Our community development project here has a significant agricultural emphasis. The elevation is lower, precipitation more, and soil better than the mountains we lived in before. Last year the project built two large (20 meters long) demonstration greenhouses. One was built at an agricultural high school, and the other at the agricultural department's (gov) compound. Students and young farmers were invited to construct and plant the greenhouses, and local TV came to film the planting day as well. Our hope is that farmers will get excited about the ability to grow more diverse crops and increase the growing cycle.
Here's one of the large greenhouses in January. The lowest night temps were around 5-10 F. The temperature dipped just below freezing inside the greenhouses, and the frost damage was not severe, so really, this is a great place for greenhouses. Our teammate in the mountains also had a winter greenhouse, but he spent more than $200 on fuel to heat it through the winter! This greenhouse did not require any heat.
Now, demonstration greenhouses are fine and good, but we wanted to have a more direct impact on the lives of poor farmers and villagers. So we played around a bit, and found that the branches of a certain berry tree (which is abundant here) have great flexibility and strength to form a greenhouse frame.
So for our first year of village greenhouses, we surveyed and found 5 women in each village we work in, women who are known for being the most responsible and influential agriculturalists in their village. We gave these women a 4 meter x 10 meter piece of plastic (less than $10), a handful of vegetable seeds (a few dollars), and trained them in how to set up their own greenhouse with sticks.
These pictures are the small greenhouse that I built in our yard. I hope to get out next week to see some of the other village greenhouses. We hope that poor families will find an increased ability to provide nutritious food, because most families cannot afford the vegetables imported from other provinces or neighboring countries.
Awesome looking greenhouses!! Dave will be stocking ours up soon with plants for our landscaping business. I'd be interested (actually Dave would be thrilled) in seeing what all you plant in your greenhouses!
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the structure of your greenhouse. Does wind affect your ability to keep the plastic in place?
ReplyDeleteWhat a good idea to get a few people started with their own supplies and watch them take it from there! Imagine how word could spread- and how those few women could help get others started. I hope this is the start of something big in your area!
we are thinking the same way in our world. We bought some dirt ... trying to figure out how to build something that will withstand the "breeze". I like your small ones ... building hope one family at a time! Hope it catches on.
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