Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Dear Jim, My gardening class for this year got postponed because of
scheduling problems, but it will start the 15th of the month. I have
already supplied several people with trace elements and directions. Last
night I got a phone call from my stake president, whose wife was in my first
class. She has gardened successfully for years, but he said last year the
amount of produce from their garden was amazing. He said his carrots were
huge, sweet and not pithy. He's been singing the method's praises from
Washington state to Mexico. Several people have approached me, saying one
or more of my students told them to see me before starting their garden this
year, that they were far more successful than ever before, or were
successful with just their first attempt. The stake president's wife bought
micros last year for her daughter - said she wasn't vegetable gardening, but
had an upcoming wedding she wanted to grow flowers for and was amazed at the
quantity and quality of the flowers she grew.

Now for my question. President Poulsen has a village in
Mexico he visits regularly and brings help and supplies to. The people are
incredibly poor. I was thinking about asking him to take me with him on an
upcoming visit to teach the people the method. There's a lot to work out
for that to happen, but I think it would radically improve the people's
lives. Maybe they could even grow enough produce to sell to pay for some of
their needs. To do it, I would need micronutrients, and of course, would
need to take the other materials they would need. Do you have any
suggestions for raising money to pay for what we would need? Also, are
there any materials in Spanish I could take along? I would need to work on
my Spanish vocabulary before going, but that's not likely to be a problem.
For me, it's kind of an exciting idea. If successful, maybe we could visit
neighboring villages to do the same, and maybe there are some locals I could
train to do it for their own people, What do you think? Bernie

Bernie & Group:

Thanks for the positive feedback on your previous classes! It is ALWAYS the case, if people follow the RECIPE accurately and consistently they have GREAT GARDENS!

As for taking it to the village in Mexico: Long experience in countries throughout the world have demonstrated that several elements must be in place for something to work long-term.
1. The locals must WANT it.
2. The locals must BE PERSONALLY INVOLVED in the process.
3. The locals must be TRAINED and skilled in the process.
4. Enough time must be invested so that locals can CARRY IT ON by themselves.

I would say that if the local leadership requested your assistance, and if you were prepared to devote full time for 3-4 months minimum you could really make a difference - IF a sizable group of locals devoted full time also to learning and DOING it.

Short of that - again ONLY if the local leadership requested it - you could send materials down to them. The Mittleider Gardening Course book is translated into Spanish, and I believe quite a few of the Gardening Training lectures are also available somewhere on one of our hard drives in Spanish.

A "hand-out" of a free working garden is not much better than a handout of a free meal. Unless the people are PERSONALLY INVESTED and want it for themselves they will not care for it nor benefit much from it.

Jim Kennard

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