Centro Botanico Naturista La Melisa

Verbena verde in the drying house

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting Don Feliciano Patron Canul, an expert in natural medicine and owner of an herbal medicine garden, production area, and store.  The Embroidery and Herbal Medicine Workshop where Feliciano and his family live and work is located about five blocks form the city´s center, where I pick up a detailed map of how to arrive from Izamal's tourism office.   

Verbena in Feliciano's garden

The entrance to the family home is an embroidery shop, so when I begin to ask about plants, one of Feliciano's five daughters, who is working on a blouse, directs me to a side entrance of the home.  

Within minutes, I am sweating more than I already was on this humid day in the Yucatan.  Feliciano, notices and chuckles. "It gets really hot in here because of the roof.  I am used to it, and it's perfect, because all of these plants need to dry," he tells me.  For the rest of the morning, I continued sweating and Don Feliciano shared a mix of personal stories, plant knowledge and souvenirs from years of work as a botanist.  And, surprisingly, this doesn't appear as one of Tripadvisor's "Things to Do" in Izamal!

x-put-balam

A machine used to chop plant parts

Herbs finished drying and ready for packaging

Fruits of x-put-balam in the drying room

In the drying room, Feliciano explains each rack, describing the plant or mix of plants and how they can be used.  Verbena roja, he tells me, stimulates ovulation in a woman´s cycle.  The bark of the Encino tree, "Bek" in Maya, is boiled and gargled by people who are suffering from sore throats or vomiting blood.  Many of the plants names he uses are in Maya, like x-put-balam (Papera), a plant whose orange fruits and leaves are mashed, boiled and gargled to cure sore throats.  

Medicinal herbs are packaged and ready to sell

Feliciano's grandfather, a Men (Maya priest), shared his knowledge of healing plants with his son and grandson.  "He knew a lot about plants, and then other more mysterious things, which I never really liked," Feliciano tells me.  "Like animal sacrifices?" I asked.  "No, more like supernatural things."  Feliciano tells me a story of a Maya Rain Ceremony, in which his grandfather and other men would descend into a cave for three days, during time of drought.  Before entering, they would recite prayers and light a candle, which despite constant winds, burned steadily while the men were in the cave.  When the last man exited the cave, he pinched the flame out and put the candle in his pocket.  "I knew something wasn't normal, that a candle shouldn't burn like that for three days," Feliciano solemnly tells me.  Then he adds, "One thing I do like is a prayer he taught me."  Feliciano recites the prayer, which is in a rhyming mix of Spanish and Maya, and smiled at me, "Sounds nice, doesn't it?"

Feliciano's Backyard: A wealth of medicinal plants

While in his garden, Feliciano tells me that several people have invited him to work at a larger botanic garden in a nearby town. They would pick him up, he would give tours for a couple of hours (all dressed up, he notes), and then he would be driven home and paid 300 pesos (about $25/day).  While the money and opportunity were good, Feliciano felt that his operation at home would fall apart if he took on this job, so he turned down the offer. Feliciano recognizes the value of his knowledge and its connection to the Maya culture.  His story illustrates a tension between ancient plant secrets  preserved in a pre-Hispanic language and the desire of the modern world to access this knowledge.

  Feliciano is proud of his visitors from around the world.  He shows me photos of him with Former Mexican President Vicente Fox and famous latino pop singer Juan Gabriel.  On his wall, are framed newspaper articles with titles like, "An Example of Family" and "Deep Maya Roots, still growing."  However, after a morning at Feliciano's house, it becomes clear that who relies upon his plant knowledge most are his neighbors, who frequently arrive to buy dried leaves and bark, which they'll make into tonics, creams, and teas.  

  

With herbolist Feliciano and still sweating in the drying room!!

Adventures in Izamal -Day 1

On the flight from Chicago to Cancun, I passed over Isla Holbox, where I'll return in a few weeks.  It´s place so close to, but so different from Cancun.

 I wanted to snap a picture of the Island's distinctive bat wing shape, but these will have to do.

After a 5 hr bus ride from Cancun's bus terminal, I arrived to Izamal feeling tired and very hungry.  Was it no coincidence that I would place my dinner order at the restaurant, which I was told would be ready in exactly one hour, as I began reading Carlo Petrini´s Terra Madre, a book about the Slow Food movement?   Slow Food = Good Food, especially after a long day of travel.  I enjoyed a greek salad and chiles rellenos at Macanche´s restaurant, where I plan to take a cooking class or two later this week. 

Tomorrow, I'll begin my adventures in Izamal, the city of 3 cultures.  I'm looking to discover a bit about each culture, and how the story of plants connects each of them.
Hopefully, seven nights won't prove to be too long to spend in a town with exactly 4 attractions listed in the "Things to Do" section of Tripadvisor.   According to my research, there is far more to do in one of Mexico's famed Pueblo Magicos.   

Composting Madness

A week ago, we began our composting adventures with a great presentation from Jeff of Urban Life-Cycle.  Jeff's company describes itself as "a permaculture-based collective of bicycle loving food security activists who are taking direct action to reduce carbon emissions and landfill waste and to feed the soil and the city's hungry."

Jeff arrived to Farragut on his bicycle with reclaimed wood and chicken wire to build a model compost bin for the summer session students.  He then gave a presentation, about composting and his own experiences with sustainable living.  Since then, students have been saving food scraps and bringing them to the bin.  They also created "brochures" to describe the process and encourage others to compost.

Since Jeff's  presentation, we have installed a sturdy container for the school yard, which will be used to gather organic materials and produce all-natural fertilizer for our garden.  This morning, the gardeners had the not so pleasant job of opening bags of saved fruit and veggie scraps and combining everything into the newly built bin.  Jessica worked hard turning the compost and making sure it was not too wet or dry.


Speaking of moisture, the heat has been taking a toll on our plants, requiring a little bit of extra TLC.

Here's a peak around the garden this afternoon:

Nice Banana Pepper!

Everything needs a little extra water!

Our Composting Corner

A healthy mix of tomatoes, peppers, and marigolds

Field Trip Fridays.. Chicago Botanic Garden

Yesterday, we journeyed up to Glencoe to the Chicago Botanic Garden.  Despite a bit of construction for the Shoreline Restoration Project, the garden still looks gorgeous.  The student gardeners were particularly amazed, stopping frequently to snap photos, smell flowers, and proclaim, "this is so beautiful!"  It really is a magical place.

At the entrance to the Gardens

Having spent a summer working at CBG, I can be a bit of an overambitious tour guide.  In 3 hours, we managed to visit about 10 gardens and take the Grand Tram Tour (Thanks to Shelly and Kathy for the tickets!) around the garden.  We also stopped on the legendary Fruit and Veggie Island to get some inspiration and visit the Science First Campers who are just finishing their first week of camp at the garden.  We also visited the isolated Spider Island, which we decided would be an ideal location for detention, if school were at the Botanic Garden.    

It was also worthwhile to check out the composting systems on the island.  We've had some composting adventures this week (more on that later), so it was great for students to see a demonstration system and hopefully realize that all of that turning of the compost pile will actually pay off!

Today, I returned to CBG for the School Gardening Conference.  Awesome event that is a must for anyone involved at any stages with a school/community garden.  It was a chance to learn from people like Lynn Hyndman, who manages the Dawes Garden after a career as a science teacher.  The Keynote Speaker, Melissa Graham, director of the Purple Asparagus, shared her experiences with bringing a Food Discovery program to Chicago schools.

And, did I mention that I won a potted Nasturtium in the Raffle.. complete with a recipe for stuffed Nasturtium flowers?  Wow, what a day to celebrate!

In the Arid Greenhouse at CBG

Gardening Field Trip to The Plant!

Field Trip Fridays.. Yeah!  But not before a few chores in the garden.... I can't think of a better way to spend the first Friday of the Summer. :)


Today we visited The Plant, an inspiring model of urban agriculture in nearby Back of the Yards.  While gardeners were quiet on the tour, they later said they really enjoyed the tour, with favorite parts being "seeing the plants growing on the rooftop Urban Canopy" and "the worms".

Alex P, CEO of the Urban Canopy, was kind enough to arrange a Friday tour; although the Plant was officially closed, there was a lot of excitement, with remodeling and growing happening throughout.  A living factory, the plant never rests, I suppose.

Alex showing the girls that Bees are nice, as long as you're nice to them!

Peeking into a tank of very large (and delicious?) Tilapia

Hydroponic Garden

Checking out a Wall of Crops on the Urban Canopy

The Adventures Begin: Gardening at Farragut

 

Yesterday, I set up the Lifetime Raised Garden Beds with Felix in about 10 minutes. As promised by the review, sturdy plastic parts that snap together and secure with connectors. Thanks to a tip from Alex at the Plant and the flexibility of Lake Street Landscape, 2 yards of beautiful garden mix were delivered by the early afternoon.  Will helped me pick up bags of gravel and a Mexican Mint Marigold last night.  What a busy last day of school...
After a lot of planning, seed starting, and shopping, we began gardening this morning.
I couldn't have been more excited than when I arrived to school about 7:40 am and found Jonathan and Miguel waiting in the parking lot.  All six gardeners arrived before start time.  What and awesome and reliable crew that Farragut has!

The first task, was centering the beds in front of the cement planters.. nothing like a little math practice early on the first day of summer!

Next, students added an inch of gravel to the raised beds.  Then, they moved 2 yards of garden mix soil from the courtyard entrance to the beds. This may not have been the most fun part of the morning.

We stopped for a water break and began to move plants from my classroom to the courtyard.  We stopped in the breezeway to admire our work:

Ana, Maria, and Jessica have been reading Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening, so they came with a rough plan of how to layout the crops.  We decide upon 1 bed for herbs, 1 bed of peppers, and tomatoes, and 1 bed of peppers, a cucumber, a zucchini (for flor de calabaza).  Here's a graphic from Square Foot Gardening:
The herbs we planted today are: bee balm, lemon grass, mexican mint marigold, rue, papalo, epazote, basil, cilantro, and lemon balm.  We planted several varieties of peppers (though I think Habanero was the favored plant!) and tomatoes.

At the end of the morning, we gave everything a good watering and headed home.  Next steps:  Building a Compost Bin and working on a raised bed of native plants (perennials) in a shady region of the courtyard. 

Gardens not Guns... Last Day of School!

School's Out.. and our Grass pets are alive and well.  Notice a few pets joined our division photo. 

During the last days of school, we signed an anti-gun pledge which read:

"I will never bring a gun to school. I will never resolve a dispute with a gun. I will use my influence with my friends to keep them from using guns to settle disputes. Together, by honoring this pledge, we can reverse the violence and grow up safely. Sign it; mean it, live it, keep it."
 
Maybe one day there will be a campaign:  Gardens not Guns.