Gardening Beyond Borders

Greetings everyone!

We want to thank the club for supporting the community garden project in the village of Oruse. Your support will make a big difference in the diets and health of these people who eke out an existence on top of the Cordillera Mountains on the northern border with Honduras. The first set of seeds and trees was delivered to the village. We delivered radish, beet, tomato, onion, bell pepper, and zucchini, along with cinnamon, lemon, mango, and papaya trees.

Women of the village gathered to receive packets of seeds for their gardens.

Fruit trees were planted at the school- Papaya in the foreground and mango in the back.

In some of the photos, you will see the women of the village receiving seed packets and trees. The men were doing soil prep for the garden and the tree planting as well as preparing the red bean field to be planted. As there is no cell service in this area, we will get updates and photos when Juan and Maria visit the village and deliver the rest of the trees and supplies. They divided the supplies into two trips to be sure that all the trees were planted quickly, and so the gardeners were not overwhelmed with needing to plant so many trees all in one weekend.

Juan is teaching the villagers about growing the new vegetables and tree care. His wife Maria is a beekeeper. She has been adding hives to the area so that all the villages in that region can benefit from the extra pollinators. It also gives her a source of income selling the honey and wax to visiting missionaries and local shops. She leaves a portion of the honey with the villagers for allowing her to keep hives there, although having the bee hives so close to their fields is also a great benefit to them.

Some will grow their tomatoes and peppers in containers – old tires, broken buckets, or raised beds formed with the smaller chunks of lava.

They farm around the 10-gallon-sized to small car-sized lava rocks in their red bean fields.

They also mentioned that some of the seeds will be grown in the new school garden so they can teach gardening to the kids. Maria is going to teach a class about the importance of biodiversity and pollinators in the environment.

I will add some captions with this first set of photos.

Again, thank you very much, and I will keep you updated.

Kelly Wilhelm
The Education Garden

A few words from Juan:
“Parents have joined their children to plant their gardens. The rains are beginning to fall, and the bell peppers and tomatoes are already sprouting.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to work with you. Greetings to everyone who was part of sending this blessing! We appreciate you.
God bless you, and we’re at your service.
I’ll take more photos at the other homes where we also gave seeds and plants, and I’ll send them to you. Juan”