Reflections about Rio Muchacho Organic Farm

During January and the being of February 2011, I had the honor of volunteering at Rio Muchacho Finca Organica (Organic Farm) located close to Canoa, Manabi, Ecuador.

Rio Muchacho Finca Organica: Rio Muchacho is a beautiful farm situated just inland of the coast of Ecuador, located close to a town named Canoa. The farm is focused on sustainability and on being a non-waste producing facility. The organic farm has close to a 10 acre garden where they grow various different fruits and vegetables: cucumbers, pineapple, pumpkin, sweet potato, papaya (sweet, sweet papaya), passion fruit, onions, okra, eggplant, bananas, peanuts, and many other delicious items.

Rio Muchacho also founded a school for the Rio Muchacho community named “Escuela Ambiamentalista” where the courses are taught through an environmentalist lens and they own and operate a tour agency that can connect you with some of the fun and interesting things to do in Ecuador.

Please check out their site at riomuchacho.com.

General Day: Rio Muchacho takes on volunteers to do most of the daily chores. While I was there, there were anywhere from 5 to 11 volunteers helping with all the farm tasks.

We rose early at 5:25 am and did the morning routines. There are about 5 different morning routines: chickens, horses, cuyes (guinea pigs), pigs, kitchen, and harvesting vegetables from the garden. The volunteers manage the routines in the morning with the leading help from the full time staff there. Each week you can move from one routine to the next so you can get an experience with all the animals. All routines are hard work and require muscle power to get the job done… By the time we were finished in the mornings, we were warmed up , sweaty and ready to have something to eat! After the morning routines there is a break for breakfast.

After breakfast, we did group projects. The long term volunteers have the opportunity to develop a project within the Rio Muchacho community. I was not a long term volunteer so I did not have a project, so I mainly helped with the full time staff. My tasks ranged from planting seeds in the garden, watering the plant nursery, turning compost, weeding (a constant battle) and more… there are endless jobs to be done on a farm. We would work until 4 pm and then have free time before dinner.

Water: Because Ecuador has a wet a dry season, water availability is an ebb and flow. Water comes in huge gushes causing the roads to wash away and newly planted crops to drown. Or the rain won’t come for weeks and weeks killing plants and making it a precious scarcity. At Rio Muchacho, there are no flush toilets, all are composting and when composting toilets are done with the correct maintenance and procedure, they are a no smell facility and use absolutely no water. At Rio Muchacho, they also have water catchment located in different areas around the farm. This is an effective way to save water and use it for watering plants, for drinking water for the animals on the farm, and also for washing dishes. They employed a unique washing system where all plate scarps were scraped into a compost bin, all plates were then rinsed in the shallow bin of water, then scrubbed with soap, then the soapy dishes were rinsed in another bin of water and set to dry. For a breakfast or dinner of 15 people, about 3 liters of water was used total to wash all dishes… That is amazing and so simple.

Compost: Rio muchacho has 4 composting systems.

1. The food waste from the kitchen is fed to the pigs.

2. The pigs feces is collected and added to a large pits in the ground. They have 3 pits total. Once one is filled it is left to decompose and the next pit is used.

3. All the horse and cow feces is collected from the small paddock area and set to decompose in a pit.

4. After horse and cow feces has decomposed sufficiently, some of it is used to “feed” the worms in the worm beds. Composting with worms is call vermiculture and is a great way to produce high quality compost. The worms eat the compost and then produce casting highly available nutrients that are easily accessible for plants. Also, the guinea pigs on the farm live in huts that were built to stand over the worm beds. The floors of the huts are mesh floors and the guinea pig poop falls down to the worm bed to provide more “food” for the worms.

All animals have a different carbon:nitrogen:phosphorous ratio produced in their excrement, and this is important to know so that you can create a proper carbon:nitrogen (C:N) ratio when you set it to decompose.

In conclusion: If you are headed to Ecuador at any point in time, give a visit to Rio Muchacho Finca Organica. I have only touched on the garden and facility related observations here, but the area around and the people at this farm are amazing. In my future travels, I hope to return. Please get in touch with me if you would like more information.

Subsidies VS Nutritional Recommendations

Source: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/

This seems a little unbalanced now doesn't it?

Sixties and Shiitakes!

What a wonderful weekend! With songbirds waking me, sunshine, and sixty degree weather it truly felt like spring had arrived! Chelsea and I took advantage of the warm weather on Sunday and went to Sharon Oaks Stables, where I board my horse Sunny (pictured left). They have a wonderful set up with large pastures, two barns, and 3 riding rings! So, why am I talking horses on a gardening blog? Well, because Chelsea and I love horses and we plan to integrate them into our farm! Not only do horses provide free fertilizer with their manure, but having a boarding facility would provide a year-long income base to help support our farm. We won't stop at horses, though. Goats are great at managing pastures and eating the tougher plants horses wont. Chickens will eat plenty of bug pests, provide fertilizer through their waste, and also lightly till the soil during the off season through their digging habits. The connections between farming and livestock is undeniable, and we plan to take full advantage of the benefits of raising both flora and fauna!

Ok, maybe not just flora and fauna, since we'd like to include fungi too! I'm excited to start Spring off at Pickard's Mountain Eco Institute's Shiitake Mushroom Workshop March 20th! Chelsea and I will both attend, learn how to grow shiitake mushrooms from spores, and each get to take home a log! We may purchase some additional logs so our mushroom harvest is more bountiful, but are still undecided. Most of us think of shiitake mushrooms and conjure an image of them at the grocery store shrink wrapped or dried, but believe it or not they prefer to hang out on dead logs. Most mushrooms begin their life as a spore; which is ejected from a mushroom, floats through the air, and (hopefully) lands on a friendly substrate which fosters growth and development. The spores of mushrooms which are commonly used for culinary purposes can be purchased online or through catalogs like the Gardener's Supply Company. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to attend a workshop and learn from experienced mushroom growers! Stay tuned for details on our experience at the Shiitake Mushroom Workshop, and updates on our 2010 mushroom harvest!

Planning the 2010 Harvest

This year I'm determined to have a better garden than last year. Not to say last year wasn't productive; I managed to harvest a lot of yellow squash and zucchini, as well as a few cantaloupes, all from a 5'x20' raised bed (pictured right).

I like to dream big, so as we roll into March I'm still narrowing down my Grow List which is substantially larger than last year. One of the changes I'm making this year is to focus on heirloom varieties. Heirloom varieties are gaining popularity as a reaction to large scale monoculture farming. In industrialized agriculture only a few varieties of each crop are grown, and the varieties are often chosen for their tolerance to pesticides, machine farming, and shipping... not for flavor. Just think about the selection on the shelves of a grocery store near your home compared to what you can get at your local farmer's market!

So far, my 2010 Grow List Includes:
Tomatoes (Large: Crnkovic Yugoslavian & Small: Crnt Gold Rush)
Potatoes (Desiree)
Peppers (Sweet: Quadrato Asti Giallo & Hot: Aurora)
Carrots (Danvers)
Onions (Yellow of Parma)
Squash (Summer Crookneck, Black Beauty zuchinni)
Melons (Chris Cross watermelon, Schoon's Hard Shell canteloupe)
Eggplant (Listada de Gandia)
Kale (Red Russian)
Arugula (Apollo)

It looks ambitious, I know. I plan to purchase most of my seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsaversexchange.org) and start my seedlings indoors. Last year my seedlings were long and stringy, so I might get some grow lights to help them out this year. I doubt they'll be beautiful, but at least this farming is still just for fun and not my financial support too!

Crop Mob

Together we can! Imagine the amount of work that could be accomplished if we all went out to help our local farmers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/magazine/28food-t-000.html

http://cropmob.org/