In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. -M. Atwood

It’s Spring! A season I sometimes fail to appreciate, or somehow just seem to miss. It’s a transition time for all of us, the former gang of plot numero 6. Sadly, because none of us were in the neighborhood to cultivate dear old plot #6, we had to let it go. Nonetheless, we hope to continue writing about agriculture and food this summer of 2011…so please check back often.

Becca is transitioning from Arizona back to Lancaster, PA to spend the summer farming on a beautiful piece of land, called Blue Rock Farm. She will be assisting the amazing Farmer, Caitlin Brady, as they cultivate an organic acre of vegetables to feed eager CSA share holders. More to come from Becca soon.

Maya will be making a dramatic exit from the world of office-working-bicycle-commuting-emerging-market-investing-Londoners into the sweltering, fertile land of Punjab in northern India. According to Wikipedia, the name Punjab has Persians origins and means, “The Land of Five Waters”, referring to five rivers that come together to feed the Indus River as it flows Northwest into the Himalayas. Using oral history and working with the Punjabi organization, KVM, she will build a narrative of farmers’ experiences of social, health and environmental changes in Punjab, following the introduction of “Green Revolution” agricultural methods. Maya will be posting updates as she works this summer, so stay tuned.

Natalie completed her Senior Environmental Studies thesis this spring, an oral history project documenting the impacts of the decline of the Sugar Cane Industry on an agricultural community in Hawaii. Now she is officially transitioning into the world of being a grown-up. I visited her in Providence in her new apartment on the West Side and I can assure you that she is making the transition with grace and style. In addition to producing stellar radio pieces for Rhode Island Public Radio, she is working at the beloved Seven Stars Bakery in Providence. Perhaps we will be treated to a post about her recent barrista training class…the secrets of the cappuccino, the americano and the chai latte…?

I (Keally) am back from a semester abroad studying community health issues in Brasil, Vietnam and South Africa. It was an excellent semester full of fabulous new experiences, new friendships and new understanding. I was lucky enough to be part of a case study group that examined issues of food access and agriculture in each of the three countries we visited. I was also lucky enough to make some incredible friends, one of whom is the author of the following post. Cecile (Cece) Ruege, resident of Burlington, VT, cultivator of plants, maker of delicious food, student of food systems, and teacher of nutrition and gardening wrote this piece about Food in Vietnam, a subject which I hope to someday write more about. Please enjoy this piece by Cece describing the gastronomical intensity of eating in Hanoi.

Vietnam is remarkable, by far my favorite landscape- city and countryside both. The streets of Hanoi are dotted with vendors whose products my mouth watered over ever blessed day I strolled down the sidewalk in search of lunch and snacks to fill the physically indolant, however mentally stimulating, hours we spent in the classroom. Across the street from school, there is a bakery that sells sweets which all include at least one of the following 4 or 5 key ingredients seemingly essential in French/Vietnamese fusion pastry- chocolate, buttercream, custard, banana, coconut and nuts. Even after bowls full of Bun Cha- pork (mostly untrimmed bits of fat), kohlrabi, carrots, cayenne pepper, spices and raw stems of cilantro and mint- accompanied by multiple steaming piles of rice noodles served on plastic saucers, I could always make room for chocolate puddles lightly stuffed in shredded coconut. I have even come to embrace “duck sitting on egg,” – not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. For those who place themselves under either of the aforementioned categories and have not put two and two together based on the literal translation of Hot Vit Lon, I advise only to steer clear of hard boiled eggs served on the street. Those who are game, just try to remember when you sense the tender bones crushing under the weight of your teeth that Hot Vit Lon is good for your qi. 

Eating Food in Vietnam

Jambo from Kenya!

One of my summer projects here in Nairobi has been to get a vegetable garden going at home. Before leaving Providence I did something rather questionable and took a lot of seeds that we’d had leftover from the Spring and packed them into little newspaper packets. Ideally it would be best to use local seeds from Kenya, but we just had so many, that I thought it might be fine to use them this year. And for next year I have been doing some research on where to get good local seeds.

It took me several days to get motivated enough to start the garden because it has just been chilly and overcast here (which wouldn’t be fun for me or the little seeds trying to germinate I reasoned). However I eventually got going. The area we assigned for the garden is behind out kitchen. Before digging it all up, there were some unsuccessful sweet potatoes growing there. I thought that maybe they might grow into proper sweet potatoes eventually and we should try somewhere else, but everyone assured me that it was fine and not a waste to pull them up.

Once we’d pulled them up we found that the soil was very dry and clumpy, as nothing had really been done with it in a very long time.

So we set to work raking it and digging it up. We also mixed in some compost that we had from elsewhere in the garden. I’d suggested that we should double dig and layer in the compost, but Joseph, who I was working with, said he didn’t see a need for that. Well, its good to try different methods! Joseph has done all his gardening in a traditional Kenyan way, so this may be interesting to see how people do things differently.

After raking the soil to get rid of all the hard clumps we watered it with a hose. This is where we are lucky and different to most Kenyan farms I guess. Most people would time the preparation of the soil for just before the rainy season and then pray for good rains. What a luxury to have a hose.

The size of the garden is pretty big, about three times the size of our plot in the Foxpoint community garden. We planted:

Brown berry tomatoes, pak choi, spinach, arugala, lettuces, kale (local and american), basil and tomatoes (together!), peas, beets, carrots and onions. I’d suggested to Joseph that we should start some of the things like the tomatoes in old milk cartons inside first, but he said that wasn’t something he normally did either, so we direct seeded everything. (we did agree on soaking the peas first though!)

So now, since then we have been watering the garden in the evenings and waiting to see what will come up. It’s pretty chilly in Nairobi at the moment (lows of 50 F at night) but it gets pretty warm some days (mid 80’s).

Aside from this garden I have also been trying to embark on some agricultural research here in Kenya. The main problem with this has been my lack of detailed information on the subject and therefore struggling to focus on a specific topic. However the research has taken me to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) where I spent several hours in their library. I’m not sure if you could find such interesting titles at Brown, from the WTO’s effects on the global south to instructions on farming the best mangoes, avocadoes, drought-resistant maize… It was great. What was less wonderful was all of the literature published by KARI itself on how to bring Africa its ‘green revolution’, how to rejuvenate Kenyan agriculture by increasing the use of pesticides, etc. Its the biggest and most influential of 28 agricultural research institutes here, and its definitely not organic.

More on all the research as soon as anything happens!

MS