ABSTRACT
The techniques of tablon gardening, according to local tradition, were introduced to the Almolonga area by onion seed traders from Solola. The extreme care and aesthetic attention given tablones by modern Maya farmers strikes many observers as going beyond the bounds of the simply profane. The chief purpose of tablones is to provide an efficient mechanism for highly intensive vegetable production. A manzana of tablones, surrounded by larger irrigation ditches, would have been easier to guard than hectares of milpa, which were often separated from settlement sites. The techniques and tools used in raising the crops differ from tablones in the Panajachel/Solola hearth. In the Outer regions, intensive cultivation was confined to plantation cash-cropping of non-food stuffs. There are several descriptions of crops and environmental conditions for the Atitlan Basin. Change in crop preferences over time has a long history in the Basin.
