• Haiti

Hello Haiti supporters!

We've had a busy few months following up on our initial shipments to Haiti, negotiating new requests for seed and support, and networking with Haitian partners on the ground in preparation for the SPI Haitian Partnership Network stakeholder meeting. Although the greatest need is still for providing high quality seeds to replace the gardens and seed resources that were destroyed by Hurricane Matthew, we're also working with partners to take steps steps toward rebuilding the community systems that were disrupted by Matthew.

Since our last update, we've shipped 4,700 packets of seed to four partners. Something I really like about our partnerships is knowing that seeds usually reach more farmers and families than those who are supported by our immediate partner. For instance, two partners recently reported that their shipments were subsequently shared with other organizations — seven organizations from one partner and five local schools from another. Having partners on the ground and invested in the community allows our seed to reach people we could not have reached on our own. This is only one of the reasons we love our partners!

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Today’s we’ll talk about composting — right in the middle of your garden! But first, what do we mean by a “smart garden” idea? Many people think that here at SPI we do a lot of teaching of how to grow vegetables. The truth is actually the opposite: we do a lot of learning. Our program philosophy is to engage local leaders to share gardening skills and ideas with seed recipients. Their skills and ideas are truly smart gardening: these techniques use every available resource already on-site to minimize waste and cost. Water is considered a precious, finite resource -- a worldwide truth that is too easy to ignore when we have an apparently infinite supply coming out of our hose. Gardening can feel easy where amazon.com, Wal-Mart, or our local store sell every type of soil amendment or tool we might need. But this type of gardening uses a lot of resources and can be expensive for the gardener. By learning from regions like East Africa and Central America, we can save money, reduce household waste, and maybe even grow better vegetables and flowers.

Today’s idea is the compost basket. “Basket” is not a literal term, but instead refers to any structure you might build in the middle of your garden to hold compost. U.S. gardeners are fond of composting in a special pile or bin and then carrying the finished material to the garden. But this work is unnecessary, and the missed opportunity comes when rain falls on the pile or moisture seeps from a covered compost bin: much of the wonderful soil-enhancing nutrient potential is lost into the dirt nowhere near your garden.

Instead, steal this idea practiced all over the world, coming to us most recently from our collaborator Sostine Mukhebi at the Kenya Department of Agriculture: compost right in the middle of your garden, and then water your garden through the compost pile. Here’s how:

1. Make a tube or bin-like structure out of material of your choice. It can be about 2 feet wide and 4-5 feet tall; a section of wire fencing rolled into a cylinder works well. If you’re more of an artisan you can form a truly basket-like structure from woven sticks or vines. Place it in the middle of your garden bed and mark its footprint. Remove it.
2. Dig out this area below ground level. Sostine recommends 60 cm (about two feet) but your soil might make that difficult; do what you can. The width of the hole should be about the same. Put your bin structure in the hole and fill up to soil level with a mix of rocks and organic material. This initial effort to ensure below-ground drainage will help the good stuff from your compost pile reach your vegetable plants’ roots.
3. Prepare your garden bed around the compost basket just like you usually would. Allow 6 inches from the basket to where your first plants grow, just in case the level of nutrient flow from your compost is very strong.

Now that your compost basket is proudly centering your garden bed, just add any compostable material: kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, old oak leaves, lawn clippings, and aged manure from livestock or poultry. Periodically layer in sticks to keep air flowing through the pile, as it’s hard to turn the compost. If your neighborhood sports wild critters like raccoons, rats, or bears, avoid any prepared foods more fragrant than vegetable peelings, or build the bin from a sturdy narrow gauge type of fencing and keep it covered.

Water your plants as normal when they are very small, but as they grow, or in addition, water the garden bed via the compost basket in the middle. This is an especially good use of “greywater” such as rainfall captured from your roof, or water leftover from the kids’ play pool on a hot day.

Want to learn more and see diagrams and examples?

This article from Nifty Homestead shows many examples of keyhole gardens which are a type of round raised bed with a compost basket in the middle. Notice how many different ways the compost basket can be built!

This article from Hungary highlights compost baskets as an especially appropriate method for urban areas with limited good soil.

• Honduras

One of the first questions we ask when considering a new partnership is, "Can we facilitate this partner's growth toward self-sufficiency and resilience?" Each partner is unique — each community has access to different resources and expertise, and we rely upon local leaders with boots on the ground to help make key decisions in our programs. Our programs aim to first invest in local relationships that will help ensure our partner's resilience long after we are no longer directly supporting a program in the region.

When we begin looking at seed selection together, we first determine whether quality seed is already accessible though the partner's existing relationships. Our partners often already know which vegetables work best and whether good seed is available locally. Access to good seed is one of the primary drivers for long-term agricultural sustainability, and FIPAH's research teams (CIALs) are actively working to establish self-sustaining local seed production. Since quality seed is available locally, our role in this partnership has shifted to support FIPAH and the CIALs by working together to purchase appropriate vegetable seeds and offer seed saving workshops through the field schools (ECAs).

In a recent report, FIPAH reported the purchase and distribution of seed to Yorito, Vallecillo, Otoro, Lempira Sur, and Intibucá Sur — regions where seed production is being taught. The number of SPI-equivalent packets includes:

• 12,000 Pepper
• 31,000 Tomato
• 4,800 Cabbage
• 3,000 Radish
• 1,200 Squash
• 4,150 Cilantro
• 2,000 Onion
• 1,100 Cucumber
• 484 Beet
• 15,00 Soy
• 694 Mustard Greens
• 173 Watermelon
• 10 Celery
• 10 Parsley

We're looking forward to hearing what happened with the seeds and we'll tell you about that in the next report. Until then, thank you for your continued support and for helping to strengthen these communities toward resilience!

• Liberia

Seed is not a hand-out, and vegetables don’t appear by magic. The journey from seed to harvest — soil preparation, sowing, weeding, picking, and transportation — requires a significant investment from farmers. That’s a lot of time, sweat, and energy.

Just as seed is not a hand-out, the support SPI provides to our partners is not a hand-out; it’s an investment. With your help, we invest in leaders on the ground who put their communities first, cultivate mutually beneficial relationships, and put resources in the hands of those who need them most (often the same people that can do the most with them). In other words, they do the hard work of building resiliency.

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