Master Farmer Madness

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This past week has flown by in a blur of manual labor. I made several trips to the master farmer field in Fasstoucouleur to prepare for a "Permagarden Party" that Jen and Peter hosted this past Friday and Saturday. Permagardening is a method of cultivating that involves double digging garden beds and creating berms (mounds of dirt) and swales (trenches) to maximize water retention and provide plants with an optimal growing environment. All week we saturated the area to try and soften the cement-like soil and took a pick to the ground to loosen up the first layer so that when Carla, Cora, Toby, Andrew and Mollie arrived they would already have a bit of a head start.

The first order of business when everyone arrived Thursday night was to have a little cocktail ($2 bottle of warm wine and fosters clark) and catch up. I had to bike home before it got dark so I missed dinner but I heard it was a colossal mountain of beans on top of millet (my favorite!). The next morning I had to travel to 15k down the road to check out another possible site for the incoming stage so I missed the first few hours of work, but by the time I biked back to Fass the group had made amazing progress. All of the beds had been double dug to 20cm and I arrived just in time to help amend the beds by adding manure, ash and leaves to the soil like a layer cake. By the time we broke for lunch (rice and fish and veggies!) we had three 1x4 meter garden beds surrounded by a 1m x 7m square raised berm and two holes on the downhill side for collecting runoff water.

After lunch and a couple rounds of dice most of the volunteers headed back to Kaolack and Mollie, Jen, Peter and I went back out to the field. Abdoul Salaam and his friends had already watered and manicured the new beds so they were ready for planting by the time we arrived. While the men watered the 24 regular garden beds, various trees and starter plants we transplanted tomatoes, eggplant, and hot peppers into the three separate beds and intercropped them with lettuce. By the end of the day we had transformed a bare patch of earth into a textbook worthy permagarden, and we even had time to play with our new mascot, a puppy that Abdoul Salaam has adopted to guard the field.

The regular garden beds are already bursting with tomatoes