School Garden Part 3

Proud farmers display their produce

The school garden was a great success last year. After our harvest of string beans and turnips we planted and reaped lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and carrots. We had such a bountiful harvest that we could not use all of the vegetables at the school. We sent some of the produce to the local shops and market and a lot of it to needy families. The profits from the garden will be used towards seeds and fertilizer for this school year and for the school nutrition program (more to follow). We are looking forward to planting more string beans, carrots, tomato, broccoli, and lettuce within the next month. Our sweet pepper and hot pepper plants are still bearing along with scallion and thyme the key ingredients in every Jamaican dish.

A local shopkeeper sells our tomatoes in his shop and at the market

School Garden Part 2

We've started harvesting! The school has turnips (radish) and green beans at lunch now. Some of the poorer students are allowed to take vegetables home with them. We've raised J$400 by selling turnips at the market to buy some more seeds. This past week we planted watermellon, tomato, and lettuce seeds along with our sweet pepper suckers. The students are excited to see things growing, the farmers are enjoying teaching the students, and I'm happy to see more nutritious lunches being served.

School Garden: A dat wi did wan long time.

GG uses his machete to dig a hole for a schotch bonnet pepper sucker.

The school has talked about starting a garden for a long time. This past week it finally began! Community members brought tools, knowledge, and expertise. The school brought the seed and fertilizer, and the students brought the labor and their questions. So far we've cleared some land, started a compost heap, and planted hot pepper, coco, sweet pepper, plantain, and flowers. We'll use the produce in the school kitchen and if there is left over food we'll send it home with the children that might need it. We've been having a lot of fun even in the rain. I just hope they start listening to my pleading "Please don't run with the machete!!"

Fitzroy shows the students how to protect the sweet pepper nursery from the rain with banana leaves.