September 5 – 11, 2005
We have been going into rainy season prep mode by preparing seeds (hulling, soaking) and sowing in the greenhouse. This week we hulled some more of our barbaso-algarrobo-seca store, and sowed zapote de perro and algarrobo. We mixed some more sand and compost into the seed beds before sowing, as it seemed that the soil was getting too compacted with the watering due to the high clay content.
The aguia seedlings have come up. We have a lot more of those seeds so it is good to know they are still viable. So now we have 3 species sprouting in total (guachapeli and cascol as well).
We had bought some fishing line to repair the greenhouse netting, which seems to be working better than the wire, as it doesn’t cut into the netting as much, causing it to eventually fall apart. Part of the fence around the compost pit had been knocked down and was put back up.
The new volunteers got a tour of the the revegetated area at the Universidad Catolica by Peter Berg, and brought down a drum that had been used for water storage which was no longer needed on that hillside. The weaker trees at that site were also watered.
We finished fixing up the samangos in their baggies, and started in the cedros. We did an inventory of the plants (only those in bags/bottles) as follows:
algarrobo 9
colorado 84
cedro 232
ceibo 111
ebano 11
guachapeli 96
jaboncillo 5
guayacan 208
samango 104
seca 1
We passed by Inter-Americano to check up, and ended up doing all the watering as the school was on another vacation – something having to do with the election of a school “reina” (queen).
We watered Cherry Tree, Dairy Farm and Endara sites, as well as both Jorge Lomas sites and El Bosque. A jaboncillo tree which had been burned at the top of the hill at El Bosque, and was as dry as a bone, miraculously sprang back to life with little buds coming from the base just above ground level. I have found this to be common among many of the species that we plant. Some are surprisingly hardy. We found the source of the water that had destroyed the top staircase, as a spring spontaneously appeared on the hilltop while we were fixing the stairs! I found out from EMAPA (responsible for municipal potable water supply) that it is due to a problem in the water piping somewhere else so the backed-up water had found another outlet. They are working on fixing it. In addition to fixing various steps and handrails, we also put in another watering pipe, and located a missing sign (“ceibo inmaduro”) and post, which had been dragged half way across the park. I got holes punched in the sign in order to reattach it to the post.
Over the weekend, Peter Berg and I took a hike into El Toro to look for planting sites. We identified two possible areas. We also had a meeting with Angel, president of the Maria Auxiliadora community association, to talk about his idea for a project to fix up El Bosque en Medio de Las Ruinas.
I put together a seed collection schedule, and will continue to do research to fill in missing information for certain species.
Heather
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