Making a Garden

I’ve always been fascinated with plant life but never really appreciated the beauty of the cycle plant life goes through until living in rural northern California. In northern California, for the first time I could witness real seasons make noticeable changes in the plant and tree life and I could watch many of things I enjoyed eating growing on trees and on the surrounding land. Until living in small town Chico, I had never met people who called themselves farmers and actually meant that they lived and worked on a farm, I never knew that farmers markets were markets that actually sold food that was grown locally. I didn’t know it was possible to supply your fridge with fruits and vegetables for a week without stepping foot in the produce section of a grocery store. I felt ignorant when I realized real organic vegetables aren’t freakishly large and when I realized there were some vegetables I didn’t even recognize because they were grown naturally. Until living in Chico, a world of orchards, gardens, and farming was only something I was interested in but never thought I could be part of. I knew I was always more interested in receiving my food from something that came from a seed rather than an animal or some processed mystery that came in a box but I didn’t have a clue how to grow that food myself. I remember the tomatoes from my uncle’s garden always tasting so much sweeter than store bought ones and I used to love helping my neighbors across the street harvest their vegetables when I was growing up but the world of gardening was always a beautiful mystery to me, until I came to Paraguay.

In Paraguay there are no grocery stores, not like the ones in the U.S anyways. That doesn’t mean there is a shortage of food though. Everywhere you look there are fruit trees in people’s backyards. When I first arrived in Paraguay it was banana and mango season. I was more than fascinated seeing bananas and mango plucked from our trees and put on the kitchen table. I kept telling people “I’ve never seen a banana tree before, we don’t have them in the U.S” and they would look so surprised and a little bit proud that their land was able to grow something mine wasn’t. We laughed when we discovered the only common word between the indigenousness language of Guarani and English was grapefruit, though they continue to tell me I cannot pronounce it correctly the Guarani way. I was completely amused watching Paraguayans peel a grapefruit with a knife so that its skin came off in one perfect spiral, then cut a hole in the top and suck the juice out. It’s taken some practice but I can now eat grapefruits like that too! Just like my neighborhood did at home in Glendora, people share their fruit with their neighbors. During the season of bananas and mangos and avocados there is abundance and it would kill me to see piles of avocados laying the streets because there were too many to be eaten. I tried to pass on the glory of guacamole to this country but sadly most Paraguayans don’t seem to like it but Paraguayans are really great about making lots of uses out of each fruit or vegetable. Here, you eat whatever is in season and you eat it all season. I suppose having a lack of ingredients teaches you to be a better cook because you are forced to be creative.

Many people compliment their fruit trees with a family garden however gardens are a lot more work than a fruit tree and many people don’t have running water so they are difficult to maintain. During training we were encouraged to make a garden because it sets a good example of how to improve nutrition in your community, gives you something to do your first few months in site when you are feeling kind of lost and bored and shows the people in your community that you know how to work. I was given a small manual from Peace Corps with basic information about how to make compost, prepare the soil, pick vegetables that were season appropriate in Paraguay, and how to plant, transplant and harvest. After thumbing through it, I realized gardening was more complicated than I thought. It was more than just a hobby, it was hard work and there was an art to it. Gardening is a way of life and I was ready to begin.

I started by clearing away a place in the yard where my host mom used to keep 30 or so pigs when she was in the pig business. Needless to say it was a messy job. I kept finding a lot of trash when I was digging up soil and when I asked her about it she told me after the era of the pigs they used to put their trash there! For a moment I questioned whether or not I wanted to grow food in what used to be a mini landfill and pig pen! I decided it was my only option and restoring this little piece of land was already very satisfying work.

Once the land was cleared away, I asked Sarah, a beekeeping/agriculture volunteer in my area to make a visit to Horqueta to help me get started. Sarah has a garden at her house the size of Texas and was a master gardener in the states so she was the perfect person to take me by the hand and get me started on my gardening way. Before she arrived in Horqueta she gave me instructions on what to do before she got there. I started by sterilizing the soil. I boiled 4 huge pots of water on an outdoor stove and sanitized the beds with this to kill on the icky living creatures that could harm the baby veggies. My host mom asked my 11 year old host brother, Gino to help me and while we carried over big pots of boiling water to the garden it dawned on me that no one would ever let a child do this in the states! Yet, he did an excellent job of not burning himself and I had a little helper. I decided the fact I was teaching him a valuable skill and was spending quality time with him outweighed the risks. Sarah told me to leave the beds alone overnight and she would arrive the next day to help me plant but I needed one more thing before she arrived.…..manure!

I wasn’t exactly sure where to get manure. I couldn’t just drive down to Lowe’s, walk into the gardening section and walk out with a sack of manure. I asked Francisco my gardening friend at the school where I could find manure and he pointed to a house across the street. I walked over, clapped at their gate and when a young man approached me I said “ I heard you can get me some manure!” He smiled and said he didn’t have any right then but then pointed to a pile of crap in front of his house and said “that right there is horse manure…it’s not as good as cow manure but you can take it if you want”. At that moment I realized tracking down manure in Paraguay was definitely not like buying it in the states. I stood their for a moment pretending to admire the pile of horse dung and mumbled something like “yep, that’s some good horse dung alright” and when he realized I wasn’t about to shovel it into my backpack and take it home, he said “if you really want cow manure my grandpa and bring some to your house tomorrow”. I told him I was going to try to find some that day and that I would come back if I was unsuccessful. I went back to talk to Francisco and Francisco said he would talk to a guy and get me some really great manure delivered that afternoon. Well, the afternoon came and went and no manure was delivered. I assumed Francisco was unsuccessful as well so the next morning I went back to my manure house and told the guy I would love it if his grandpa could bring me some manure. Sarah arrived shortly after and I assured her that I had followed instructions and we would be getting some great manure delivered any minute.

A few hours later, a horse drawn cart pulled up in front of my house with an entire cart filled with manure! I figured I could just tell the man how much I wanted but when I realized he was backing up his cart in front of my house to dump the entire cart in front of my house I started to panic a little. “how much is this going to cost me?” I asked my host mother and “what am I going to do with all of this manure?” she laughed and said we would just shovel it into sacks and put it in the backyard. I nervously asked the man how much the price was and realized there was nothing I could do if the price was too much. I couldn’t just return my purchase when it came to my house on a horse and cart! When he responded 1o,oooo guarani (the equivalent of $2.00) I started laughing. Sarah and I started making jokes in English about what a good pile of shit this was and started shoveling it into sacks.

We finished digging the beds, then added the manure and mixed it in with the soil. We now had oxygen rich, nutrient rich, and wonderful soil to plant in. I evened out the beds with my rake and we planted various vegetable seeds in pairs ( so that the weak seedlings could be weeded out later and at least one was bound to sprout) We planted lettuce, beats, tomatoes, green pepper, yellow squash, green onion and a few carrots. After everything was planted it dawned on me I had one small problem, chickens.

Chickens like to get into everything and could easily ruin all of my hard work and turn the garden into an all you can eat buffet. I took a quick trip to the hardware store to see how much it would cost to construct some sort of fencing over the top of the beds to keep the chickens from getting in. When I discovered fencing was not as cheap as manure, Sarah came up with an idea for the most ridiculous chicken resistant system ever heard of. She assured me it would be possible to construct something that would confuse and discourage the chickens from entering into the garden beds using only sticks and string. I agreed to give it a try so we roamed around the neighborhood collecting sticks, once again entertaining the neighbors with our weird American ideas. Our invention came to life and we did rig up a very inexpensive web of string that has so far protected my garden from not only chickens, but small children and other house pets.

In another two months I should be filling my plate with food grown right in my own backyard. I cannot wait to eat the first vegetable and I look forward to having such an abundance of veggies I can just graze in the garden like a cow but already I have found gardening to be a very rewarding way to spend my time and energy. Everyday, I start my day by watering the seedlings with my host mom, they are still small but they have sprouted and are growing bigger everyday. It is a great way to bond with her since neither one of us has any experience with gardening. We are learning together and we get to have a small celebration every time we see something new sprout. We usually look at each other and say “what is it?” and the other one responds “I don’t know…It’s probably a weed” and then we laugh and congratulate ourselves for having a successful garden. In fact my host mother has become so proud and so motivated by the garden, she has prepared two more beds in another part of the yard and tomorrow we are going to plant more seeds. I now understand why gardeners are such proud people, and why it brings them so much joy to share their veggies with others. It’s hard work, it’s fun to watch things grow and it’s very rewarding to see the final product of months of constant attention. Gardening is a fantastic hobby that I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t tried it, or to anyone who has tried it and given up. If digging in the dirt isn’t your cup of tea, I at least recommend taking a moment to think about where your food comes from. I recommend supporting your local farmers, and your gardening friends. If it weren’t for them, we’d be eating nothing but freakishly large vegetables and mysteries in boxes.