Planting sweet potatoes and yucca, making biochar and lecture

Day 5 activity: planting yucca on a pre-prepared bed then preparing another vegetable bed for future use then planting a whole new bed of sweet potatoes. What a morning! and all this with occasional rain showers. But as you see in the pictures, we are having fun, taking turns so we don't get too exhausted. Digging in that wet soil is hard! We eventually manage to dig all the trenches we need, add dead wood to them and cover it back up: they will be the paths between the vegetable rows full of organic matter decomposing from the wood, acting as a nutrient source for the future vegetables. 

In the rows we plant vetiver grass, it will grow its deep roots down to 5 meters, then after a few months, it will be all cut down, layed down as mulch on the ground, covered with a shake cloth and let to rest for another few months for all the materials to decompose. Then take off the shake cloth and, voila! you have turned a fully clay soil into nutrient-rich soil to grow delicious vegetables!

Working on the land is not the only thing we do, we have lecture every afternoon and also sometimes in the mornings depending on the activity. Lots of information and knowledge to soak up here!

You do need your full body weight to dig up this wet clay soil!

Rainy and muddy but making us happy

After the yucca is planted and covered: sprinkle ash wood and stone dust to bring minerals and nutrients

 Mallory and David picking clippings of sweet potato to plant on the new bed - looking so joyful!

 Final sweet potato bed ready to grow!

High tech even in the jungle for our lectures by Ian

 Every afternoon lecture time

Really cool people to sahre this time with! 

Making biochar from coconut husk

End product, biochar, cooled down with water so it doesn't turn to ash