Help expand "Young Smart Farmers" organic gardens

We are surrounded by lush green fields, trees, and blooming flowers.  The farm garden plots have been prepped, seeds planted and the rains are here.  We've had bountiful crops of cucumbers, long beans, and leafy greens- mostly kale. 

The children had an unplanned few days off from school for a last-minute government holiday, so they have been out weeding and gathering vegetables in between homework and activities.  They've been taking turns cooking and making treats- spring rolls with fresh lettuce, veggies, and a variety of other ingredients (some recognizable, some not, but all delicious).

We've had two community workshops taught by a professor from nearby Maejo University to present stingless bees and the high-quality products that can be made from the honey, pollen, and resin that they produce. 

We now have nine hives of the tiny bees.  They fly in and out of the hives through a small hole in a bottle cap.  They are stingless and have been approved by our local government agriculture officials, at a time when regular bees, usually rented out to pollinate the fruit orchards, are limited due to the danger of anaphylactic shock from the bee stings. 

Our older students joined with members of the Phrao community for the sessions.  The teacher engaged them all with hands-on splitting hives to make a new hive and exercises to understand the economics of growing the bees.

The children and staff have been energized by the bees and new methods they have been learning from Spencer and our local ECHO model farm in Chiang Mai.  ECHO is an international organization, based in the US, that sets up seed banks for local farmers and teaches a wide range of easily understandable workshops on improved farmed methods for smallholder farmers. 

We're evaluating all the orchard trees and looking to see what additional space could be used for growing fruit and vegetables.  

With the water catchment system making good progress, we have been revamping the water distribution system serving the farm gardens. With more, accessible water, it is easier to imagine what can be grown.  We know what we like to eat and will start checking with our local community to see what produce they would like to buy.

Thank you for joining us on this journey!  You make it possible to learn and try new ways of growing our food.

Best wishes for the coming months,

Dana, Michael, Evelind, and the Warm Heart Children and Staff

This is the hot and hazy season in Northern Thailand.  The school year ends and the children head for the cool of the mountain villages if they have a safe place there. Otherwise, they relax in-between early morning and early evening work in the gardens. Afternoons, they wheedle a trip to the waterfall to cool off. This year we've had the benefit of Spencer's guidance along with Earn and our volunteer, Victor, to lead new projects.

When the rains come, they are heavy and any areas without vegetation get washed away.  We have one gulley between the buildings that could wash out our road.  The children and staff teamed up to dig and set used tires into the sides of the gulley.  These will be planted with small trees and other plants that will help protect the hillside.

The new "One Rai" test field had been carefully watered to raise the first crop of nutrient fixers - the sun hemp.  It will be trampled and cut into the field for a "no-till"  soil amendment.

All the fields are being cleared and covered to wait for the rains.  New fields are being set up with rows of bamboo to outline them for raised beds.

We have a test group of our longan fruit trees that have a ring of biochar set in the ground around them.  This will help hold water and has turned out to be a great place to grow fresh herbs.

Taking a break from the vegetable gardens the children and staff have been planting sunflowers for the seeds and marigolds to repel mosquitoes.  Lots of bright colors!

Thank you for helping us build out our capacity to protect our land and fresh produce to feed the children.

Best wishes for a wonderful summer ahead!

Dana, Michael, Evelind and the Warm Heart Children and Staff

We start 2023 with the last of the fall harvest bounty, along with a strong reminder to conserve water.  The rains have ended, one of our well pumps has stopped working, and the village water system has a broken pump. 

So far we are getting by with our second well and the sub-district offices have promised some fresh water for the children and some lake water for the vegetable gardens.  The dry season still has 5 or six months to run, so this is a good wake-up call for all the children and staff to conserve water.  

We're still harvesting tomatoes and there is a small kitchen garden full of salad greens.  The children all eat salad now and have converted to my vinaigrette for salad dressing, rather than the creamy sweet one they used to eat.

We spend Sunday afternoon making a big vat of tomato sauce that was split between the vegetarians, the meat sauce eaters, and the extra frozen for later use.

The Keyhole Garden has started to yield beans, tomatoes, fresh herbs, and some huge squash spread into a nearby tree.

The compost piles are yielding for the kitchen gardens and new ones have been set up for the next planting. 

The building of the new rainwater catchment tanks is underway, with some old orchard trees being removed to clear the space. This is located between the current active fields and the new  "One Rai" field (a bit less than half an acre). 

Spencer, Earn, and the children added biochar and some other natural soil enhancers to get the field started.  Sun hemp will be the first crop - it will add nutrients and then be the first "No-till" crop to be left in the field, with the next crop planted on top.

Thank you for making this all possible!

Best wishes for the New Year ahead!

Dana, Evelind, Michael, the Warm Heart Children, and Staff

It is the beginning of September and the rains have slowed from daily to every other day.  As farmers, we are usually grateful for the rain and try to collect as much as we can in our large blue plastic rainwater catchment tanks.  The longan trees had a rare year of heavy fruit and we harvested them in mid-August.  Prices were low but we did make about $700 to go towards the children's home and further farm development.

With all the rain, we have been out in it tracking the water flow and erosion points.  We have been able to get Vetiver Grass "King's Grass" cuttings from the Land Development Department and have been planting them along steep slopes.  

Spencer and Earn, along with some volunteers from the US, set up compost stations that take the kitchen scraps and plant cuttings.  The first batch of compost was ready in time to fill the "Keyhole Garden" - a self-contained walled-in structure to grow a range of vegetables.  It is one of the innovations that Spencer and Earn have introduced to build up areas of rich soil.  

The kitchen staff has been open to improving the growing beds, using raised beds to ease the bending and protect the soil  We've had a large crop of cucumber and long beans in between the rows of chili peppers.  

Some of the newer fruit trees we planted over the years have been producing fruit.  Our pomelo tree (like grapefruit) is heavy with fruit, all the lime trees are ready and our one lemon tree is also full of fruit this year.

The children love all the fruit and come to alert us when it is ripe to eat.  They pick it and take it to the kitchen to be recorded and shared. they know the many greens that the hill-tribe staff grow in their kitchen gardens or harvest wild among the garden plots.

Thank you for your enduring support for the children and this project.  We are enjoying the healthy results of the hard work by the children and staff.

As we look ahead to find ways to make Warm Heart more self-sustaining, we are pleased to have the offer of assistance from a longtime friend in organic farming (Spencer) and two of our college graduates (Earn and Koon).  Spencer built an organic vegetable marketing company and Earn has a degree in environmental sciences. Spencer has a broad network of farmers and innovators in organic agriculture and Earn is applying what she learned in school.  Koon has a degree in nutrition and is seeing ways to apply her knowledge to our food consumption   They are assessing our current systems and how we can add new farming techniques to increase our yields, and make it easier to farm and manage scarce water resources.  Once we have a picture of our current state, we can engage the staff and children in designing and organizing the gardens for more intensive farming,

The current gardens have been nurtured over the years from dirt made mostly of clay to a soil that grows a range of crops.  Biochar mixed with compost or manure has brought back the soil.  We have been growing an increasing amount of our own vegetables along with eggs from the chickens. The team is collecting ideas for improvements and we’re looking forward to testing the techniques.

As we mentioned previously, water is a major concern and we have started repairing and improving our current water system.  We have rain tank catchment on most of our buildings and we added a drinking water filter at the children’s home to save on purchased drinking water. We've gone out in rain storms to see which way the water flows to divert flood waters. With the details on Google Earth, we can see how the after flows and plan catchment areas for each garden plot.

With all the day-to-day activities required to keep the children healthy and in school, we have kept the gardens active, but now we have a team to focus on them and improve our bounty.

Thank you for supporting and encouraging us.  We'll keep you posted as we learn more!