Starting your home food garden

Observe and Interact 

Covid-19 lockdown.  How much longer? What the world will be like when this is over? When will we be able to zip around again, without hand sanitiser and mask?

This Coronavirus has brought uncertainty, chaos, despair and loss. But even as businesses fold under the economic pressure, we must remain resilient and do what we can where we are, while staying safe. Let us rebuild where we are, with what we have... in new ways, kinder to Gaia.  We invite you to focus your energies on starting your home garden so you and your family can reap some of the many benefits:

• Engage the entire family - let each member decide what they want to plant, research the optimal growing conditions and work together to devise an integrated plan for a garden that will yield something for everyone.
• Help to ease stress - by shifting your focus from the present circumstances to the future as you plan, plant and care for seedlings.
• Restore a sense of purpose - in these uncertain times, growing food is a strategy that will ensure your family's survival, even as you learn new skills and techniques...and patience - some plants take their grand time to grow.
• Save you money, feed your family, provide stuff for bartering
• Keep you safe by saving trips to the market 
• Enhance the appearance of your home 
• Enhance your property value 
• Provide physical exercise 
  

We Organic TT will be right here to help you grow your garden without synthetic chemicals and the first step is to observe and interact with the designated space.  It may be easy to visualise your site with lush, fully grown plants and you can bring that vision to reality by considering the many factors that affect the growth, flowering and fruiting of your favourite plants.  Observe and interact is the first or 12 Permaculture Principles and this step can save you a lot of time, effort and money.

Whatever the size of your site it will help to create a plan taking into account the lay of the land, the permanent fixtures such as buildings, and how energy moves through the land. So grab a notebook, put on your boots and take a walk through your site.

The purpose is simply to observe without deciding what should change.  Here are some questions to help guide your observations : 

• How is the land used and traversed by humans? 

• What path does the sun take across the site - what areas get full/partial sun? are any areas in shade all the time?
• What animals inhabit or pass through the space?

• How does wind flow through it? Are there trees/structures that will act as a windbreak? 
• What trees, plants and weeds are currently growing there are how are they faring?

• How does water flow across the site? Does it run off quickly or pool in some areas?  
• How does the soil feel? Is it soft and loose or hard and compacted?
• What other factors do you think will affect your decisions about what to plant on the site.

  
  

  Learn more about this first Permaculture Design Principle here and visit WaSamaki for Permaculture in the Caribbean. 

#gardendesign #permacultureprinciples #observeandinteract #howenergyflows #covid19things #wasamaki #permaculture #WeOrganicTT #KindertoGaia 

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  clear area with gradient, bordered by bamboo and a stream

  
  

  

  Fenced backyard with large trees

  
  

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International Compost Awareness Week begins tomorrow May 6, 2018.

International Compost Awareness Week begins tomorrow May 6, 2018.

The pace of daily life can prevent us from carrying out our best intentions- like cooking healthy meals, making those smoothies chock full of vitamins, setting up our organic garden so we know they’re free of dangerous chemicals and composting our kitchen waste. 

Our family is away from home from 6 am to 6 pm - and that's on a good day.  Shuttling children to after school activities often means an even later return to the nest and the quickest dinner solution possible.  

My bucket of organic kitchen waste in freezer.

Challenging? Yes but as I learnt more about growing organic food it became clear that organic waste was necessary to produce healthy plants and it was readily available from my kitchen. So I was determined to find a way to return to the earth that which is hers.  

Inspired by ‘Kiss the Ground’  I came up with a 2-step solution that works for me.  The only tools required are a small container that can fit in the freezer and a garden hoe or shovel. A small effort that has already improved the quality of my soil and plants. 

In celebration of International Compost Awareness Week let's discuss  this important topic share our composting methods and tips on We Organic TT.

What is Organic Gardening? Prelude to Workshop

Tomato seedlings for a home organic garden

Preparations are in full swing for our first Home Grown Organics Workshop to be held  in 4 days time.   As the excitement builds I thought it will be useful to discuss what Organic Gardening is and what it isn't.

Organic gardening is not:-

• Using Roundup to get rid of the grass in the garden bed, then buying seeds or seedlings from your neighborhood agricultural shop and just planting them. 
• Having a random fruit or vegetable plant grow effortlessly in your yard.  If you don't know where it originated you can't really say it is organic.  It might have come from GMO see.  Genetic modification is used in large-scale farming to have crops develop particular desired traits, produce insecticides in their tissues or to be immune to particular herbicides.  While this may sound like a great idea, the real concern for those against GMOs is that the process of gene splicing introduces to one species genes from an entirely different species, something that would never happen in nature as their reproductive organs don't match.
• Spraying synthetic pesticides or fertilizer only when the plants are young and treating them as though they are organic afterwards.  

Nutrient-dense, organic soil

Organic gardening is:-

• Growing plants for human and/or animal consumption using natural, organic fertilisers, and natural means of controlling weeds and pests.
• Using organic or heirloom seeds to start seedlings fore the garden.
• Ensuring the soil you cultivate has not had synthetic chemicals applied to it for at least 7 years; in the US this time frame has been reduced to 3 years.  This includes avoiding sewerage sludge, irradiation (read more) and conserving wetlands,woodlands and wildlife.

Challenges

Care must also be taken to ensure that neighbouring yards do not use the chemicals and seeds that you avoid; imagine that you are downwind from a garden to which synthetic chemicals are being applied and understand that the your plants and soil will be affected by this.  GMO seeds can also reach your garden by travelling on the wind.

The Home Grown Organic Garden

For the organic home gardener the emphasis is on developing practices that nurture the ecosystem which in turn sustains and nourishes the plants, microbes and beneficial insects.

It all begins with improving the soil by adding organic matter.  This is done by mixing compost into the soil to increase its water and nutrient retention. This introduces microbes into the soil that are essential for healthy plant growth.  Compost can be made from grass clippings, leaves, organic yard debris and kitchen scraps.  

Pest control is achieved by such means as companion planting or natural concoctions such as cayenne or garlic spray.  Click here are a couple of tips to try out.

To learn actual Organic Gardening methods, register for our workshop to be held in St. Joseph, Sunday November 20, 2016.  Find out more.

Change of Venue for Home Grown Organics Workshop

Plans are moving along for our first workshop just 2 weeks away.  Had some hiccups with the planned venue in Santa Cruz but Co-hosts Indira and Carlson of La Souce Environmental found the perfect location in another picturesque valley, Maracas, St. Joseph.

Contact us soon for more info and to register!

Home Grown Organics Workshop 

Facilitated by La Souce Environmental Designs 

Sunday, November 20, 2016  9AM - 1PM

#12, Riverview Gardens, Maracas

St. Joseph

Cost: $500.00 - All required materials and light refreshments will be provided 

Register now- Space Limited  
Call: Marlene at 798-8524   or     Email: omgrowntnt@gmail.com 



A presentation of We Organic TT - Return to Wholesomeness