To Build a Botanical Education | let see our garden

This is a collective initiative created by Odesa Indonesia. I learn a lot of things from that organization. One of the important ones is regarding education based on agroecology.

Our activity published on Pikiran Rakyat newspaper/image: Doc. Odesa Indonesia.

Why agriculture?

It came from the current surrounding. We live in hills which is agriculture is the livelihood base. However, we realize that the agriculture practice here raises problems for years. We are brave to say it as the facts are in sight. Behind mismanaged farms, there are poverty, early-age marriage, dropout, criminality, and other pathological social problems.

Living in hills and agriculture as primary livelihood. Image by: @abdulhamids

Every peasant here did not access good education. Their agricultural practices did not rely on science. It depends on how they could get more profits. Hence, agriculture here was lack of innovation and tended to exploit the land.

Landscape of critical ground. Image by: doc. Odesa Indonesia

Unsustainable agricultural practices could be restored by education-based botany. At least, it would be a solution that I guess amidst illiteracy of peasants to agroecological practices.

A foundation

Through botanical education, we would be more respectful of the environment. A mindset of old agriculture is going to shift from looking for profits to gaining sustainable advantages: a healthy environment and the whole organism living on.

We initiate this garden in March 2021. At an opening ceremony, I share a little bit about our crop collections with kids living here. They look pleasant getting a new insight into several plants.

Bring the children closer to the botanical issues would give them an abundance of benefits. They would learn empathy, see how life comes and process, and motivate them to manage daily activity as they take care of plants every day.

Orthosiphon aristatus and Fruit crops

This educational garden loads dozens of crops. The highest number is Orthosiphon aristatus. We nurse that plant as many as 2.000. Meanwhile, other crops are local fruit plants and outside ones. They have been planted on pots that are so-called tabulam pot.

A place for orthosiphon aristatus. Image by: @abdulhamids

Orthosiphon aristatus. Image by: @abdulhamids

Moringa tree. Image by: @abdulhamids

The land area is around 441 square meters. Previously, it was an experimental garden that is focused on planting Moringa trees and eco-friendly agricultural practices. However, the shift of the concept of this garden doesn't omit the moringa. That tree is the primary nutritious food producer, thereby we keep them grow here.

Moringa Tree. Image by: @abdulhamids

A concept which is so-called Tabulam Pot. Image by: @abdulhamids

A story from gardening

We succeeded to grow and maintain 50 moringa trees. They were harvested many times for two years. A small part of them died. It is caused by the long dry season. That condition made the root of the trees fragile. Hence, they fell and died.

Dozens of Moringa Trees. Image by: @abdulhamids

On the other hand, we had cultivated sunflowers, sorghums, and cabbages. The last ones are the worst. We extremely failed to harvest the cabbages. It is because we did not take care of the plant intensely in adult age and we could not prevent chickens to spoil the crops massively.

I get many insights from this garden activity. Hope you could get them too and would like to share them with us.

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This #GARDENJOURNAL post is in response to the Garden Journal challenge, hosted by @riverflows, that you can find here.

Thank you for making this contest!

With love,
Hamid