Gardens

We have many organic vegetable and herb gardens and fruit orchards on the farm.

We have planted fruit orchards with dozens of varieties of citrus, mango, avocado, cashew, banana, papaya, coconut and many other exotic local fruits. We have planted coffee and cocoa.

Organic Farm

There are gardens placed in protected central locations. We produce great quantities of compost, soil mixes and organic fertilizers (bocacci) which we use to feed these gardens.

While a seemingly simple process of sowing seeds into fertile ground, organic gardening in the tropics can be daunting. With the myriad of insects and voracious weeds that grow in this climate, one must constantly be seeking out methods to curb their effect on the gardens. We use a number of different approaches. We surround the gardens with a variety of companion plantings that intercept or ward off insects. We mix foliar sprays made from neem and pepper dilutions which we apply to the plants as necessary.

As this is an experimental and model farm, meticulous records must be kept if we are ever to learn from our mistakes. We keep chronological charts for each garden which show the weather, the moon cycles, what was planted, where, how many seeds, when it was fertilized, when it was sprayed for insects, how much was harvested and when it went to seed. It is critical for us to collect seed for future harvest. From these charts we learn about planting and harvesting based on lunar cycles, weather and various other natural laws.

Most of all we learn from our failures, about seed selection, timing of insect and weather cycles and all that affects the growth of the plant.