrop had produced for Karai Luis. His corn withstood the drought because of the organic matter and ceverage on top of the soild that the dead black oats and lupino provided. His cotton that he planted a month late and without any of the customary cow manuer, had grown to the same size and with the same productivity as the cotton planted on time and with the extra manuer. In both cases the visiting farmers were impresed and motivated to undertake the same practice on their fields.

Gardening and Winter Growing

Winter is officially my favorite season and it hasn't even hit yet! I am well on my way to having a garden that is just bursting at the seams. My cucumbers are rapidly climbing the stakes and setting their stems in preparation of fruit production. I have twelve arugula starts that are pushing out leaves like no body's business and the cabbage and bell peppers look as if they grow every hour. The tomatos are almost ready to transplant and the carrots are poking their heads out of the ground alongside the beets and radishes. Its not all good though, my lettuce starts died and my onions didn't germinate... but I'll take that and say overall I'm doing fine.

The garden series finished up, the seeds were handed out and I have heard nothing but great things from the Señoras that participated. The season now is like a northwest summer. Hot and in the upper 80's during the day and dropping all the way down into the low 60's at night with gentle breezes. It is dry though, and if it hadn't of been for the heavy rain that we got last night I might not have so many plants still alive. None-the-less the gardens of Potrero Garay seem to be doing just fine.

In the fields there is great change too. Beans are almost completely done and this is lining up some serious oportunity and open space for cultivating soil friendly and revitalizing crops. I have a meeting with the farmers committee next Tuesday and I am going to present to them the importance of still planting their fields in the winter.

I wish more than anything that I had some pictures of my, and other peoples gardens to share but unfortunately I don't. I will try and have a friend come out and visit to snap some good ones to share with you all. Until next time...

Germinator Article

There is a quarterly Ag Sector magazine that is put out by the volunteer coordinator and composed of volunteer content. This was my addition to the latest issue:

Overcoming First Charla Fears

Nathan Forster CE G28 – Potrero Garay

03/07/09

As a newbie of the Ag sector I must admit that until the end of February I suffered daily from an acute case of “charlaphobia”. How on earth I was ever going to get to the point of conducting a Charla, let alone get anyone to come? I’m proud to say that now I have conquered my phobia and to best explain my methods I believe I should provide some person context.

I am a bit of perfectionist, and do not believe that charlas are the best way to teach or present information to a group of people. I do believe, however, that the best way to present information or to teach a group of people is to first understand how that group will learn best, and then doing my best to present the information in that manner.

Keeping this in mind I entered my second week in site, and the beginning of my integration into the community – I basically spent the entire first week with my host family just stuttering jibberish and learning how to efficiently bathe myself with a bucket while never being able to stand up straight – searching for and understanding of how my gente will best receive my information and what incentive they operate on.

At this point it is worth distinguishing that, while to some it may sound like it, I never harbored preconceived ideas for charlas or projects while I was searching for the topic of my first presentations. To be “one of those new volunteers who has a ton of ideas and thinks they’re all gonna work” would be completely against my nature, just ask G28 CE. My mental process is one of identification followed by analysis; picking up on trigger words of interest, on behalf of the community member, while having conversations. I also test the pool of interest by casually casting possible ideas for my involvement. Most of the time, as I am sure fellow PCVs can attest, it seems that interest shown in some area of our program is usually not interest held. To me this is fine. I have no beef. But I do make a point to be sure that the interest is not held by being as persistent as I feel appropriate. Usually within a few minutes, hours, or days, I have either found a CE accomplice, or someone to come back to with a different angle at a different time.

By the end of January two things were clear to me. First, as huerta season approached there was a large interest in technical assistance with huertas and obtaining seeds for the huerta. Second was that many individuals in my community are sending their children to an Ag school in Villarrica, or not sending them because the pasaje is too much. Regardless, pasaje and education seem to be two of the largest obstacles for families.

In my analysis of information I gathered, and through conversations with my women’s committee and community contacts, I decided that I could generate a lot of interest in a huerta charla and piggy back an Ag-Forestry charla specifically about family economic planning. Ok, so I had my themes… easy enough, I thought I could stumble my way through those possessing enough vocabulary to get the basic point across. But how do I get people to attend?

I asked a friend in the community what she would most like to “get out of a charla” about gardens. I think I said it wrong because she instantly said “free seeds”. I had a reaction that made me think of all the stories I hear from past Gs about people always asking for free stuff. But later that day I got to thinking about it. I knew where to get free garden seeds – seedbank, ABC Color, muni – but I’m not going to just give handouts for coming to one meeting, and not only that, my charla preparations had made it very evident that in both topics I would need at least four presentations of two sheets to really feel like I got my information across.

The solution to my quandary became merit based; the gente had to earn their seeds. Not only that, if we made almacigos at the first of four weekly meetings they would be ready to plant by the end of the series. Respectively for Ag-Forestry, I had the resources to accomplish the same goal and could provide those who attend all four meetings with planted macetas and tree starts.

Feeling as though I had set the stage I got to work planning the structure of my charlas. I felt that the more structured and fundamental they were, the better my chances of not screwing it up and the gente leaving more confusion about the topic than when they came. I was fortunate to have a couple of Plan PY meetings in my site before my charlas. I used this opportunity to gauge how the people in the community respond to charlas. The meetings were long, really long, and there were only charlas. In the last hour of both meetings the people in attendance became visibly antsy. They did not necessarily seem disinterested in the information; rather needing some sort of other stimulus that keeps them engaged or better conveys the information. Gaining this valuable insight I decided that at each meeting I would present one charla sheet that was purely informational, me talking to them. Then, the second sheet would display a drawn diagram of a gardening technique, almacigos, tablons, mulching, transplanting. Directly following the second charla sheet we would, together as a group, actually do the technique to better exemplify.

As judgement day approached I was at a complete loss for what to expect. I had done a little bit of outreach but had missed the opportunity to sufficiently advertise my events on the radio and was relying almost completely on word of mouth within the community. That made me nervous. To my greatest surprise, however, over twenty people came to the first garden charla and thirteen to the agro-forestry. Also to my surprise I was actually understood, minus a few vocabulary mix-ups like saying “salt” when I thought I was saying “hole”. Perhaps, an even greater accomplishment (in my own eyes) was that I only lost a totally of eight people from both groups combined between the first and second charlas of each theme.

So if I could give some advice to anyone who may have that uncomfortable feeling of charlaphobia… What helped me most was the knowledge of what I need to feel like I am giving my best attempt to provide the people with information in a manner that I feel they are receptive to. For me this was accomplished by attending other meetings in the community, talking with individuals, and incorporating aspects of training (yes that is a shout-out to CHP). I thrive off of organization, even if it is rushed and it usually is, and having a formulaic approach to prepare myself – not a formulaic approach to working with the community – for the charla really helped me overcome my first charla fears.

Garden Series Winding Down

I wouldn't classify this as a lessons learned post in regards to my first charlas but it is moving towards that direction. Tomorrow is the final presentation of the 4 part series and I am going to focus on the cooking side of the family's relationship to a healthy garden.

Last meeting was an absolute blast and we successfully made a "veneno casero" (organic herbacide and pesticide) to combat the problem our seedlings were having with fungus in the soil. The recipe was very simple:

- 4 Heads of mashed fresh garlic
- 10 Liters of water

- Stir it up, put a lid on it, and let it sit for 5 days.

Tomorrow marks the 5th day and the señoras will be applying the veneno casero and then taking their almacigo home with them as a conclusion to the series. I have also working in two gardens of members who signed up to have me come and work with them on whatever needs their garden has.

As a part of this mini-project, I have hosted the presentations at my house and used my garden to exemplify certain methods that I presented. Seen below is a picture of my garden in the beginning phase, just starting the fence. I must admit that this is a bit out of date and promise that I will bring more up to date photos shortly. In my own almacigo I have an assortment of vegetables sprouting. They include:
- Khale
- Pumpkin
- Squash
- Lettuce
- Arugula
- Four types of Peppers
- Cucumber
- Onion
- Tomatos (6 Varieties!! Thank you Sarah and Makala!)
- Mint
- Oregano
- Yerba Buena
- Yerba Mate
- Sunflower
- Thyme
- Pidgeon Pea

And anyone that wants to send me seeds...

Nathan H. Forster
4470 La Comena
Paraguay, South America

February Recap

Just like that February is gone, its amazing how some years that short month really does seem to fly by so much faster than the others. To be honest I myself had been on a little bit of a break from my program specific work, demo plots and crop extension, due to the fact that I was moving into and getting situated in my permanent house. Now that I have acheived this I have began my first installment of informational 'charlas'. Basically, a charla is a large sheet of paper prepared with the information that is being prepared.


The Huerta Series: Starting last Tuesday and continueing for the next three I am hosting a meeting and charla presentation at my house and in my garden. The goal of this series is to plant a seed of committment to the family garden on behalf of Paraguayan women and children (men do not work in the gardens). In order to encourage this I have made an incentive for the attendance of all four of my meetings whose information will build on itself as the meetings continue. For every family that has attended all four of the meeting I will give one 'almacigo' (seed box) with plants ready to transplant, as well as a generouse ammount of garden seeds. At the first meeting we collectively made the almacigos and I will be the caretaker for the duration of the series and will plant in my own garden any almacigos of those who did not meet the requirements. At the first meeting I had a wonderful turnout of over 20 individuals, more than I expected in my wildest dreams!


The Agro-Forestry Series: Starting last Wednesday and continuing for the next three I am conducting a charla series focusing on integrating agro-forestry techniques into a sustainable agricultural system on the family farm. These meeting are held at the local church and we will be gowing on tree walks as well and planting seeds and learning how to graft citrus and mango trees with the help of an agro-forestry volunteer. Like the Huerta Series, this has attendance incentives as well. Attend all four meetings and one will recieve 'macetas' (planted tree seeds in a small container) and two tree saplings, one grafted fruit and one wood producer. It is my hope that with this charla series I can start to approach an overarching goal of my to raise awareness amongst the community concerning economic planning of the family for the future.

My demo plot has been rather neglected during this time and is beggin for a good cleaning with my hoe. I will give it exactly what it want later this week and bring pictures to show the growth of my crops as soon as I can.

Intercroping and Experiments

The month of January has been goor times in the demo plot! Starting early off in the month with some initial plantings that I already chronicled, there have been an usual amount of saturating and heavy rains bringing prime planting and germinating conditions. I am gonna run through these pictures touching on the various approaches I used in the planting of the rezt of my seeds. I am now officially planted for this late summer season.



Seen in the picture above are two germinating crops that I planted closely in an intercropping experiment. The large bean pod breaking through the soil on the right in canavalia. Canavalia should provide a lot of ground coverage and not over compete or attack the neighbooring corn that can be seen on the left. It has been just over two weeks since I planted these lines and unfortunately not all of the canavalia germinated. I planted the two crops closer than would normally do so, about 20cm. I did this because canavalia has half the maturation life that corn does and after it is hoed into the ground at three months the corn will be entering its fruiting maturation and hopefully reap the benefits of the nutrients released into the soil by the decomposing canavalia as well as have a bit more room to grow.



This photo displays a couple of the rows that I have planted next to the first planting of beans and corn with the mulch. On either side of the initial planting I planted a two thick rows of Kumanda Yvy'rai (pigeon pea) to show and example of a living fence or seperation within a field.
After that, working your way left from the right of the photo, is the two lines of intercropped corn and canavalia that I just explained. After that is more corn and beans, planted every other line like the first planting but not nearly as thick which was a mistake made in the first planting.

Master of my domain, this was after a long day hoeing and preparing the soil for planting, making rows and beds. I suffered the consequence from this day of shirtless work and am still peeling from the burn... but it turned to a tan so all is good! In the freshly made rows and beds to the left of the photo I planted a mixture of corn, beans, canavalia, and kumanda yvy'rai. There are two rows to each bed and in one row I planted only corn while in the other row I planted a mixture of the beans, canavalia, and kumanda yvy'rai. My soil lack organic matter and nutrients above all else and this mixture row is a desperate attempt to add that to the field. I hope for it to provide coverage, nitrogen fixing, and organice matter.

Retro-Action

This post is taking a step back to training but definitely worthy of being in the blog. I recently have been having conversations with farmers in Potrero Garay about "Curvas de Nivel" also known as contour planting. This is perhaps the best method for soil conversation in sites that have a bit of terrain. Curvas also are great opportunities to start farmers out with concepts of future economic planning, agroforestry, wind breaks, shade, avonos verdes, and animal forrage. Crops with either a thick or a deep root base are the best for this planting and usually planted closer together than they would normally be.

The way in which a contour row works so well to combat erosion and conserve soil is that it creates a natural terrace system after a few years of growth. Erosion still occurs in the first years but only in between the planted contour lines effectively leveling the land.

This leveling process functions because the contour line is perpendicular to the slope of the hill. In order to create this line a special tool called an A-Frame is used. The A-Frame functions as a homemade level that will always give the perpendicular line to the slope. As can be seen in the photos my fellow Crop-E David and I are using the A-Frame. We staked every two lengths of the A-Frame and then generalized the zig-zag of the line when planting to facilitate the planting of crops in between the contour lines.