The very first thing that was done in the garden, almost 10 years ago now, was to build our two level terrace. We did this by levelling a piece of land and enclosing it with rocks. Since its inception we have grown maize, sweetcorn, beans and casava on the terrace, but we have always been faced with a problem of predation from iguanas, guatines and squirrels.

To this end, this year we have embarked on an ambitious project to rebuild and enclose the terrace.

With a substantial donation of materials from Daniel Calero and Maria Paula Jaramillo, including: cement, netting, metal, balast, sand, fixtures and PVC tubing.

The construction of the terrace could not have been done without the incredible help from the school´s gardeners and the school´s engineer, Diego Arias. With his help and that of the gardeners, and a huge amount of support from our Bolivar Garden Volunteers, we turned our old terrace into a functioning, single level, large terrace, that has now been enclosed to stop predation by iguanas, guatines and squirrels.

We started by dismantling the existing rock wall with help of the students in the Agric Class, and levelling the land with gardeners, students and Bolivar Garden Volunteers (BGVs). Then we planned the size of the new terrace. This required multiple measurements, corrections, trigonometry and geometry, squaring off, and some help from Diego and the Gardeners.  Holes were dug for plastic posts (bought for with monies from Don Simón) and were set in place in concrete – with massive help from the gardeners during a couple of Minga sessions!  Carlos Castillo has to be recognised alongside all the gardeners for amazing help in teaching students how to mix concrete, set posts, make things square and level the land.

Once posts were in place, we used donated plastic netting and metal netting to secure the area.  One weekend, Gustava Ledesma and I, along with BGVs, made the super structure for the roof with PVC tubing. To this was attached the netting by the school gardeners.

A door was fashioned by the school´s carpenter and hung in place.

My students and I then decided to build up 42 raised mounds where we are now growing maize and beans with mani forrajero, and soon pumpkins. This required a lot of hard work, mixing of compost and soil and spacing out mounds.

The NEW TERRACE is now in production.