Marimode's Tire Garden

Marimode St. Fleur and her daughter, Belinda, in their tire garden.

Crops include hot peppers, sweet peppers, tomatoes, amaranth and eggplant

Marimode and Belinda with a handful of their vermicompost.

Marimode wasn't willing to work with the worms at first, more or less

because of the "squiglliness" factor. We made fun of her and eventually she

gave it a try. Mariomode uses the worms specifically to produce the

high quality compost that makes her vegetables really take off.

Belinda's (left) first communion celebration, Sunday, June 6th. Jenny and Keila and

I were able to help Marimode with the celebration--and we participated!

Hey friend,

Just putting out a few images of the work that Marimode St. Fleur is doing in her yard where she rents a few rooms in a small house, together with her three youngest children. Marimode had been a member of the Road to Life Yard crew for about two and a half years now, but she was working with vegetable tires before that. Now she also works with red worms and she has a goat that she ties up and feeds much the same way we do with the goats in the project. Mariomode collects the goat manure in a shallow hole and waters it with organic uric acid they collect each morning from their chamber pots. I don't remember now if she then feeds that mix to the worms, or uses it more directly in the soil mix for the tires themselves.

Marimode and her kids have been building their own house and Marimode was concerned that she would have to leave the soil from her tires behind, but I'm sure we can find a way to sack up the soil and take it along with the tires to her new yard.