Recently, a thoughtful donor sent in a donation to help us expand our Edible Plant Nursery at our Agricultural Training Center (ATC) with a new “coconut tree” project.  Our ATC Director, Wilner, and his team used the funds to buy five dozen “coconut seeds” from a local vendor.  Here you see them sorting the coconuts and “planting” them in a “gemmwa” (Creole for a prepared seedbed that will promote germination).  After these coconuts sprout in about a month, these coconut “seeds” will then be put into large pots to continue growing until they will be planted permanently somewhere to provide many years of delicious, sweet coconuts.

We will plant many of them around the large garden at Love A Child Village, but most of them will be given to other villages where Bobby and Sherry serve that need the reliable food source.

The Edible Plant Nursery is a project of our ATC, part of our Sustainability Outreach, that helps Haitians learn how to provide nutritious foods for themselves.  In our Edible Plant Nursery at the ATC, we demonstrate and teach about propagation, growing, and harvesting of locally available edible plants that can provide reliable, good food for many years requiring very little input over the plant’s lifetime.

Mangos, papayas, carambola (star fruit), sapote, citrus, breadfruit, avocados, and of course, bananas are some of the plants we feature at the Edible Plant Nursery. When students come to our sustainable gardening training courses, they learn about these plants and sometimes even get to take some home with them. Learning about these plants and other topics at our ATC provides “food for life.”

Rad Hazelip,

Assistant Executive Director