Urban Gardening Workshop & Skill-Share at ProNica's Quaker House, Managua

This past Sunday, we hosted an urban gardening workshop and skill-share at Quaker House. We had around 20 friends from the local communities of Acahualinca, Ciudad Sandino, Batahola, and Las Brisas participating, as well as Jesuit, Batahola, and Mennonite volunteers, ProNica staff, and Quaker House guests from the U.S. and Honduras. While our green space is limited at Quaker House, we wanted to demonstrate that even in small urban spaces, we can grow a lot of veggies and medicinal plants to contribute toward food security. As Nicaragua is a country highly-impacted by climate change, food security is an increasing concern and ProNica hopes to support food security initiatives as well as to practice good earth-care ourselves.

On Sunday, we created garden beds, hanging gardens from tubes of plastic and recycled bottles for beets and lettuce, and planted seeds. 

We now have: 5 banana plants, a lemon tree, oregano, mint, rue, cilantro, peanut grass, basil, tomatoes, lettuce, beets, hibiscus flowers (for tea), aloe, sage, lavender, passionfruit, and more! We also put together a composting bin with earthworms to turn food scraps into organic fertilizer for our gardens. One of the things I love about composting, is that by using that organic matter from the kitchen, we can reduce the trash we sent to landfills by 40-50%! Plus we add to soil regeneration, and soil loss is one of the most concerning environmental issues today.

In addition to edible plants, we also planted some flowers to invite in hummingbirds and butterflies to beautify our garden, where we meet bi-weekly for Quaker Meeting. Participating friends took home hanging planters and seedlings for their homes.

Thanks to everyone who participated and shared their skills, and to the Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment for helping to make this possible as part of our year-long focus on environmental issues and alternatives in Nicaragua. You can see more photos on our Facebook page ProNica