New Forum: General Living->Agriculture

Thank you

I need one for my house, do you sell them??

The house we’re renting in town at the 850 meter level has a classic ¨¨prison yard ¨patio: cement floor, 3 m concrete walls topped with barbed wire. Good news: no wind. Bad news: during the dry season it’s a deluxe solar oven. Nonetheless, I´ve had some luck, surprisingly with things I´m familiar with from the states, including roses, geraniums, spearmint, and succulents. Container growing works well here, especially since I can move the plants around seasonally to protect them from the climate. Believe it or not, after being here a while I ordered a copy of Sunsets Western Garden Guide from Amazon .com. Seems like a weird choice, but keep in mind this guide includes Hawaii, the SoCal banana belt, and subtropical desert areas of the southwest, so it ends up being very useful for here in northern Nic in the tropical dry forest. If you are not familiar with the tropical dry forest, look it up in Wikipedia. In a nut shell, it’s a desert 6 to 7 months a year , and something near a rainforest 5 to 6 months a year. Planter mix? Drawing on my desert years in the Mohave, I make my own. Standard mix is ½ composted steer manure and ½ coarse sand (the kind the masons use). Mix for succulents, seeds, etc: ¾ sand with ¼ compost. A small handful of chemical fertilizer is mixed into each batch. If I had any rice hulls or charcoal/ashes I would probably mix that in , too. We have a lot, also at the 850 meter level which is fenced but still doesn’t have water, so I have gone slow in planting it. Some things I´ve had limited success with in growing in the rainy season and hauling enough water to survive in the dry are passion fruit, both yellow and granadilla, chayote squash, and a couple Mexican/US peppers . My bananas are growing, and my papayas are setting fruit. The soil is a heavy black clay on what used to be a tomato and sweet pepper farm. The neighbors are still growing Guinea grass to feed to cows and chaya (chayote). I´ve contoured the lot so it has decent drainage and we will build when there are utilities available. Gardening prospects are good, with the limitations of the small lot size and some large trees on the property line which give enough shade that corn did not grow right this year.

Our other property is at the 1350 meter level in a swampy area surrounded by pine/oak cloud forest. It is noticeably cooler, and the soil is best described as muck in the rainy season, and brick-hard clay in the dry. We have a small house on the property now and a groundkeeper who has given us much help and advice. We´ve had good crops of corn and squash . Chinas (impatiens) grow great and the geraniums are thriving, as is the chaya on the fence. Bananas are just starting to flower, and my tomatoes might make it now that the rains are ending. Quiquiste( a Central American root crop similar to Asian taro) does well. Cilantro did well, but it looks like the tops may rot before I can get seed. I’ll have to try again in the dry to get seeds. From what I can find, guayaba (guava in English) is the only fruit tree that will survive well in our soil/climate. I also planted about 40 eucalyptus trees for firewood and because the locals claim they help dry out the soil.

Long term strategy is to grow row crops on raised beds measuring about 1 foot high and 4 feet wide. This is the only way to protect the roots of plants because the water table runs about 6 inches to 1 foot below the surface all the rainy season. I am trying to improve the soil with compost. I am also growing comfrey to improve the soil. Supposedly its roots go deep and the leaves can be added to the compost or mulch.

Soil born leaf funguses are a real problem because of the cool, wet weather and frequent rains. Local commercial growers grow potatoes and cabbage, but use no crop rotation and up to 12 sprayings per crop!! Thanx, but no thanx, I´m going to try a contrarian approach and grow things that don´t need the sprays and rotate as best I can on my small property. I,m going to try tomatoes and peppers in containers in a greenhouse during the dry. One crop that does grow good here without spray is manzanilla(cammomile). It’s sold for the herb tea trade.

These fungus problems are one reason I don´t think square foot gardening is a good idea in the wet tropics. You have to live with the daily rains and mud for just a while to see that things need to be elevated and spread out. Possibly in the dry with irrigation you could do some square foot with things like cilantro, beets, onions, etc.

For fertilizer, I bought 1 bag (quintal—100 lbs) each of 15-15-15 and 0-0-70 from a local ag store. Consumer grade packaging is not available here. Be sure to store your surplus in a sealed plastic bag in a plastic can or it will suck water out of the air and be damaged Works fine, but with the rains fertilize frequently with smaller dosages so it all doesn’t wash away every day with the rain. My grounds keeper is also big on foliar sprays, which I have no experience with but it seems like a good idea.

with liquid fertilizers and try some US type bush squashes and Zucchini On the 850 m lot I will plant some more papayas, especially is I can find a source for the small sweet ones. On the 1350 m quinta I will work on the raised beds, compost, and soil improving, and try to nurse my quiquiste and bananas thru the dry. Also have a few strawberries in pots which I want to use as propagation stock.

Ps, for those of you up north, the great cuisines of Mexico and the southwest don’t For the coming dry season I want to get serious with tomatoes and peppers in containers translate down here. If you want it, you have to grow it and cook it yourself. I,m starting with cilantro, poblano, Anaheim, and pasilla and I brought a couple cook books from the states. Garlic here is imported from China (what else is new?). I´m going to experiment with it and also look for a source for bunching onion seed.

¨Nicaragua is poor for a reason¨