Getting our playground on!

Rice is Nice

Hey all,

Enjoy some short footage from our organic rice harvest.

Best to all,

Chris

Late November update

Greetings all!!,

Chris here once again, poised at my G4, posting images and text like nobodies' business. Days have been overcast and cool here, perfect for getting our garden started for the winter months and for germinating seeds in the BF nursery. The last 10 days have been great. We harvested our first OG rice crop last week. Nevis, the team leader for this project coordinated our local crew plus a crop of eager volunteers to cut, carry, thresh and haul our nearly 300 pounds of rice uphill to the kitchen area to be dried and then milled. It was a hot day for harvest but the dryness accompanying the heat was great for post harvest handling.

This week we also managed to begin the installation of the playground at the community center, so far the see-saw and monkey bars are in, in the coming week we will have a swing set and a slide. Thanks to Delvis the metalworker, his crew as well as david Ortiz our crew chiel and Martin 'El Loco' for their help during the installation.

Much work has been happening down at the community center, the library is just a week away from opening to the public and folks from BF and TALICA are woring hard to make this happen. Thanks to Sue Ellen and TALICA for their hard work and support. We will feature fotos in the next posting that highlights this.

Pejibaye (peach palm) or Bactris gasipaes, yep, that is what that is in my palm. first fruits (4) from a BF research project on food security that has been in process for 4 years. We have now identified 2 seperate pejibaye palms of the 100 we have planted so far as having flowering and fruiting cycles that follow the rainy season. This allows these palms to produce a crop w/o irrigation. Now we can reproduce these varieties for greater distribution to the community and broaden our food security palette of species we offer. We are excited here, four years is a good space of time to wait to get results. Patience is a virtue.

Scope out the pitanga fruit as well (pictured as a singular fruit in my palm). Yum. In English we know it as Suriname cherry or in latin, Eugenia uniflora.

Best to all, enjoy the pictures, stay warm in the North!,

Chris

Mid November update

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters. Long time no see. Chris here, I have been away from the farm for 4 weeks and I just arrived back here a week or so ago. BUSY HERE!!

We are gearing up big time here for our 3rd year with our Farm School, the Escuela de Campo. Nevis and I just had a Sunday afternoon meeting. We will be growing a lot of species and varieties that have done well in the past this year, using our saved compost, manures, and more fertile soil due to cover cropping to enhance production. The EDC will undertake a trial of tomato varieties adapted for the tropics and run a number of trials that will employ organic soil conditioning as well as nim seed cake to discourage the persistent soil bacteria that stymies our work with nightshade family plants other than hot chiles. The EDC students will also work in the nursery and with medicinal herbs and will both give and receive workshops in town and at BF. EDC will also undertake individual research projects based on Permaculture, agro-forestry, and market evaluation for sale of BF crops produced.

Finca Bona Fide is loaded (with fruit that is)!!! As you can see in the foto, we have been harvesting ripe and green papaya for fruit and for green papaya salad (YUM). BF chiles and fresh herbs make an excellent green vegetable salad for dinners and lunches. As the papaya season progresses fesh papaya will go down the hill for the children's nutritional program, Cafe Infantil. Featured in the 3rd fotos that shows four fruits (from top left to right clockwise: Araza, Rollinia, Purple passion fruit, and sweet startfruit) What do all these yummies have in common?

Both the araza and the rolllinia are newcrops introductions to the island as part of our food security efforts, the purple passion fruit and sweet 'Kari' starfruit are new varieties introduced to the island from existing species, the passion fruit should have better market appeal whilst the sweet starfruit is superior to the sour ones found on island due to the taste and the lack of need for sugar to make fruit juice from it.

WHAT ARE THOSE KIDS DOING??

The little guys and gals featured in the planting foto are planting live stakes from a spiny cactus like plant in an effort to begin to fence out pigs from our community center in Balgue. The center will be outfitted with a PLAYGROUND this week, so keep your alls eyes open for this upcoming addition to our work. HUGE thanks to Heather, Sarah, and Ken Knorr for helping to fund raise for this project, Heather was also on the ground to organize the materials and labor.
The kids cannot thank you enough!!

The island is SINKING?

Well....No, but we recieved more rain this year than we have in over 2 decades, more than 1992 when Hurricane Mitch dumped over a yard/meter of rain on us in just 3 days. WOW. The lake level is higher than most folks can remember, for those of you who have visited here, the river Balgue, usually a stream about 6-12" or 15 to 30cm in 3 plus feet, a meter DEEP! I have to ride my motorcycle on a new stream crossing upstream to get across. It is wild!


We are excited for the upcoming arrival of both long term volunteers and 3 staff members, one new this year and two returnees.

It is going to be a fine 2008-09.

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director Project Bona Fide
Chris@projectbonafide.com