English n8

N8_AUGUST | 2015

Welcome to the HORGANIC newsletter!

We are about to finish the HORGANIC project and much work has been done! This three years long project had produce excellent gardeners and gardens, as well as a useful handbook for beginners and a toolkit for the future trainers on gardening and experiential learning.

In this last issue we want to show and overview of the results of the HORGANIC project, this is our harvest!

Enjoy the read!

The HORGANIC team

HORGANIC HANDBOOK AND TEXTBOOK The project has produced a trainer’s manual and a textbook for trainees as its main result. These two books will serve to future trainers and gardener apprentices to reproduce the HORGANIC course in the future. These books are the result of tree years of work of the partner organizations and their contents have been proved, revised and amended during the piloting phase to ensure the adequacy to the learners’ requirements and to facilitate the trainers work and to optimize the learning process.

GARDENING, HORTICULTURE AND SOCIAL SKILLS Trainer handbook

The trainers’ handbook is designed to serve as a useful guide to develop a one-year training course on gardening and horticulture and also to become familiar with socio-drama techniques that help to improve social competences of people suffering from mental illness.

This manual has been thought to be implemented in any day-center, association, training center, workshop, etc. working with people with any kind of mental illness, especially those with severe and prolonged mental illness. Trainers will find here a collection of technical content and exercises to train their groups in ornamental gardening and horticulture techniques bearing in mind the special needs of this target group.

The textbook gives useful and easy tips to the future horticultures and gardeners that cover every aspect to take into consideration when creating a garden: from the risks management to the basic of botany or the instructions to sow and harvest different vegetables, or how to detect and protect the plants from pests.

You may find even some recipes to cook your vegetables!!

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THE GERMAN GARDEN AND HARVEST Summarizing a three - years project including all its experiences for the trainers and their participants is not the easiest task, so these pictures shall just give you some impressions of our work done in Germany. We clearly marked an outside area as “Horganic area”, to define it for the participants and trainers involved in and visible for all visitors to show to be involved in this very interesting project.

In this “Horganic area” we built a polyethylene tunnel to give the little plants a chance to grow up in a protected area. This was one of the favorite tasks of our participants and although the practical part of the project is over now, it still serves us for the plants in the open ground. As you can see, the ground in the polyethylene tunnel had to be prepared with rows and enough distance in between before we started to plant out the first little plants.

Gardening

Building a potato crate was a great task as well, working together as a team and later on to be used as having a space to plant and harvest potatoes without having an open ground and/or a lot of space.

Well, and maintaining plants in the open ground, detect and remove weeds as well as detect and remove pests is a task we did constantly. As you might have read in previous issues of this newsletter not all of the harvest turned out well as the weather and pests gave their influence to it, but as visible in the pictures below there was still enough to be harvested and prepared to be eaten.

Gesa Schiller- CJD

The harvest

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THE SLOVENIAN GARDEN AND HARVEST Work in the garden begins in winter, when we start to prepare the greenhouse. It is good if we build also nesting boxes on nearby trees, where useful birds will find their place and guard our garden from pests. We can prepare earth in our garden already in the autumn, and then complete it in the early spring. Soon after this, it is necessary to sow the seeds in seed trays and grow as many seedlings on our own. During the time, when our seedlings grow, we can prepare a planting plan for our garden, and follow the rules of good neighbors. When our seedlings are large enough, we transplant them into larger pots, so that the plants root well.

Depending on the type, size of plants and the weather, we decide when to plant seedlings to the garden.

When planting we should consider an appropriate planting distance, so that the plant will have enough room to grow. It is necessary to regularly water, fertilize, hoe and remove pests and diseases. Working in the garden is relaxing, so time passes quickly. Taking good care of our garden always pays off and soon rewards us with the first crop. The crop is even more delicious as we harvest it by ourselves. Summer passes quickly and there are more and more crops to be harvested, so it is necessary to save some for the autumn or winter.

There are many ways to store our crops, and we decide for the one that suits us best. It can be stored in a cold cellar, in a freezer or we use food preservation methods. Autumn is the time when it is necessary to prepare the garden for winter. Again we can use the greenhouse or just let the soil rest.

The harvest

If you still haven’t tried taking care of the garden, we encourage you to try! Lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, broccoli and other vegetables are better from the home garden, even though this garden is only a little larger pot on your terrace or balcony. We had an amazing fun and learned a lot, but the best thing of all was, that we ate all our crops with great satisfaction.

Natasa Rebernik - OZARA

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THE SPANISH GARDEN AND HARVEST As everything in life, the Horganic course has a beginning and an end. This course has finished with very satisfactory results, especially for the gardeners.

The course has last a year, both the trainees and the trainer have learnt many things, like how to make seedbed, how toe preparer the soil before sowing, how to take care of the plants, …

During the course the trainees wrote “the diary of the gardener” where the noted the most important things of the evolution of the garden; like the name of the plants, the date they were planted, the time and way of watering they needed, the harvest time, etc.

The first thing was to prepare the terrain, with a fence and supply of water. We started moving the soil and removing the weed to leave everything ready to sow.

I enjoyed a lot with this course, realizing day by day how the trainees learnt and behave, and how the plants were growing.

José Manuel Iglesias - Fundación INTRAS

The harvest

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OPEN GREEN MARKET On 16th of September 2015 the Horganic team will present the results of this project in an open market of organic products that is organized every September by the school of Agricultural Engineer of Valladolid University (INEA). This school counts with a great terrain divided in organic gardens in which the users of Intras have sowed theirs.

Our gardeners will show and sell the products of their harvest, putting into practice the social skills they had acquired during the Horganic course.

Many people from many different places enjoy this day. Besides the opportunity of buying organic vegetables, visitors can also taste it during the picnic, with “eco-menuâ€? that costs just 4â‚Ź.

Children and adults can enjoy with the mime show and the different games and activities planned during the day.

This annual event has a great dissemination, all the local media are present and the Horganic team will rise the occasion to give a press conference there.

The Horganic team will set up an informative stand about the project, where visitors can be informed about the project by the partners and by the gardeners. The manual and the text book for replying the course will be also available for the public in the stand.

Sure it will be a perfect day!

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This project has been funded with support of the Lifelong Learning Programme, Grundtvig subprogramme, from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Contact: MarĂ­a Carracedo proyectos6@intras.es You will find updated information about HORGANIC project in http://horganic.intras.es Horganic