Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said the Homegrown, Homegrown Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said, we food , we food, come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

From the earth to the dirt, come let we till up the soil, till up the soil, from the earth to the dirt, come let we keep planting on a while.

You see the homegrown I said it come from earth.

I say the good food come make me plant me we own.

I say the good food, good food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said I food, I food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said, Your food, your food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said the Homegrown, Homegrown Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

Any of you who are thinking about gardening and have a slope.

You tuned in at the right time because today's show will help you to work with the slug that you have in your yard to create a terrace garden on a terrace that will help you to achieve your gardening goals.

Today with me is Miss Gwynn and Harrigan.

Miss Harrigan, welcome to Home Grown.

Thank you.

You have a challenge over here?

Yes, I do.

You have a big challenge out here.

Because when we first were looking at your place, we said, Boy, this is a challenge.

You wanted to garden because we've looked at your place and we've seen that you've got some trees and other things going here, but you wanted to at least grow some things that you could use in your house.

Correct.

Okay.

But I wanted the audience to see we're going to turn around and look what Miss Hopkins Harrigan has to deal with in terms of her landscape.

When you look behind us, this is what Ms.. Harrigan has to deal with.

See, this low?

This slope is almost about 90% slope.

It's rocky.

If you weren't thinking about gardening and looking at the slope, you would probably say, You know what?

Let me just leave this alone.

But we're going to show you here on this hurricane's place that even though you have this situation, you could create the garden that you wanted to have.

And so, again, when you first looked at this, did you think that you could even get a garden going in here?

No, because I didn't know how.

You didn't know how?

No.

Okay.

Had you tried other things before?

Yes, I tried tomatoes, bell peppers.

And there's an area that was flat that I tried to plant those things in that area.

Also, I use a bucket or to try to grow things in.

Yes.

Okay.

Containing the garden.

All right.

Yes.

But then we also planted cashew coconut and mango.

Okay.

And you have those, as I see.

You have them in the yard in various locations.

Okay.

So then when we talked about doing a terrace gardening, did you think it was possible at the beginning?

Well, actually, someone had approached me in building a terrorist, but it was the time.

Okay.

And after I learned about it, I said, I'll try it.

Okay.

And when I came, I became a little more excited.

Okay.

Good to learn more.

Okay, good.

So then, looking at this challenge here today will give you an opportunity and other homeowners an opportunity to learn the basics of building a terrace.

And to do that.

Today we have with us Mr. Lucien Samuel Junior, better known in Saint Thomas as Jambi and Zombie, is going to be our instructor today and learning to build terraces.

Zombie.

Welcome to Home Grown.

Yes.

Welcome and thanks for being here.

We want now to show people the basic fundamentals as to how interest is going.

We started already by laying out a trench.

Why did we put a trench in?

It's a fountain because something will hold the rock in place and it can slide over or tip over because now it's done.

Sit it.

Okay.

This is like a sit in from the sun, just like you've been in a house.

But you don't have the right foot in your house on straight off the island.

Okay, so the first start in building the terrace is to get a foundation where the basic rocks are going to look.

Right.

Okay.

And then the next set of things that you're going to need once you get the phone.

How wide is this?

Is this what this is?

A foot.

Both a foot wide and more closely deep.

Okay.

So we of the texture of the soil, you don't need to go to Fort Hood today because the soil is really heavy.

So what we have here will be just right.

Okay.

It's close to the foot and is a foot wide at each side.

So it should sit here 12 feet and have a little.

Okay.

So then generally, the first thing then you start with is definitely a trench, a level ten on most level trench about a foot wide and leaning a little bit in the into out.

Okay.

All right.

And then go okay, roll over.

Okay, fine.

Then I guess we learn about us as we as we go on program.

So that's the first start.

So then the next step is I'll clean out a trench, which is not half of it.

And now, so once you start pulling it out at the start this summer.

Okay.

And you generally throw the soil back up into this area.

All right.

This way.

The tamarind roots.

So you could see them coming out through here.

These are stumps that are in the middle of the bed.

The terrorists that we're going to make, once discovered, they won't grow.

But they still have to be.

They still have to be taken out of the bed.

Once we get the terrorists move.

Look at the size of this.

No, you might not have this.

A zombie does it?

It's going to have to be this size.

No, but you use why you have.

And if the rock is big, you plant it in good, put in because you don't want to sit and run through.

All are causing the problem.

So what is rock?

It should hold this mountain penguin any.

Okay, so this is something we start with.

I will get it.

Put it on the right there with that drop that support it.

So right now I've got an old set of rock drums.

So when I start to lay them out, we go straight through to the foot and a half of anything.

So this is more sort of rock that we would use.

And this is a Rosalind and a 14, you see.

So I can see me going.

Just as we get if we let them in, I'll put more all'interno in it in.

And so we have our spears, like obviously a little rocks in between.

I notice that you're trying to fit it in your to your turn into rock circle, which is where you're turning it.

Certainly trying to show you could sit, but that is sit in with a lean out.

So this is a need to be here right now.

Okay.

Yes.

Maybe use on a footing over on this side still.

Okay.

You know that.

So there is an art to this thing.

You don't just drop stones one on top of the other.

Right.

Because I don't make sure to rock them.

Get lean.

Okay.

Towards the hill, because you build out a trench and you have to have a muscle to it.

Is it to prevent the dirt from going down?

Sliding down or washing away is to prevent the side from washing away.

Okay, guys, is really a texture with soil, with dirt.

Yes, it is something you spoke about.

Okay, everybody, street that there's a texture here and it soil because it have a different texture.

Okay quarter rock them actually to keep the soil from running.

And actually hold the water table here so that way you could plant a crop.

You want it twice a week.

You have a bountiful crop.

Okay.

What is the rainy season we do have?

Okay, so if we have an abundance of rain, Yes.

The soil will not wash away.

So I would not wash old oak or any kind of erosion.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

That's what I'm here now, is to hold everything from moving.

Okay.

Wherever I come down in central, right hand is there.

Okay, So this one right on top of is the one.

And this one?

Yeah, that would be our tallest.

That would be our height.

Okay.

Okay.

So things like these.

And now we put here is that it has to be a specific height.

Yes.

If we're going to a foot.

Okay, so call us with a what?

I can see.

Hold us here.

Lean it.

Yes, I like a muscle right here.

Okay, So that angle, you know, we're so easy.

Okay.

So I can understand how this in has to be about a foot, as well as the stacking of the rocks.

Well, you can build a terrorist tree.

Fruit trees.

Okay.

Depends on how how you want and how much soil you have in a texture, an area to bring down.

Okay, So we're using this here as our marker.

So the soil lane will come up to right here and go back in that way.

Okay.

So every stone that comes this week.

Yes.

And this is.

Use a little rocks in between.

Okay.

To keep them, you know, the support, right?

Yes.

Because, again, you want to make the level the next where the next rock sits, level up to reach on to pull it in.

Yes.

Before you have this stuff done.

Okay.

We're talking four of them are also.

So we're filling in like around the group.

Then I will say the foot is low.

Okay, we have something to sit up.

Okay, so they cover this rock.

Okay, that's the next piece for next Rock.

Okay.

Okay.

See some of this myself would identify as well as a cyclone hit an animal.

When you're building a wall to your foot, you rock them a little bit forward.

Okay, So you can hold all the soil and just sit, cause you have to move and you have something to sit on.

Okay.

So for this one, I know there.

And now we switch to the top, so we walk right back.

Okay.

You now begin to see the makings of a level area, because the idea with a terrace is to make a level area.

And that's what we're looking for.

You now begin to see now that the foundation is laid and we've begun to pull the soil up to the rocks.

You're beginning to see the beginnings of your area that you're going to actually be working in right next to in the rock building.

If you're tying it up and going to fall.

Rock on top of rock on top of rock out of the closet, or we say little tiny rock like you see, you have to lift one toe.

Yes.

You're trying for a rock.

And both of them.

Okay.

That's right.

That's not good in between.

So we have a muscle, too, right?

On steep slopes here in the Virgin Islands.

We do have a problem with erosion.

And building a terrace is one of the ways that we.

We help to reduce the velocity of the water that's coming down and to keep the soil that is on your land from going into the ocean or going down to the next property below or going where you don't want it.

So again, there's another added benefit to having the terrorists.

It helps in in stabilizing your soil, stabilizing your land, plus creating that space that you want to use for gardening.

And what we're attempting to construct here is that terrace that's about 12 feet long by four feet or five feet wide.

And so at the end of it all, we'll look and see how it's measured out.

Again, we we started with the foundation.

The foundation was a level area that where the base rocks are going to go.

And we measured that out to about 12, 13 feet, a little bit beyond the length of the terrace.

And then we started laying into foundations, and then we'll go back and level the area and get a level area that is about five feet wide.

We recommend four or five feet wide generally, because that's enough space for you to to grow in to grow on a number of different crops.

But if you want to do it one foot, that's fine, because then you could only put one plant in there with this spacing where two, four or five foot facing, you probably can get two tomato plants side by side, two eggplant side by side within the width of the row.

If you're going multiple crops and in this particular terrace, we're going to be growing multiple crops.

So for a 4 to 5 foot wide spacing would be ideal for this.

But again, in your home situation, you could make this terrace probably even six feet, seven feet wide again, using the same basic foundation principles that John B has laid out with laying out the foundations and then getting a level.

He wanted this one to be a foot high.

So we're trying to keep it right at 12 inches, give or take a few inches, because in nature and do it in terraced building, it isn't as precise, it doesn't need to be as precise as possible.

But again, putting them in.

Getting that foundation laid and then pulling the soil right up to the rock line to begin creating a level of space.

Okay.

So the bed pretty much is taking shape and we're just rounding off the edges here to seal in this final.

And and we're noticing that as, again, we try to keep a certain height all the way around the soil.

We're noticing that this level here is a little bit lower than the rest of the soil up here.

So we've made a decision that we would probably have to bring in some topsoil.

And that's a situation you're going to have to determine again, based on the quality of soil that you have in your yard or in your particular landscape.

And so looking at this now, we're going to have to bring in a little bit more soil to level up on that end, because we've already seen the character of the soil that we have here.

It's highly rocky.

It doesn't it has soil in it.

But we'd have to go back even further to create to get more the loose soil that we need in order to fill this space to get our planting area.

Now we've come to the end of as much as we could do with this terrace, and we made a decision that we're going to need to add some topsoil to it.

But so far, Miss Harrigan, what do you think?

I'm very excited, and I learn a lot today.

Good.

And we're happy that you and we saw that you got involved in it.

And.

And got your hands dirty.

And that was it.

Because that was part of the learning process as well.

So you lived in rocks and putting them in place.

Now, we're actually going to go to another site and look and see what conditions are there.

We know it's a similar slope to Miss Harrigan, but we're not sure whether it's similar soil type.

We know it's sunny, but we're just going to see to be to look at the next challenge that we face in creating a garden on a slope situation.

We're here at a different spot now to look at terracing under different conditions.

We're actually over in the Smith Bay Area at the Water Bay condominiums at the home of Mr. Carl Lewis.

He's in Smith Bay.

As I said, he's on the eastern side a completely different location from what we saw with Mrs. Gwynn at Harrigan place for Sun.

From the time the sun comes up in the east, where we were with Mr. Harrigan, we were predominantly in the shade with a little bit of sun.

This is full of sun practically all day.

Mr. Cyr, good to have you.

Thanks for being on home grown.

Thanks for coming.

And this is another challenge that most gardeners and I must face.

I see that you've done some work with some fruit trees, but what have what have you been doing in this area generally over the past month, years or so?

All right.

In my first beginning, I mean that I'm faced with iguanas.

I tried to start out with some parsley, thyme, celery and chives, oak and eggplant and pepper, and I noticed that they are one has been eaten.

Those stuff that they're not eaten as they are the parsley, the time and the chives, when it comes to the pepper and the eggplant, they demolish them right away.

Okay, I notice you have cane on bananas.

So you've been doing some work in here on your own for how long?

This is started from in February of this year.

February of this year?

February of this year.

We started this project, and this is amazing amount of work that you put in here in this time.

So what was the landscape like before this?

Before I was a big, well, big, wild time on trees, turpentine trees.

There's a bunch of iguanas.

And it was just covered with in a wild Tomlin You keep hitting iguanas.

Why are you beating up on the iguanas?

Because they are beating up on me regularly.

Good.

And that's part of the challenge that you face over here, right?

Okay, so then an additional challenge now for you is not only the slope, but the fact that you have to deal with iguanas.

And you're right, iguanas do eat a lot of the greens.

Some things that they're particular on and some things that they leave alone.

But in order for this to be accessed, we have to find a way of dealing with the iguana.

So we will work on that as we move along in this process.

But today we're going to deal with the challenge of building a terrace.

And with us today again is Jamie, Lucy and Samuels Junior, who will be our terrace instructor.

Yes, morning again.

I'd be good to see you today.

Yes.

And we will go ahead.

Now, you've already begun to lay the foundation, as you did with Mrs. Harrigan, Right?

You cleared the foundation area about a foot wide.

But the one thing we noticed different from here, as opposed to Ms.. Harrigan, her son was a little bit off, Right.

This is this has more sandy loam.

So is an easy task to walk with.

So we should be done in late one, two or three.

Okay.

One of the good things about this is primarily.

Mr. Lewis, when you had this this place, this pretty much was just Virgin area, Virginia area.

Okay.

So then this slide probably had a chance to rise to to rest if it was work before this somewhere time And there's some other scrubby looking things in here.

So maybe there was some work done maybe years ago, but the chance the areas had a chance to rest on the soil is a lot looser.

It is clay, but it's more like a clear loam.

So it probably has some high organic matter from the stuff that has died or trees that dried and went back into the soil.

So here is a little bit looser.

There's still plenty of rocks, but if you notice through the rocks are a different color, Right?

Okay.

I don't know what that means.

We'll have to talk to the geologist about that, but at least we have a different situation.

But again, over here is full sun.

But we're going to show, even with all the challenges that you can grow.

So we'll start the day with our tires under these conditions.

So, Jamie, let's go ahead and get all in on this particular terrace and see how this one shapes up to be.

This is where I get my exercise right in here.

You have Oh, you lose.

Along with relation to farming.

I say it is okay.

And you could see how different and how lose this hill is on this side of the island as opposed to where we were over in Mahogany Run.

The soil here is a lot looser.

And again, this may be attributed to the fact that it had a chance to be resting.

It was in a virgin area.

It had a lot of organic matter that was able to die and loosen the soil up.

Or it could be also that this part of the island, the soil and this part of the island is generally a lot looser than that side because you have varying soil types throughout the territory and even on each island there are varying soil types, and the soil types could vary from sandy loam type soils, where the water does run through all the way to very heavy clay soils that as soon as it dries out, it becomes like concrete.

And so those are the kind of challenges that gardeners have to face.

But each challenge can be overcome.

The information, the technology is there to assist you, and this is part of what you're going to learn as we go through with home grown.

And we got to 14 do so we won't for long someone it and we're going to come right up a history across all the rocks we have and as we go we quite back to the the water what we have to deal with.

Does every terraced builder have their own style of tape or do they start basically with the same foundation?

Well, I think more so than do a 14, because if you do a 14, you have more soil to walk with.

Okay.

And it actually hold the rocks in place much longer.

It just like you do in a concrete wall because the can come out unless you take them off or kick them over.

Okay.

So, so even with people who do different terraces, the basic thing is that you have to have that foundation, that rock foundation blocks to get them set in place.

Right.

And then to create.

And it should be leaning backwards.

It should be leaning into the terrace.

They should be at a slant slope going into the terrace.

So actually wants to sit areas is shaded.

So walk out and see how it belongs.

Is it okay?

Occasionally you'll see some insects.

And we have here one of the many species of spiders that live below the soil.

Again, he probably wouldn't hang out here too often because he'll be disturbed so much that he wouldn't he wouldn't want to be around what's happening.

So he's going to move on as opposed to when we were over at Mrs. Harrington's place.

She had termites in our area.

And again, because there was a forested area nearby, the termites were making a trail to her place to go from one location to the next.

We don't see any termites thus far here in this site, but we just happen to see a spider.

And again, one of those spiders, that one I know the name of.

But if you're scared of them and you're not sure what they are, could have someone collect them up and get them off the property.

Just be careful because again, you're not sure what they are.

Some people kill them.

If you don't want to kill them, you could just gather them up, take a shovel and turn them off to one side.

But again, these are all part of the ecosystem below the story line.

They do their thing at night.

They bring in other insects.

They eat, they feed below the soil line.

But again, because this area is now disturbed, they're going to get their way.

So those of you that are scared of spiders and other things like that that you think would be in the soil, you don't necessarily have to be afraid of them.

They are a friend of nature.

But again, if you don't know what type of spider it is, it's best to remove it and get it off of the property and out of the way.

But once this is level and it's actively worked, they generally don't hang around here, generally with loose soil and transplanting, you may have a concern that this soil is so loose that when you're transplanting, it's not going to hold up.

This isn't sand.

Remember, this is clay loam and so it has some body to it.

Generally when you're doing transplanting, as you will see later on, once you put the transplant in or the seedling in, you cover it, you press the soil around it, you water it and it sort of stay in place as the plant grows and the roots spread out, the soil itself would become compact and it wouldn't lean over because if you're if you're fearing that the soil is so loose that it will lean over, no, the roots will begin to establish themselves first, stabilize itself in the in the soil.

And no matter what wind comes, it wouldn't blow over unless it's a Category five hurricane.

And even with that, it would have already stripped off all the leaves.

So loose soil is a good thing.

It isn't sandy soil that doesn't compact, it's clay loam soil that is loose.

However, when it gets wet, it compacts and you can press it down so that it doesn't it doesn't lose when it when the winds blow your transplant.

So loose soil is good and we fine here are very good grub.

Yes, this is a grub and this is something to eat.

Your root system, your plan here is your plan.

Green.

One day you want to wait on a yellow?

Yeah.

These are grubs.

Now he knows at least the history of this place that you do have grubs in this area.

So if we ever run into a situation where plants are beginning to die and collapse, we know there's a history of having grubs here.

This one is dead.

I'm not sure these are are the larvae for beetles.

This is the early stage of them and they're usually underground.

They were probably in one of these holes that was here, probably a foot below the ground.

But this is a sign.

So if you're ever doing a journal of the things that you find here, you would find that you would have a journal in here.

So if we run into a problem or we come by later on, we ask you for a history of this place.

We know that at least we found some grubs here and that we now probably may have to be looking for for clues as to what they may have been doing, what they may have attacked, look for holes, and then how do we control insects like these?

We have our work space, which is approximately four feet wide, which is enough to do what we need to do when we're getting ready to plant.

We have an area in the back to walk so you don't walk in interest and you don't want to walk in a terrorist, right?

Zombie No.

Once it's made and that's why you don't want it to.

You want to terrorists in such a way that you could walk behind it or in front of it.

You've just seen us complete two different terraces in two different locations on slopes here in Saint Thomas.

For us, we looked at misses going to carry guns, please, over in Loveland Mahogany, where our soil was heavy clay.

It was a bit shaded, right, took a little bit more effort to get the soil worked up and created because first time was again extremely heavy clay as opposed to here where we were with Mr. Louis and his soil was clay, but it was clay loam, pretty much virgin soil, high organic matter.

The soil was loose, easier to work back.

Two different soil profiles.

As we saw, one part of the terrace was lake in color.

The other part was dark, indicating that the shape of the land was a little bit different below the soil surface.

And so those are just some of the dynamics that you have to look at when you're considering gardening here as this is here.

Louis, this place, the soil was nice and fluffy and pretty much ready to work with Mrs. Harrington's place.

It needed a little bit more work.

And in order to get it up to par.

But with both conditions, as long as you work the soil properly, incorporate the things that are necessary to improve the soil quality, you will have an excellent growing bed.

So join us next time as we move on in this progress, in this journey called home growth, we've be looking at how we improve some of the soils with adding things like manure, installing irrigation, and then we go to the most fun part of it planning.

Actually, the fun part of it is reaping an easy, but the next easiest part of getting the production up and running is planting.

So don't go away.

Be prepared to be here next time.

Grab your notebook, put on a videotape or whatever.

Want to do a tape initial and join us again for the next homegrown project fFrom the earth to the dirt, come let we till up the soil, till up the soil, from the earth to the dirt, come let we keep planting on a while.

You see the homegrown I said it come from earth.

I say the good food come make me plant me we own.

I say the good food, good food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said I food, I food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said, Your food, your food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said the Homegrown, Homegrown Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.