Seeds

Instead of spending most of my day in the office, I was fortunate enough today to plant seeds!! As a muni volunteer, I don't really get the chance to go out and get my hands dirty very often (very different from what I was originally imagining when I had signed up for the Peace Corps) so it was an extra special treat going to plant some veggies. Apparently there's a small vivero or greenery right next to the municipality where we keep baby trees and other random things for the community. Since it's muni property, they let us plant our seeds and try out a tire gardens. The tire gardens were a bit of a flop, after searching around for a machete we only ended up with a dull blade and no fire to heat it up with. After a couple attempts to make an incision we decided to just leave the tire as is and fill it with dirt (and a layer of nylon with holes poked in it)...same thing mas o menos right?

Anyway, I wanted to jot down what I learned:

1. Spinach and radish seeds look a lot alike (guess I should mention that none of the seeds are labeled)

2. The following seeds have to be laid out using what I gathered was the "chorro" method or sprinkling - so you sprinkle the seeds and then lightly put dirt on top sifting with your hands: carrots, onions, and pretty much any other seed that is tiny

3. Other seeds have to be planted two by two about a fist or hand width apart

4. Cucumber and guicoy (pumpkin or squash type seed) has to be planted two by two in individual holes that are a forearm width apart

5. Leaving seeds in little baggies makes them go bad, store them in paper pouches instead

6. Gallina ciegas are bad for seeds - some ugly looking grub thing

7. Putting pine needles over the seeds helps prevent birds from eating them, once the plant has sprouted you remove the pine needles

8. You can grow mushrooms in a humid bag in a dark location

9. If a crop of corn is used to chemical pesticides, it won't take well to suddenly being organic, so you can try to slowly reduce the ratio of organic to inorganic pesticides until it's 100% organic

10. Farmers have to pay a shitload of money to be certified organic so lots of farmers don't certify even if they are organic b/c they can't afford it

11. In 22 days the radishes will be ready to eat

12. In three months the carrots will be ready to eat

13. Always carry a sharpened machete

That's all I got! Clearly I'm a novice at this gardening/planting thing, I never really took interest in it when I lived in the States because apartment living isn't too conducive to planting, but I'm going to be super stoked to eat a salad that my counterparts and I grew!!