Agricultural college garden

[bixaorellana]

Thursday morning I visited the experimental garden at the agricultural college in Nazareno, popularly known as the ITAO.

I lived in Nazareno up until Easter of this year, and would go walking with friends on the grounds of the college. We always came in the cool of late afternoon, so never visited the potager nor the adjacent orchid pavilion. We did walk around behind that area though, where the federally supported college maintains farm land lush with irrigation and beautifully set off by Monte Alban and the surrounding hills.

I park my car in the shade of the palms lining the road next to the garden and greenhouses, and stop to admire this cornfield and Monte Alban in the background.
Across the road, the fence is lushly covered with bougainvillea and a blue-flowered vine. There are a couple of people out watering the garden.



Here's a close-up of the flowering vine on the fence. I thought it was jícama, but the young man watering said it's an ornamental.



This kind of an area draws me like a magnet. I scanned the charming layout, and finally called to the people with the hoses. They cheerfully invited me to come on in.



The area just where one enters is both practical and beautiful.
Cactus pads are a used as food in this country, and that aloe has a variety of medicinal uses.



The garden has a friendly and curious greeter for visitors!



A broader view of the area near the fence, showing the many shapes of the raised beds, and the crops in various stages of growth. This garden is completely organic, using compost made on the premises.
There are farm animals on the college grounds also, so their manure is added to all the excess herbage. The soil in the beds is extremely rich-looking and friable.



Right now there are herbs growing, along with cabbage, lettuce, and this robust kale. Behind the kale is a very Oaxacan crop -- marigolds planted to be ready for the Days of the Dead.
Beyond them is a clump of lavender flanked by two different kinds of agave.
On the other side of the path is an area running the whole length of this garden that's planted with marigolds and with cockscomb, another flower closely associated with Days of the Dead.



Only this section was using drip irrigation. Perhaps it's used for getting crops started.



I'm completely fascinated by these towers. I'd like to come back one day when there is someone around with the time to really give me a run-down on the operation.
We're in the middle of an extended drought and heat spell, so the plants are probably not performing as well as usual. The cilantro is happy!

     

This was so pleasant and I'll be able to take some of it home with me, as everything growing is for sale. It couldn't be fresher, as you decide what you want and it's cut for you on the spot.
I opted for some of the kale and this parsley fairly bursting with health and flavor.





The young woman who cuts the vegetables for me tells me to be sure to look into the greenhouse where all the baby pine trees are readied for reforestation programs. Look at all that fluffy green beauty!


This is not really on the subject, but I find it interesting. These pictures are from the farm areas. That beautiful orange honeysuckle-type flower is a parasite!
I've never seen it growing anywhere else except around Nazareno. The second photo gives an idea of the extent of its spread.

[Deleted]

Great expedition. I'm surprised you hadn't discovered or known about all that time you lived so close by. Particularly in light of the vegetables for sale you could have been scarfing up on.
How were the prices compared to your usual market?
Were there individual plants or seeds for sale?

In the #2 photo,any idea what that tall grass is to the far right?

The flowering vine strongly resembles hyacinth bean vine(dolichos lab lab). The leave does look very much like a legume of some kind.

One more question,how do they water all that,what's their system ,given the long droughts? Cisterns?

I'll bet you're inspired to grow more edibles after that,I always am ,even after seeing a piece in a journal or magazine. I got some ideas from this. Thanks.

[bixaorellana]

Well, I did know about it, especially since it was part of the walking route. It was just one of those things that I meant to do and never did. There didn't seem to be any set prices and I think what you get depends on the mood or benevolence of whoever cuts the vegetables for you. The bag in the photo is one size larger than the conventional supermarket bag and was actually heavy to lift after being filled with kale and parsley. She charged me 10 pesos for it -- 74 cents, US.

There were plants for sale. I'll have a little about that in another thread. No seeds, as far as I know.

I'll check on the grass the next time I'm over there. It's probably either sugar cane or giant reed (Arundo donax). That reed, called carrizo here, is much used for rustic fences. However, it's hugely invasive, so I don't know that they'd chance planting it on the edge of the garden.

Yes -- thank you! I think it is hyacinth bean and have been desperately trying to think of that name.

I'll answer your watering question in the next post, to keep this from turning into one long block of type.

[bixaorellana]

Sept 5, 2009 10:25:39 GMT casimira said:

..... how do they water all that,what's their system ,given the long droughts? Cisterns?

I'll bet you're inspired to grow more edibles after that,I always am ,even after seeing a piece in a journal or magazine. I got some ideas from this. Thanks.

As I said above, I've walked all over the college grounds in the late afternoon when there are few people around. There are extensive irrigation systems there. That is part of the rather interesting history of the college and of Nazareno.

One of the people I walk with is the daughter of the man who negotiated the handover of the town of Nazareno to the government in exchange for the land upon which Nazareno is presently located -- right outside the gates of the college. As we walked past the college farm fields, she told me the story.

Originally Nazareno was a plantation -- a hacienda -- and even well into the 1930s a serf/sharecropper system effectively remained in place. A man I know in Nazareno, uncle to my walking companion, told me how when he was a boy he can remember the patrón (owner of the hacienda) demanding that his dad work on Sundays, the only day off. If he didn't, he and his family would be turned out of their home with no work. The man telling me this had to be a farm worker even as a child. He is only in his early 70s now, so we're not talking about the dim past.

The federal government wanted the Nazareno plot for the college. There's a small river and lots of water to be tapped by wells. Since the ownership was jumbled through history and tradition, the people were in danger of being driven off with no compensation. My friend's father hired lawyers and ground away at the problem, making repeated trips to Mexico City to bait the government in its own lair. You cannot imagine the pride and awe in his daughter's voice and she says, "Think of it -- my father was only an unlettered peasant, and he did all that."

Eventually an agreement was hammered out wherein each inhabitant received title to a plot of land in the new Nazareno. Now here is the amazing thing -- her father fought for and won land titles for wives and daughters, saying they were workers just as much as the men. The government had only wanted to deed land to heads of household, i.e, men. The great move took place around 1970.

As we walked, my friend pointed out that all the lush greenery we were seeing in the dry season was not possible before the government took over the area, since no one could afford to put down deep wells and install effective irrigation.

I'll go back and take pictures of the whole area. The big house of the hacienda is still there, completely fallen into ruins.

Of course I wish to grow more edibles, but am stymied by the lack of water.

[Deleted]

This is a great report. All of us obviously have all sorts of interesting thing about which to make a report right in front of us, and often we can't see it because it is so obvious.