Garden update and floods - by Cory

Thursday I brought 1,650 Konsey books to Limbe to meet a TapTap truck for transport to Port au Prince. They were purchased at-cost by veterinarian Dr. Kelly for distribution with goats in far SW Haiti where the hurricane hit hardest.

We only have a few dozen copies of Konsey II left and soon will be out of Kids Konsey so it is time to reprint.

We would like to print at least 5,000 of each book if funding allows. We have about $5000 in the book project fund and total cost would be about $12,000.

Here is a link to help fund the book project: http://www.globalpartnersonline.org/projects/creole-health-book-project

Friday we brought three wheel barrows of trees (about 35) to plant at the big new garden. 1 1/3" rain fell the night before so it was at least a 30 minute muddy hike on the trails to the garden.

No livestock damage the last few weeks and with the fall rains, growth is rapid. The sharecropper's rice is about knee high.

I continue to be impressed by how much time and energy it takes to produce about a half or 3/4 acre of "upland" rice (and other crops) with only hand tools. Weeds and grasses grow as fast as the rice since there is no flooding to hinder the weeds.

We planted mostly rambutan, egg-fruit and jackfruit. This week I hoped to finish planting and also to get at least a few dozen of the "super tree" cacao(chocolate) from the big USDA project nursery to grow under peach palm. Payback for providing a few dozen bamboo poles for part of the nursery shade structure, loaning our wheelbarrow a few days to transport potting soil and also providing some of the potting soil for areas of campus where charcoal has been made.

The cacao nursery is planting some our biriba seeds and carambola/starfruit seedlings and other fruit trees now in the sacks that cacao didn't germinate.

We had 25" of rain here at Fauche from Saturday night to Tuesday night so planting waits. Some of the peanut gardens in the floodplain were washed out but the rain was spread out enough that it looks like at least half remain.

Port Margot

Flood damage is severe in Cap Haitian. They received even more rain than we did, with 10" the first night when we had 5".  We were told that flooding in the Port Margot valley near the sea reached the roof of at least one house. Rain was heavy in all of North Haiti along the coast at least from Port d Paix to the Dominican border.

Garden Update by Cory

We hiked to the new gardens Thursday this week.

We need rain, things are still green but even some established trees are wilted.

Gardeners in the floodplain are busy preparing gardens and planting peanuts.

The share cropper has part of our big garden freshly planted to rice.

Note the erosion control berms made of the old weeds.

I have expressed concern to him about topsoil erosion and the berms are the usual local practice although of limited effect on soil loss from our heavy downpours, about 150 inches of rain in a normal year.

It is good having someone working the garden for free to help keep livestock out but he isn't there all the time.

A neighbor reported that he tied up a big cow that was in the garden and said we should come more often.

Damage was minor with nibbles here and there and only one palm mowed off.

I sprayed most of the trees/palms on the underside of young leaves and at the base with deer/rabbit repellent, will see if it keeps livestock and rhino beetles from eating the trees.

Peach palms on campus are blooming again as harvest starts.

One tree that had a small bunch of small fruit last year has four good size bunches now and several flower buds.

 The fruit are much bigger than they look on the tree.

The flavor is good.



Fruit harvested on campus this week:
front - 3 banana varieties (Gros Michael, Ceylon/little Cory, and a FHIA hybrid), breadnut, hot bird peppers, miracle fruit and two barbados cherries/acerola, wild passionfruit.

2nd row - bilimbi (sour fruit) peach palm, sapodilla, breadfruit slice.

3rd row - starfruit/carambola,

4th row - Blanc' mango, atemoya, cacao, avocado, biriba, 'Baptiste' mango.


5th row - squash, black sapote, coconut.

Not included but also producing: guava, African oil palm, regular passionfruit. There would probably still be a few pineapple but the last few disappeared before full size.

Garden Report

Not much going on other than school, weeding, plants. Had a nice clinic chat yesterday and visited the adult literacy class in the afternoon talking on uterine fibroids, vaginal infections, and a few other mini-topics.

Eli will head back to the USA the end of this week and have one week to visit with family while packing and shopping for his next school year at Calvin.

A teacher's training conference is scheduled to occur on campus later this week.

Cory and guys tend to visit the gardens across the river on Tuesdays.

Cory was told that bananas don't grow as well in a sugar cane field, but peach palm do fine next to cane                               and other garden plants. One of the largest from the seed collected Costa Rica April 2014.

About 1/4 of the larger garden has been weeded/hoed by the share cropper in preparation for planting rice in September.

It makes the fruit trees much easier to see now that the corn is gone.

The trees are still growing well but ready for some rain.  It looks promising later this week with a tropical "wave" of showers approaching from the East.

Mulching around the fruit trees and palms in the grassy areas in June and July has paid off, resulting in dark green new leaves.

No cow or goat damage the past week but the rental garden has rhino beetles feeding on about half of the peach palm roots and hearts.

Peach palm can send out new shoots from the base even if the heart is eaten so it usually survives beetle attack.

About a tablespoon of motor oil around the base of the palm works as a repellent for at least a few months.

We found two of the potted coconut trees in the nursery had been attacked over the weekend. The trees were pulled out of the pots and 3 beetles killed but they probably ate the bud already and the coconuts will then die.

 The beetles tunnel into the base of the palm, eat up into the bud, and tunnel down into the dirt, eating roots and hiding deep underground.

New Gardens, by Cory

Most of the tree planting is finished in the two new purchased gardens.

The share cropper who has worked the land for years says it is a fertile garden and prodeces large sweet potato crops.

 He is planting a patch to share with Gener and Yvon.

It is a huge amount of work to scrape the weeds and surface soil into the old furrows, then hoe the hills over to cover and smother the weeds.

New path along garden

 It is a good system, leaving the weeds as fertilizer compost under the hills of potatoes.

Properly done on land that isn't sloping too much, it has little erosion.

Less erosion than crops like corn and rice that are planted on soil that isn't mounded.

Hoeing up parts of the garden will improve the soil compacted by years of cattle grazing, provide free weed control, and a small percentage of the crop.

We will also be planting some high quality forages for improved pasture, like perennial peanut, to share with other farmers.

Most of the gardens are planted to Peach Palm. Cory & Kris enjoyed them in Brazil. Here are some photos of the first bunch to ripen on campus. Note the red oil, a good source of vitamin A, on the lid of the pan they were boiled
in.

The tree was planted in 2010, on hard clay soil where bananas didn't do well.

 We are planning to head back to LaGonave on Thursday so that Kris can sit in on an important hospital meeting.

We plan to return on Saturday.

Good news today that F is adjusting to the idea of coming home and now 'excited' and 'just can't wait'.

We continue to pray for a Christmas miracle and that we would hear any day that our case has moved out of IBESR.

Thank you for praying for F and our travels.

LaGonave's internet isn't great so may not hear from us until early next week.

A newsletter should be going out by e-mail tomorrow so let us know if you would like to get it and don't.

The snail mail copies should be in the mail tomorrow having left Haiti on the mail plane today.

Have a great weekend.

Peach Palm

Prayer request, weekend update

Some of the ground peanut cover made it. 

Please pray for Dr. Tim Chamberlain's wife Emma, who's fighting for her life.

Overwhelming sepsis caused organ damage. The next 24 hours will be critical. She started continual dialysis yesterday and remains on a ventilator. Please pray for her family and medical team. Dr. Tim and many of the family visit Haiti frequently.

Thankful for a good trip this weekend. If you want to know more use the tab at the top to visit our adoption blog.

Took us longer than normal to travel as frequent rains this month have already damaged the dirt roads.

Sunday we attended church here as travel tends to be non-advisable during major elections in Haiti.

We arrived as normal at the end of Sunday school but being totally done with church in just over one hour may be a first for us in Haiti.

The sermon focused on how one needs to know who you're voting for because if you vote for someone who serves the devil, then you are an accomplice, not a victim. Pastor encouraged everyone to ask God for wisdom on voting because only He knows people's hearts.

Last night, we received 4.6 inches of rain. Cory's new garden of peach palm trees should be ready to put down roots and adjust to the new location.

No longer dry.

Monday the guys finished replanting the holes in the "living fencerows" and planted ground cover peanut under the trees in two of the gardens.

Negotiations continue for an additional piece of land in the same area.

They hope to replant the rehab garden soon with ground cover as well.

Cory plans to travel with the Munsells on Thursday to Port-au-Prince.

He will drop off some Konsey books and hopefully buy some new batteries for our inverter system and maybe a washing machine.

New Peach Palm Garden.

Costa Rica

Peach palms were a staple food of Native Americans.

They remain popular in some countries of Central and South America.

I, Cory, enjoyed them in Brazil in the early 90's.

After trying many seed suppliers without good results, I finally went to Costa Rica Spring of 2014 to get good seed.

Costa Rica fruit market

Close to 700 seeds grew to a good size in the nursery and a few hundred wait to be planted.

The new garden had been growing mostly sugar cane and rice.

The owner does not live nearby and sharecrops with some local farmers.

With the purchase just finalized last week,  the local farmer was still in the process of hoeing and planting.

 Rice and corn are just coming up.

3 truck trips to bring 170 peach palms

8 wheelbaro loads the first day, 2 on the 2nd day.

 Rice will do well if wet weather dominates, corn if the area remains dry.

The local farmer will continue care for this year's crops and harvest them.

The damage we did to his crops planing the trees will be compensated with part of our percentage of the harvest.

 He already asked about continuing to work the land next year.

This will be decided at a later time.

Annual crops will continue to be practical for at least two years.

Some of the palms may start fruiting in three.

 The land is medium fertility and part can flood, but peach palms do well on wet land.

The poor drainage area would be a problem for most other crops, but peach palm and acai palm should do great!

 A few rambutan and other fruits will be planted for trial in the higher part of the garden.

Four people planting on 2nd day, should be done the 3rd day

The best tasting and best producing peach palms will be left to cross pollinate and provide good quality seeds for nursery production and establishing the crop in our area.


The amount of food produced per acre by peach palm tends to be better than corn, where hybrid seed and fertilizer are not available (as is the case here).

The fruit are also more nutritious than corn, with good amounts of protein, oil, starch, and vitamins.

We are praying for a rain soon to soak them in, it will be hard work watering them from the river if it gets dry, a 10-15 minute walk each way.

Some of the nearby farmers are counting on regular rain as they are planting upland rice on hillsides.