Hola from Mexico

I am only about a fourth of the way through the book but I am so excited I had to stop and join the forum. I live in a small town in Mexico close to the Belize border called Mahahual. It is also a cruise ship port called Costa Maya. During the season we get about 3 to 6 cruise ships a week. The rest of the year the town motto is, "Nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it". My yard has limited space and at the most 1 to 2 inches of topsoil above coral so SFG is perfect for me. The major problem I foresee is getting the components to make a good soil. The closest home depot is over 200 miles away and the closest big city is about 90 miles away which is Chetumal. Chetumal has some large grocery stores and even a Walmart but none of them has much of a selection of gardening supplies. Even the Home Depot in Cancun is very limited although it has the largest selection of gardening supplies that I have seen in Mexico. I will eventually make my own compost and while I start that I will keep an eye out for the other components. The town I live in is so small that it has no mail delivery so if anyone has any ideas for me on where to find the soil components I need it would be greatly appreciated. I WILL overcome. LOL

Welcome from Maine in the US. I know that Mel starts gardens in many countries that don't have all the components as we do in the US. He says the most important element is compost in those cases. So try to find compost to fill your beds if you can't get anything else. Try the local farmers and smallholdings that raise chickens and pigs and fallen leaves around wooded areas.

Good luck to you. Post pictures when you can.

Bienvenido!

I quickly googled "Mahahual" and noticed pictures of hotels and bars. I think that's where you need to get some fruit and vegetable waste. And there are some spectacular aerial pictures with what appears like coconut trees galore! Quiltbea is right. You could gather the fallen tree debris for your compost "browns."

Looks like a very wonderful place to relax on that beach sand. I am currently cold here in Pasadena, California.

To repurpose (and rewrite) and old joke: Oh boy! A pile of s***! There must be a garden in here somewhere!

Compost is the default of the SFG as quiltbea said. And there MUST be some around somewhere. One of my best beds was when I ran out of money but had a trash can of almost finished compost. I just turned it upside down on the bed and figured the stuff at the bottom was the most done and waited a week and planted. Got some great veggies out of that one. Check farms and stables and they be thrilled if you haul of some of their piles of s***.