If you live in a glass house...

Thanks to Anthony “Wiz” Louis from the Diamond Chocolate Factory team, we’ve been working overtime to construct the tool shed for CFFI tools.  Through her determination and local contacts, Dorise was able to recycle close to 1,000 glass bottles from April’s St. Marks Day festivities to make our building a beautiful, sustainable work of art.  

Wiz building a glass bottle wall from Stag an Carib beer bottles.

Using YouTube videos as a reference, we constructed the tool shed walls out of glass bottles and mortar – to the amazement of our staff and neighbors.  The bottles not only look great, but they let sunlight into the tool shed.  

Indie and English from the factory helped clean up the wall.

Each side of the shed has a unique design. 

The second side of the shed used Campari and local rum bottles.

We're excited to announce that the Grenada Organic Agriculture Movement (GOAM) came to visit our farm to observe our compost system.  They were very excited by our work, and eager to collaborate in the future, including encouraging other farmers to adopt the same system.  

Troy Augustine explains our compost system to Angela Gomez from GOAM

Troy and Kimon demonstrate our sieve - the final step.

Some of our final compost product!

We also did the first turn of the new compost system and created the newest heap.  It was hard work, and took most of the day.  Our new heap uses local materials:

• Donkey manure from a local organic farmer
• Kitchen scraps from our neighbors at the nursing home
• Weeds cleared from the land
• Cardboard from recycled boxes of glass liquor bottles (for the wall!)
• Coffee grinds from The Victory Bar and Restaurant at Port Louis Marina in St. Georges
• Ground chocolate husks from the Diamond Chocolate Factory

Cocoa husks from the chocolate factory. Were working to create sustainable systems!

After the turn, we ended up with a container of ready-to-use compost.  We’re looking forward to expanding our vegetable beds and using this first round of compost here on the land.  The finished compost looks great – just ask the tree seedlings and earthworms that have already made it their home! 

Thanks again to Troy Augustine from the Ministry of Agriculture for his dedication and guidance.

After hard work collecting the materials, Dorise constructed the first bamboo panel stall in the cellar of the factory.  This wall will eventually be used as a model to construct multiple walls and stalls to use as working and display stations.