There are 115 recently planted coffee trees in our Colegio Bolivar Garden, which we are going to process to make Colegio Bolivar coffee. These coffee trees have not yet started to bear any fruit, but have started to flower. We want to make sure that these are free from disease and attack from parasites, and […]
El día comenzó cuando salimos, los estudiantes de agricultura y pre-AP biologia, de la escuela alrededor de las 5:30 a las 6:00 de la mañana. Llegamos al Oeste, recogimos a otros compañeros y continuamos nuestro viaje a la granja del Doctor. Una vez que llegamos allí, dejamos algunas cosas en su lugar y nos preparamos […]
When we first arrived to the class and went down to the garden for the first time, the terraces were well constructed but needed maintenance after the summer recess. The majority of the rocks had already been removed by the previous class, but we found that there were many small rocks still in the soil. […]
During the past year the Bolivar Garden and the associated agricultural science elective have gone from strength to strength. Last year we had our first produce, some cobs of corn, that we passed onto the school workers cafeteria. The Bolivar garden weekends, run each month, have been attended by parents and relatives of our students, […]
On the 26th September ten agricultural students and one agricultural teacher got on a Colegio Bolivar School bus and travelled to Palmira to an agricultural research station. CORPOICA (Corporacion Colombiana de Investigacion Agropecuaria) sede Palmira is the agricultural research station funded by the Colombian Government, based in Valle Del Cauca. CORPOICA has sites 19 sites […]
During our last lesson in the garden, whilst we were preparing beds, one of the agricultural students was adamant that a rock should be removed from the second terrace before the bed could properly be used. It was cautioned that this was not going to be easy, and that the rock was large, but there […]
It has always been a goal of the Bolivar Garden Project to include members from the wider Bolivar Community, not just students, teachers, maintenance, and administration but to other school staff, the wider students community (K-12), parents, alumni, The Board and friends of the school. For this reason a series of Bolivar Garden Weekends has […]
Dr Nagy asked me at the start of this academic year if I was indeed going to consider growing coffee as a crop. I thought this an excellent idea and so brought some seeds from Finca El Manatial, in Chicoral to show students the process of starting a mini coffee plantation. Students were shown the […]
Before planning beds students were asked to group different plant crops according to the families in which they existed. Primarily these were the Brassicas -Cruciferae (cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, radish, swede and turnip); Legumes – Leguminosae (pea, beans, peanuts); Potato – Solanaceae (potato, tomato, aubergine and peppers); Umbellifers – Umbelliferae (carrot, parsnip, parsley, celery, […]
The students first investigated what makes up soil, its major properties, its structure and composition, and taxonomy before testing the acidity of the soil using pH paper and meters, and soil respiration using a Solvita low level CO2 soil respiration burst monitor. Students measuring soil temperature at 15cm, and taking soil samples (90g) in […]
