Focus on Fruit

These discarded water bottles with small holes pierced in the bottom provide drip irrigation for future fruit trees.

The Rainbow Network’s family garden program is a substantial effort to eliminate hunger through home food production. Our goal for 2009 is to assist 6,000 families to grow a family garden that will help nourish each member of the family.

On a recent trip to Nicaragua, I was able to visit about the garden program with Rainbow Network staff members while visiting a housing project in the community of Amatitan in the La Paz Centro Network.

I learned that the staff and families have learned to focus on fruit trees as a valuable source of year round food supply. ”All year?” I asked knowing full well that many of the fruit trees I am familiar with here in the USA don’t often produce fruit 12 months per yer.  “Really?”

That is when I learned about the Jicaro tree which stores up water in the rainy season, when most fruiting plants provide their treasures, and then produces fruit from its hoarded resource throughout the dry season. The dry season is the most difficult time for gardeners to be able to produce and so this tree is a true gift! By combining its produce in the dry season with many other fruiting plants and vegetables as well in the rainy season, families are developing a year round home grown food supply.

I also got to see the example of drip irrigation pictured here that helps keep seeds alive through the dry season so they can grow rapidly during the rainy season.

Here's a view of the same bottles and the full house and garden behind them. Note the plants already started using the drip irrigation method pictured above.