Planting Seeds in Boxes - Sembrando en almácigos

Beautiful day at the farm today...
We continued to plant more fruit trees; bread fruit and jack fruit trees.
Before learning how to prepare the planting boxes, we dug and sifted sand at the river (we needed sand without salt!) to ad drainage to the pile of soil we made for the fruit tree planting. Again, thoroughly mixing different piles of material is done in a precise fashion, so as to create the perfect mix and prevent strain on the back.


Un hermoso día en la 'granja'. Continuamos sembrando más árboles frutales, yakas y árboles del pan. Antes de aprender a preparar los almácigos, paleamos y cernimos un poco de arena de río, la cual mejora el drenaje en la mezcla de tierra. Nuevamente, un buen mezclado de los diferentes componentes del montón es esencial y realizado en una manera precisa, como para lograr una mezcla total y no lastimarse la espalda ni el cuerpo.


Getting ready to plant seeds in boxes - Preparándose para plantar en almácigo

Sorting seeds and labeling sticks

Revisando y ordenando las semillas y preparando las etiquetas








































Bottom of box receives 1/2" of horse manure and some eggshell (tomatoes love eggshell)

La capa inferior del almácigo recibe media pulgada de excremento seco de caballo y cascarones de huevo. A los tomates les encanta (¡puro calcio!)

































Each box is meticulously filled, and soil packed, leaving a 3/8" lip (to accommodate the fine soil that will later be sprinkled over the seeds )

Cada caja se llena meticulosamente con tierra y se comprime, dejando un ligero espacio (3/8'') por debajo del borde, suficiente para acomodar la tierra que se usará para cubrir las semillas.























































Sowing seeds.
(After seeds are laid out in each square, a very fine mixture of soil is gently sprinkled over the seeds)

Sembrando semillas
Una vez que se esparcen las semillas en cada espacio, se recubren con una mezcla de tierra fina. La tierra se 'espolvorea' como si fuera nieve, sutilmente agitando la mano.

Everyday, more people are coming to help with planting. What a pleasure to play in the dirt with new friends, or a kid! As participation grows, some of us can now teach others how to make planting soil, prepare boxes and plant seeds.

A few more days of planting seeds and we'll move onto digging the beds on each side of the Alianza Jaguar. Come learn the French double-digging technique with us.

We'll also soon be starting on the compost pile behind Alianza Jaguar.

First batch of fruits trees - Primera tanda de frutales

We recycled many of the planting bags left at the Vivero, and planted 300 Mexican Papaya trees.
We used two seeds per bag (just to make sure at least one germinates!) and a little mantra:

From you I receive

To you I give

Together we share

From this we live

Tomorrow Monday, we'll be planting more fruit trees.

Tuesday and Wednesday we'll be planting vegetables, herbs and flowers, using planting boxes.

Reusamos varias bolsas de plástico que quedaron del vivero, y plantamos 300 semillas de papaya.

Usamos dos semillas por bolsa (para asegurar la germinación) y un mantra simple:
De tí recibo
a tí te doy
juntos compartimos
de esto vivimos

Mañana lunes sembraremos más frutales. Martes y miércoles sembraremos verduras, hierbas y flores en almácigo.

Monday February 28. Showing a rare video interview of Alan Chadwick

Juaquin Lawrence will be presenting a rare video interview (57 min) of his teacher Alan Chadwick
Monday February 28
Cafe El Arte
San Pancho

Juaquín Lawrence presentará un video poco conocido de una entrevista a su maestro Alan Chadwick.
Luner 28 Febrero
Café El Arte
San Pancho

Alan Chadwick
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Alan Chadwick (July 27, 1909 – May 25, 1980), English master gardener, was a leading innovator of organic farming techniques and influential educator in the field of biodynamic/French intensive gardening. He was a student of Rudolf Steiner, and is often cited as inspirational to the development of the "California Cuisine" movement. Chadwick restaurant in Beverly Hills was named after Alan Chadwick. His grave is marked by a stupa at the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in California.

“We need to create the beauty and the quality first.
The quantity will follow”
-Alan Chadwick

1 minute video of Alan Chadwick

Great article in Mother earth News

Getting Started - Comenzando

First thing today was to create some soil ready to plant our fruit trees. We got some rich river soil (Tierra Lama) just below the existing garden at EntreAmigos. The soil was brought in during the last flood. Using a couple wheelbarrows and a screen, we got 10 wheelbarrow of soil.

La primera tarea del día fue crear una buena mezcla de tierra para plantar los árboles frutales. Conseguimos una buena lama de río justo a la vuelta del jardín, en un área que fue inundada por la crecida del río la temporada de lluvias pasada. Usando un par de carretillas y una malla a modo de criba, sacamos 10 carretillas.

















We then went to the lot across the polo field to get compost from an old pile that Juaquin had made a couple years ago. Again, using the screen, we got two wheelbarrows of nutrient-rich soil. Finally, we went to get some horse manure from a refuse pile near the Golf course.

Luego fuimos al lote contiguo a la cancha de futbol y enfrente del polo para tomar composta de un viejo montón que Juaquín había preparado un par de años atrás. Nuevamente usando la malla, sacamos dos carretillas de tierra rica en nutrientes. Finalmente, fuimos a conseguir excremento de caballo de un tiradero aledaño al campo de golf.

All that was good exercise but we needed to thoroughly mix our three piles of ingredients. Juaquin explained how to efficiently position our body to use a shovel to mix soil, so as to not strain our backs.

Todo fue buen ejercicio, pero se requería mezclar las tres pilas de ingredientes adecuadamente. Juaquín nos explicó la correcta posición del cuerpo y el uso de las palas para mezclar bien la tierra sin esfuerzo en la espalda.

















For that soil mix, proportions were:
10 wheelbarrows of rich river soil
2 wheelbarrows of dry compost
2 wheelbarrows of horse manure

Tomorrow, we'll be putting that freshly assembled soil in small bags, each with a fruit tree seed (Papaya, Mango, Jack Fruit, Star Fruit, Copomo, Orange, Grapefruit and more).

Thank you Amanda and Tyson for all your help!


Para esa mezcla de tierra, las proporciones fueron:
5:1:1 de tierra lama/composta seca/excremento seco

Mañana llenaremos las bolsas con esa tierra y les pondremos semillas de papaya, mango, yaka, carambola, naranja, toronja, capomo y otros.

¡Gracias Amanda y Tyson por toda su ayuda!