The Garden of Nabitunich

With some roots here and there holding us up, we finally received our seedlings. We started out with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, spinach, carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes. After planting, a few brutally hot Belizean days and a few torrential downpours depressed our poor seedlings. We are down to tomatoes, peppers, 3 lettuce plants, 6 sweet potatoes and hopefully some soon to be sprouting spinach, carrot and potato seeds. After visiting the Mennonite Community of Springfield we learned a couple of things about gardening in Belize: plant early in the season and plant vegetables we can actually grow and harvest. Their advice will definitely be followed in future gardens, they certainly know what they are doing! Whether we bear fruit or not by mid December, the gardening journey we have traveled has made it all worthwhile. Students have remained diligent working in the garden weekly to maintain its pristine look. We can say that we have more garden vegetables growing than weeds, that the soil is hoed regularly and that water is applied modestly from our low-pressure hose. Low vegetable yield or not, we have watched a community and a love for the land sprout, blossom and fruit over night. Those two things are the sweetest and most nutritious vegetables that can be grown. Good work everyone with your hard work. Can’t wait to bite into one of those juicy peppers!