Recently, Wilner, Director of the Agricultural Training Center (ATC), and I were talking about ways to continue to improve the thin, fragile soil commonly found around Haiti. He has already been very successful at building up the nutrient-poor old soil in our Love A Child and Miracle Village gardens by using home-made compost and mulching each row crop season after season, but now Wilner wants to try something “new” for our gardens and our extension services for the remote villages. Even though this “new” method Wilner wants to try is a centuries-old method, we have not yet used it in Haiti. I bet many of you home gardeners have used it, though: Green manure crops or cover crops.
After a crop has been fully harvested and the old plants and roots have been pulled out of the ground, instead of leaving the dirt bare and exposed to harsh sun and eroding winds, you plant a quick-growing green manure crop to “cover” the ground to protect it while you wait for the next planting season. The cover crops are called “green manure” crops because the growth is left to nourish the soil instead of removing it at maturity. Green manure crops are either left on top of the soil to act like a mulch and decompose into rich soil, or they can be turned into the ground to decompose and add rich organic matter to the soil structure. We recently received a grant of some green manure cover crops from our friends at Hope Seeds International and ECHO agricultural ministry.
Soon, Wilner and his team will be planting Velvet beans, Sunn hemp, Pigeon peas, Lablab, and Cow peas as green manure crops. We will test these trial seeds to see which works best in our conditions and produces the best cover and green manure. Stay tuned, and we will let you know how well the “green manure” works for us.
We thank Dave and Maxine at Hope Seeds International, whose important seed donations support all our work, and ECHO for their sustainable development programs around the world. We also thank the many donors who help support the life-changing work of our Development for Sustainability outreaches. You are an enduring blessing to the people of Haiti.
God bless you.
Rad Hazelip, Assistant Executive Director