Family Homestead Gardens

A West Valley student team worked long hours each day to break ground on family gardens. Cambodia’s weather has been drier than normal, so the soil was much more difficult to work. Yet, when a villager tried to wet the soil to make it easier to till, they asked him not to, given their awareness of the drought conditions forecast for this year. The hard work took its toll; at the end of each day, they returned from their project more exhausted than most other teams.

The goal of this project is to help families use fallow land to grow vegetables organically for their own use and for sale. We are exploring assisting these farmers in learning how they can grow vegetables organically to become approved suppliers to organic produce retailers.

Row 1: (left) Shantik Azima-Taylor, Isha Prabhakar, and Cade Story-Yetto stand in front the family’s home where they will break ground to create a garden area. (right) Dr. Andy Kindon clears away old palm fronds with the father’s help.

Row 2: (left) The father helps Dr. Kindon and Isha clear away debris. The mother watches, holding the trunk of a papaya tree. (right) Shantik hauls away the cleared debris.

Row 3: (left and right) Shantik and Dr. Kindon use hoes to clear away the brush.

Row 4: (left) Chantal Naugle hoes away brush to expose open ground. (right) Shantik uses an axe to hack away undergrowth.

Row 5: (left) Chantal works to break and turn soil in the dry ground. (right) Cade Story-Yetto breaks up soil while Shantik, Chantal, and Dr. Kindon survey the ground they’ve broken with their hard work to prepare the family’s garden.