Where do our vegetables come from?

That was a question passed on (in the context of "do we care?") by Carolina Farm Stewardship Association in today's e-newsletter.

Their answer was yes (of course), citing various folks.  Do we care about organic? Is it GMO free? Are the farmworkers safe? Etc.  They didn't ask the question about how far the food had traveled, or how it was grown.  And certainly, there are a lot of us (who receive their e-newsletter) who DO like to know that (at least some of) our food is grown or raised nearby, whether veggies, meat, or eggs.

But the response was prompted by a piece in the Washington Post, which essentially said it depends on how you ask the question. 

We have a lot of folks living in our county who are doing well to put food on their tables, really, and this was an eye-opening piece for me (not having been a mom), about how picky children are as eaters.

I'm getting ready to plant late winter/early spring vegetables, and reviewing a program I'll be doing for the NC Arboretum next week on Sustainable Kitchen Gardening. 

I'm now growing a lot of vegetables in basically 4 raised beds, with additional beds on the side of the house and below, but nothing like the space I used to have down in our Piedmont garden.  But we still have more than enough--even in cold winters, although I don't have any overwintering greens, again! 

I still have tomatoes and green beans from last summer's harvest, as well as fruits from the farmer's markets, and sweet potatoes and butternut squash from my generous friend.

So fresh greens will be welcome from sowings this weekend.  (In the meantime, they're coming from far away, perhaps from places like we visited in Guatemala, but probably largely from California and Mexico.)

vegetable fields in the Western Highlands of Guatemala

Growing organic vegetables

Day 2 at #challengeonnaturephotography

These are photos of growing plants organically, and creating a "kitchen garden" in a country (Guatemala) where it's most unusual to have an restaurant serving organic food, much less from their own garden (on the hotel's grounds, in a very modest, non-tourist town on Lake Atitlan).

Jose with Swiss Chard, kale, and other greens

To these gardeners, it was definitely about living in harmony with their year-round growing season.

Banco de similar (seed storage shed)

Jose showing Tim their saved seeds

Nature comes in guises both familiar and wild; both are worth celebrating.

 

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Sleeping dogs and organic gardens

In a town that's the poorest of any we've seen in Guatemala, there are still dogs that look reasonably content and well-fed.

And the schools seem supported, and the children there wear smart uniforms, maybe thanks to the non-profit that's carrying on a long-term American priest's work here in this town, which has made a significant difference over the last 50 years, helping this town avoid the worst of the Guatemalan civil war.

These dogs were near the market; we disturbed the one on the right, who got up to check on what was happening.

The local folks found us amusing, paying attention to these dogs....

We're staying in the only "tourist" hotel in town. It's very nice, even if smoke from the neighbors' cooking fires is wafting down into the hotel's lovely gardens, which include a remarkable organic vegetable garden, probably an acre in expanse.

It's full of various kales, broccoli, lettuces, fennel, herbs, amaranth, carrots, arugula, etc.

Amazing for this part of the world, and the head gardener and his assistant deserves to be proud of their work, which supports the hotel's restaurant, and by extension, the outreach missionary work of the non-profit nearby, who have discounts for staying here or for meals.

 

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Growing vegetables in Guatemala's Western Highlands

We've been in a relatively small area of the Western Highlands, between Antigua and Quetzaltenango, and haven't been officially farm visiting, so I'm commenting as an interested observer....but most of the fields we went past on the bus, and near the villages and towns that we stayed in, were largely devoted to corn (currently brown), grown as dry land crops.

In the area around Quetzaltenango, where spring water was abundant, the fields were green with cool season crops of all sorts. Water seems to be the key ingredient, along with the rich soils, and these fields were being intensively cropped.

It's a labor intensive process growing vegetables here in Algohongo and Xunil.

There weren't any mechanical devices to be seen, outside of pickup trucks, water hoses, and an occasional set of irrigation sprinklers. We spotted one small water pump, but largely watering was done with wooden water "scoops," using water from the ditches surrounding each field.

Cultivation, planting, watering and harvesting were all done by hand. We saw both onions and carrots being harvested, cleaned, and gathered up for market.

The soil looked rich and deep; here was one spot where additional mulch/compost was apparently being added. Recently harvested fields (where dusting of lime was apparent) had me wondering about the pH of this presumably volcanic, but VERY hard working soil.

The mild spring-like climate, even here in the Western Highlands, allows growing of crops continuously, at the what we can "cool season" vegetables in the SE U.S.

Hoop houses seemed to provide enough additional warmth for tomatoes and maybe peppers, although I think most were coming in to the markets from more lowland areas.

But my take home was just how labor intensive in these commercial market gardens. I'm familiar with the process as a vegetable gardener myself, and know what hard work it is; the vegetables looked beautiful, and were carefully cultivated. My guess is that they were reasonably prosperous compared to the dry land farmers; I hope they're finding good markets for their vegetables. The guidebooks say these are prosperous towns, and they certainly look the part, compared to many others.

 

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Vegetable growing in Almolonga and Xunil, Guatemala

Vegetable growing hasn't been a common sight in places we've been so far in Guatemala, but two exceptionally fertile valleys, encompassing two towns near Quetzaltentango, have been extraordinary. Blessed by abundant water from springs and rivers, along with rich volcanic soils, these fields were patchworks of greens: chard, broccoli, carrots, beets, onions, cauliflower, parsley, and potatoes.

This plots apparently are owned by individual families as well as by larger landholders, but it seemed to definitely a commercial enterprise, with plots harvested all at once.

 

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