Building Mar Y Miel step by step
MAR Y MIEL
AstilleroVerde is supporting the development of a community garden located in Morales, just 5km away from our shipyard. This project aims to empower the local communities with food sovereignty, promote healthy and balanced eating habits, and develop social responsibility and solidarity. Scroll through to follow our progress.
JULY 2021
JUN 2021
June was an incredibly inspiring month!
Mar y Miel team kept working on the garden infrastructures, focusing now in the building of the greenhouse, where we plan on growing organic produce very soon!
2nd workshop held at Mar y Miel: Meliponiculture with Más Que Miel Organisation
Meliponiculture is the art of keeping stingless bees. These bees are native to the tropics, and they play a very important role in the growth and regeneration of forests, through their pollination habits and choices. This workshop was full and Mar y Miel team will soon get their first hives to start keeping Mariola bees. The honey of Mariola bees is a powerful medicine with antibacterial properties.
“We have shared a beautiful day with the community, dedicated to stingless bees. We talked about their importance and how we can keep them, creating a new vision for production connected to conservation.”
BIG NEWS: The Women’s Association of Mar y Miel was born!
We are incredibly happy to announce that the women running Mar y Miel decided to form their own Women’s Association! This is a very importan step towards the sustainable management of Mar y Miel. Roles and responsibilities have been delegated, and around 15 women are part of this association.
MAY 2021
A lot happened in May for Mar y Miel!
A committed group of community members, mostly women, has been showing up every week to work and contribute for the development of this project. Slowly and organically, the Mar y Miel community is being formed. Together with Mariel, they are planning and building Mar y Miel from the ground up.
May was the month to put together the most important structures: toilets, tool shed and the educational center. Only natural and reclaimed materials were used, in order to build organic and sustainable structures, easily assembled and with a low impact on the landscape.
First workshops held at Mar y Miel: Agroecology with Carolina Arias
May also marked the beginning of a series of workshops that will be hosted monthly at Mar y Miel. The first workshop was given by Carolina Arias and focused mainly on sustainable land practices and empowerment of women living in rural areas. Around 20 women attended this workshop with the motivation of applying the knowledge acquired into the development and maintenance of Mar y Miel.
APRIL 2021
The next step was finding water for irrigation of our garden. Although native species of tropical dry forests can easily survive a 5 month dry season without a drop of rain, this is definitely not the case for vegetables, and specially if one wants to have a consistent quality of production. Since this land did not have yet a source of water, Mar y Miel team pulled up their sleeves and went looking for it. Luckily they had Asdrúbal, who knows the ancient technique of using dowsing rods to find underground water sources! It took several weeks and the whole Mar y Miel team united and motivated, but it was all worth it because at 6m deep, there it was: water, life!
We have also found a colony of bees living on the land! Since one of Mar y Miel main goals is the protect and help bees thrive, we take this as a sign of good fortune!
MARCH 2021
In March we started working on the land. The first step was to clear it and cut down the overgrowth. The more helping hands the merrier since this is not an easy job and the land was filled with pica-pica, a well known shrub whose pods, when shaken, release tiny hairs that are very itchy. Nevertheless we were very excited to witness how many members of the community showed up to help! Around 32 people arrived at 7am, armed with machetes and forks to start clearing the land off of vines grass. Three days after, the whole area was cleared. Good job everybody!
FEBRUARY 2021
February was a busy month for Mar Y Miel. Now that it was finally happening, a lot of planning and organisation was needed. The most important thing was finding a good location and starting to spread the word within the community in order to form the team that will develop and manage this project in the future.We found an ideal place at Walter’s Farm (the same property we are working on for our reforestation program this year). The land is about 5000m2, it is located within walking distance from Morales, it has access to drinking water and it is easily accessible from the main road. There is a secondary forest present, with several adult trees and undergrowth natural to the Tropical Dry Forests ecosystems, which very good for our future vegetable garden, since soil is already established and there some shade.
JANUARY 2021
The beginning of this year arrived with exciting news! Mar Y Miel Community Garden won the Becas Taller fund, a program designed by the Ministry of Culture to protect and promote the different expressions of cultural heritage present in Costa Rica.