Brass Tacks

As most of the novelty of being immersed in a foreign culture has worn off, I will take this opportunity to talk about my work. (If you find it boring, please respond with topic requests!!)



It is the dry season. Well, it is the end of the cool-dry season. Senegal not-so-officially has a few seasons. 1) The HOT-dry season, April-May/June 2) The rainy season, June/July-September/October 3) The not-quite-so-hot-dry season, October/November 4) The cool-dry season, December/January and 5) The it-is-getting-hotter-dry season, Febrary/March.

The cool-dry season is the traditional gardening season. While garden beds must be watered daily, the temperatures are much more tolerable for most vegetables. So, I've been doing a fair bit of gardening recently.

The primary goal of Peace Corps' gardening outreach are to promote techniques which save water and maximize space. The first step is to improve the growing medium. Most of Senegal is sand. The soil is not conducive to nurturing plants. So, we add green leaves, dead leaves, ash, crushed charcoal, and manure/compost to our garden beds. These amendments are worked down to a depth of about 18". That's right, you need to use a pick to dig down through this hard-packed sand and clay. Fun.

Next, we emphasize the importance of appropriate plant spacing within the garden beds. By planting a bed hexagonally, one can fit more plants into the same area...keeping the appropriate between-plant spacings. We also encourage companion planting. Growing carrots, lettuce, and tomatoes together means that you can maintain close spacing...because each plant is using a different strata to grow in (root, leaf, fruit). A happy side-effect of companion planting is mutually beneficial relationships; ie, planting onions with cabbage helps to decrease the amount of pest damage on the cabbage (the smell of the onion repels some insects).

Finally, we encourage mulching. The main field crop in Senegal is peanuts. Which means we have an abundance of peanut shells everywhere. And peanut shells make great mulch! By topping a garden bed with 3" of deep mulch, one can retain enough water to only have to water every-other day, instead of up to twice a day. Mulch also has excellent other benefits: weed control, soil-erosion barrier, etc.

Peace Corps is also trying to encourage year-round gardening. A barrier to food security and good nutrition in the village is ACCESS. In the cities and larger towns, a variety of foods are always available. However, most villages are secluded and inaccessible because of poor roads. Which means the villagers only go shopping elsewhere once a week, if that. They are reliant on what they are growing for themselves. So besides seasonal gardening of carrot, cabbage, onion, melon, okra, beet, squash, etc., we push year-round maintenance of garden beds containing hot/bell pepper, tomato, eggplant, jaxatu, and sweet potato. A small bed with a plant or two of each variety can make a huge difference in the eating habits of a village family. (If only they can keep it watered and protected from goats.)