From the archive
13 Aug 2026
August at the Vía Orgánica ranch, outside San Miguel de Allende, began with goodbyes. A group of agronomy students from NovaUniversitas, a university down in Oaxaca, had finished their months of professional practice on the farm and were heading back. The farewell note the ranch published thanked them for their hands, their willingness and their questions, and added that the ranch had learned from them too. The door, it said, stays open.
Between arrivals and departures, the work carried on. The crew had been preparing ground and checking on the milpa, the old Mesoamerican planting of maize, beans and squash grown together in the same field, each crop doing a job for the other two. August there is a month of watching the sky: the plantings are in, and everything now depends on when the next rains arrive. The ranch's own summary of the season is that the land teaches you good things take their time.
There was also a morning given over to birds. Gabriel Parada, a veterinarian, led an observation workshop on the species of the San Miguel de Allende region and why they matter to a working landscape, the sort of exercise that asks you to stand still and use every sense rather than reach for a tool. Then it was back to the field, where the maize, beans and squash stand planted and the crew keeps its eyes on the clouds, waiting for the rain that will decide the season.
Plant the milpa as a set, not as three crops: maize first so the stalks harden, beans a couple of weeks later to climb them, squash in the gaps to shade the ground and hold moisture. Sow into the last dry weeks and time it so the seedlings meet the first real rain.
Regeneration International · Read the source