This last week saw us finish the fermentation of our cacao harvest and its subsequent drying in front of the science department building for all to see. This was then finished by roasting the beans in the oven at a slow and steady temperature of between 110-140°C for 30 minutes. Now we have to peel […]
This week our new terrace got a severe beating from a minor landslide which deposited a lot of rocks and soil debris onto the terrace. Not only was material pushed through the terrace, the result were at least five plastic posts that had been cemented in blocks completely fractured, the door to the terrace broken […]
After many months work with the wonderful Stefania “Stefi” Ruiz, the school´s webmaster, we have finally updated the blog to make it more accessible and fun to read about all our exploits. It now features a new carousel of photos, individual links to monographs written in previous years, categorization of blog posts and links to […]
With our newly established Terrace my students and I set about the task of making the terrace ready to grow the three sisters, maize, beans and pumpkins, an indigenous method to grow crops together. Firstly, we had to calculate how many mounds we would put in the terrace. At a spacing of 0.5m from the […]
During the Christmas vacation BGVs kindly came to school to water our Bolivar Garden. This meant that no more cacao trees died. Unfortunately, during the summer months, with no way to water the plants consistently about 20 of the 64 cacao plants that we planted perished. However, coming back to school we re-assessed the cacao […]
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 […]
A group of nine volunteers from the school community and members of the Bolivar Garden agreed to help water the cacao plot and new terrace during our hot Christmas vacations. From the 15th December till the 6th January these volunteers came and used a newly purchased tube system – courtesy of the Don Simon Coffee […]
We have recently been involved in the renovation of the greenhouse – this is now an ongoing project. This began with a visit to the school through the auspices of the Sustainability Week organized by Jessica Gomez. David Bravo visited the school and gave a wonderful talk about how to grow tomatoes, visited our greenhouse […]
As part of the Agricultural Plant Science course I have always tried to take students on a field trip; I believe it important to expose students to real-life operations of what we are learning and practicing in my agricultural class, especially considering the importance that agriculture still has in Valle del Cauca and Colombia. I […]
I am so so proud of my Don Simón Coffee Club volunteers – all students with an interest in selling our wonderful coffee. Yesterday at the COLEGIO BOLIVAR FARMER´s MARKET , we sold ALL our coffee! The DON SIMÓN crew were fantastic at explaining the two types of coffee that we sold to our wider community […]
