Merry Christmas 2009

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New year from Sustainable Food Production. Mark Scott and I have been truly blessed this year. We have the privilege of being the front people for all those who work with us and can not thank you enough for your support and prayers as well as the missionaries who provided us the opportunity to minister. Even now we are preparing seed packets for Haiti and ordering supplies for a greenhouse in Juarez.

Roto Tiller

Here is a picture of the new tiller for Faith
Home in Honduras. This thing on the back
of that 90 hp tractor should really tear up
some ground. It will arrive well before next
spring.

Haiti foods

OOPS !! Forgot an important picture.
Yep, he really ate those fish.

Shade/green houses

We are partnering with Arrow Outreach to build a green/shade house at Juarez, Mexico in February 2010. The dates will be Feb. 6 - Feb. 13. If this works out I believe we will see more projects with Arrow Outreach in the future. This will be a hoop type structure measuring 18 X 40 feet.

Cody Meadows of Clay City, Kentucky wants to begin a gardening project near the villages of La Digue Matheux and Barbancourt. Geographically it is about 30 miles north of PAP. He would like to build a small shade house at Clay City for demonstration and to get a feel for using a shade house and building beds. Pray for Cody and those who will be working with him in this new work. We look forward to sharing our research and experineces with him.

Haitian foods

Here are a few vegetables and foods that may
be unfamiliar to many folks in the US.


Yam


Manioc root



Manioc cakes


Legim, breadfruit, boiled bananas


Boi (haitian dumpling) and bean sauce



Street food, pates, fish, and pikliz



Korosol and sweet potatoes (red and white)

Maysolko

Mirliton or Chayote

flat bean, Haitian bean, and congo pea.

Update on Food Production

I had another email from Leo in Mexico and as usual, some great news. A couple of weeks ago they canned 57 quarts of salsa from the tomatoes and vegetables grown at Madera. They also butchered a hog and made chicharrones (pig skins) and posole which included pork, radishes, cilantro, cabbage, corn, and onions. Of course red chiles and lime rounded out the dish. They also have some of the older children and adults taking a course on hydroponics and green house management to better utilize the green house. Monday Sept. 28, 1,500 strawberry plants will be shipped to Leo in El Paso complete with Dept. of Agriculture certification for transporting them to the farm at Madera for fall planting.

At Faith Home in Honduras, they harvested some corn to make a special dish to celebrate Independence Day. Tania Willis wrote in her blog that they made "tamalitos" a sweet corn bread mixture cooked in the fresh corn husks and eaten with sweet cream. There is still plenty of corn left in the garden. Before next spring they will have a new roto tiller for their tractor that will greatly expand their ability to garden. Here is a picture of the corn from Tania's blog.

Mr. Leonard is preparing to plant 60 plantain banana plants at Ti Paradi, Haiti. Of course they will be planted in October when the moon is in the correct phase. Don't laugh this guy knows how to grow food. Here is a picture of bananas growing out of a pothole at Ti Paradi. Literally bananas growing in the desert.

I want to share this letter with all of you from Leo Paez, a Christian brother, in Mexico. Leo supports 3 child rescue centers, Teen rescue, and rescue centers for the elderly. Madera is a beautiful city located in the Sierra Madre. It is also home to one of the child rescue centers.

Joe;

Praise God for all He does!

There is lots of news and lots of good stories to tell you, but for now, I will give you a quick update.

I bought a farm close to Madera, there is 78 acres of farm land and 155 of forest land. I sold a house in El Paso TX, and was able to do the land thing. I bought 22 cows and now there is 24 and growing, planted 65 acres of oats, 5 acres of wheat, and one acre of squash.

I also rented a plot where we planted 25 acres of corn, and 2.5 acres of wheat. The 500 apple trees are doing just fine, eventhow the rows are not even and somehow not well organized, I still believe they are beutifull. The farm is my own personal asset, but all I produce will go to feed the orphans. The farm also has 50+ fully mature apple trees, and we will be canning and storing the fruit crop. The pigs are now 32, with 4 lady pigs pregnant, and a new king of the castle high quality, pure blood male I just got. We will be milling the corn and oats (hole plants) into an animal feed for the cows as well as pigs and sheep. The sheep have multiply to 28; two males and the rest females and pregnant. We belive that we will hit up to 60 this year for some will have two kids. Hopefully next year, we will hit up to 100 sheep. The pig population will explote, and we will have an overabundance of lard and meat for our places. I will be killing 2 cows for meat at the end of the year for they are old and will have their new calfs soon. Chickens are not doing so well for some coyotes killed 40, but we still have 50 or so. Rabits are not multiplying for I have them in one single cage. Perhaps you could help me build a professional dweling to raise rabits, for we are failling at it. Anyways, lots happening, lots to come, will keep you informed. Keep an eye for farm equipment, for will need lots!

Here are a couple of sketches of the shade house.
My goal is to put together a folder of pictures,
sketches, and instructions for folks to use to build
the shade houses easier.

Shade house construction

Here are a few pictures of our work day last Saturday taken by Mark Scott .

We had a really hot day to work Saturday building a green/shade house at Steve Arrowood's farm near Fulton, MO. Everyone worked hard and tried to stay hydrated along with occasional breaks. We discovered some things that worked and some things that did not work but it is better to discover those things here at home. Four people from Hope for Caribbean Kids out of Jefferson City joined us also and will be building a shade house in July just south of Port au Prince. We didn't get completely done but we have several people that now know the basics of building one of these in Haiti or elsewhere. No welding required and very few special tools. Here are a few pictures. Thanks to the folks from Jeff City, Global Compassion, and especially Marla for the great lunch.



Connecting PVC

Painting the hoops to prevent reaction between

the pvc and plastic cover

Driving iron posts the easy way Mark held the

post and Steve pushed it into the ground

Placing the hoops over the anchor posts.

Attaching the purlins

Starting to take shape

Covering the ends with chicken netting as

well as the lower sides

Things are coming along great to build the shade/green house on June 27. It will be built on the farm of Steve Arrowood and he has found a great location. This is going to be a great place to instruct potential builders on how to build the structure and beds and also a great gardening tool to be used by Steve's family.

We gave 20 packets of garden seed, each with 12 different types of seed, to Steve Leach to use around Bombardopolis and also 5 packets for Mr. Leonard.

I had a wonderful visit with the folks at Hams Prarrie Christian Church this morning and shared with them about projects we are currently involved in and some of the opportunities coming soon.

The last garden report from Mr. Leonard and Ti Paradi was that things are going pretty well and several of the village men are learning about gardening.

In Honor

Joe's Garden

Sugar peas

water logged tomatoes

Herbs, sage, tyme, oregano, parsley

May 9 Update

Things are still going very well with the work in Ti Paradi, Haiti. Some of the folks there have enjoyed green vegetables produced by Mr. Leonard. In addition he is planting breadfruit and other fruit bearing trees. The men at Ti Paradi are still helping out with the work and we are hopeful that some of them will become good gardeners also. Other parts of the Northwest are in desperate need of rain with many cisterns becoming empty.

The garden at Faith Home in Honduras is producing squash, zuccini, and cucumbers. The tomatoes and chiles in the shade house are growing and look good. April was a very hot month in Honduras and we hope rains will return soon.

Pictures of food growing at Ti Paradi, Haiti
and Faith Home Honduras. Thanks to Mark
Scott and Rob Popkin for the pictures.

Ti Paradi Shade House, Mr. Leonard on rt.

Shade house veggies, Ti Paradi

Papaya growing at Ti Paradi

Bananas at Ti Paradi

Shade house Faith Home Tomatoes, Chiles, and

Cilantro

Santo and the garden Faith Home Melons,

Cantelopes, Squash

Faith Home March 2009

Extending the waterline and replacing the hardware wire on the shade house were the major projects for SFP on the recent trip to Faith Home. Other team members upgraded a house for a family and held Vacation Bible Schools. Water is now available at the shade house and adjoining garden. The rusting hardwire wire was replaced with small chicken wire which was treated to prevent rust. Trino and two of the teenage boys were a tremendous help on the project. Trino and Santo have planted melons, cantelope, cucumbers, and squash. They also have a bed of sweet potatoes and a plot of yuca, an edible root crop. Mangos, oranges, giant lemons or pumelo, papayas, and bananas are at various stages of growth. The shade house has radishes, celantro, hot and sweet chiles, and about 50 tomatoe plants growing.

The gear box on the tiller locked up and teeth were stripped off of several gears. So we are looking at repair or replacement. With the garden expansion a good tiller is a necessarly tool to increase food production.

Here are a few pictures. Sorry I couldn't include more at this time.




Extending the water line for irrigation


Shade House wire was replaced




Trino helped with the work



Radishes






Tomato plants in shade house



Santo waters a bed of cilantro


Planting beds

Those bananas I planted last year

navel oranges

Soursop or guanaba

Local fruit


Two rows of squash

Expanded Garden