Gardening in Northern Peru

Since arriving at WAVES I have been part of a big push to cultivate and renovate WAVES’ gardens. Its been a fun and challenging process running over the five months I have been here, and promises to grow in the future.

It all began for me when we enlarged the size of the waves house front garden, using crushed bamboo canes, and a variety of recycled wood from the waves land to create a perimeter fence shelter young plants from the strong winds and the local dogs from digging them up. A couple of choice bits of wood were used as support poles to hang a hammock from, and a rustic bench was mounted on the fence to complete the seating out on the step. We then moved on to build a trellis in the form of a wave for passion fruit to climb, providing well needed midday shade on our well used step, not to mention plenty of home grown passion fruits when the season comes around. Some of the team then traveled to Sullana to get compost, seeds and a few new plants. Upon returning we prepared the some flower beds with the compost, wood chips (sourced from a lumber yard in Talara) and local soils to create a fertile mix to nurture the new seeds and plants, and to propagate the already existing ones. A few larger trees were also planted expanding the greenery out from the Waves house., which will eventually grow large enough to give shade to the ever expanding garden.

four months later

Now a few months on we’re seeing the positive results of our work, and a lot of watering (reused water from the Waves house), the passion fruit climber has almost fully covered the Trellis and is in the process of attaching itself to our over hanging roof, recently starting to flower and bear fruit. We have three varieties of pepper plants, basil, Thai basil, rosemary and even a water melon growing there now (just to name a few) which we can use in our cooking or in providing seeds to help cultivate waves site. Birds and butterflies such as the Danaus Plexippus and the Oasis Humming Bird have been visiting the garden bringing a refreshing touch of nature and color to a rather arid area. Another benefit that has come from developing the front garden has been that it has seemingly inspired some of our neighbors to start small gardens of their own, some of which we have managed to help out with seeds to start of with.

the first round of passion fruits is on its way

our spicy hot chilli peppers

Posted in: News

Tags: butterflies, chili peppers, Dominic Casey, Gardening, hammock, humming bird, Lobitos, maracuya, passion fruit

About the author: WAVES Volunteer

WAVES is only possible because of volunteers who come from all walks of life. Here, they share experiences and perspective from their time as volunteers.

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