Category Archives: Gardening

Around the Farm and Town

The end of September was a hot and humid one. It took everything we had to keep up with the work on the farm. Thankfully we don’t have to be out there when we don’t want to, but when it is that sticky, it is rare to want to get more sweaty than we already are. So we have taken to waterfall hunting (which I’ll write about a little more in later posts) and gathering and planting new finds from nurseries and things that grow wild. Even that can take a lot of effort and exertion just to plant something, but it is not nearly as much as clearing out brush and maintaining/mowing thick areas. Despite the difficulties, the gardens are looking fantastic! When we take pictures and roam slowly throughout, I remember why we do put so much effort into our botanical gardens.

A few of the wonders of the gardens. Pride of Barbados, Vanilla, Weed flower, ornamental banana, bird garden art, rainy day market with flowers

Tried dragonfruit for the first time. We have it growing, and it flowers but hasn’t fruited yet

Cockscomb and yellow beehive ginger

We visited the old Coloso sugarcane factory that they are going to renovate and reopen and turn into a distillery. Sounds like a cool project

Randomly saw some peacocks walking around. How I want these on our farm!

Flowers (ground orchids and fragrant hedychiums)

Just a few things around the yard (avocados, bananas, turmeric, ginger). We are always eating straight from the trees/ground.

We checked out a new restaurant/boutique inn in Aguada called Fusiones. It was like a fusion between a food truck and a fancy hotel.

At Fusiones

Still find lots of wild hermit crabs on the property!

These Vanda orchids love this huge almond tree!

Tried out another cute vegetarian food truck called Cafe Yoruba in Rincon at the old Carta Buena

Baby Spiders hatched! yay! Go after those mosquitoes!

An amazing lily bloomed after about 5 years since we planted it!

The gardens of Aeden (and Daddy)

Taking the long windy drives up the high hills of the Rincon peninsula!

We have passed our 2 year anniversary since Maria (and 6 years since moving here full time). So much has changed!

We planted a Titan Arum -a corpse flower! These are amazing! Now our gardens are even more like true botanical gardens!

Bromeliad in bloom

The Jungle Boys!

Besides our waterfall adventures I think that just about catches us up lately. We’ve also been dealing with some car issues (got a new-to-us transmission in the Mustang), we work the cabana rental and continue selling flowers and plants at the market and at the farm. Aeden’s getting big and nearly walking and is always with us on our adventures. He’s really starting to fit in with us and we love him so! That’s our life recently in a nutshell!

Thanks to Jessika Providence for this beautiful picture!

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Growth and Markets: Our Weekly Routine in Puerto Rico

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No, I am not talking about the stock market or the GDP, but rather the original meaning of those words. Literally growing things (including a baby) and going to markets. We have a bit of a schedule and routine now, moreso than ever with a baby. We used to go out a lot more at night with the band and just to hang out at chinchorros or downtown at the ArtWalk, but we now appreciate our quiet evenings with the kiddo sound asleep. So that means our days must be a little fuller. Fridays and Sundays mean market. Fridays we go to the San Sebastian Pulguero (Flea Market) where we do some bartering and buying. Mostly we are in the market for strange exotic plants. Actually we are ALWAYS in the market for those it seems. No matter how much plant life we throw at the property, it just eats it up.

With a new flower find at the San Sebastian Market

It’s pretty fun at the San Sebastian market because we are nearly always the only “gringos” there and so we sort of stick out like sore thumbs. But people are starting to get to know us, greet us and show us what all they have available before we even have to ask. It REALLY helps to know Spanish in these sorts of environments!

Aeden is a favorite with many people at the market including this sweet woman who even sang “Que Linda Manita” to him

Aeden and the birds back at the farm

Saturdays are usually spent back at the farm unless we have something fun planned. On Saturday afternoon we harvest the fruit and flowers for the Sunday Rincon Farmer’s Market.

Look who needs to start wearing shoes soon!

Aeden is now 11 months old! Check out his latest update video

New bromeliads in bloom at the farm

Our avocado that we accidentally cut down YEARS ago, has come back and is fruiting! I am so happy! Yay for guacamole! What’s strange about it, is only one trunk has fruit. So I think it must have been grafted long ago and we’ll probably have two types on one tree. We’ll see!

At the Farmer’s Market in Rincon. Dragonfruit! We have had our dragonfruit plant flower, but it never holds onto the fruit

The Farmer’s Market on Sunday mornings is fun. We don’t make much money, but it is worth it and it’s fairly stable for being summertime. We have made a lot of great friends there. And we use the money to go out and have brunch and drive around a bit afterward. If we make any more than that we put it into buying more plants from the nurseries or flea markets around.

Taking Aeden to Yogufruti after the Farmer’s Market one Sunday

I never knew what fashion tasted like before, but it’s pretty good! haha

During the week we mostly work on the farm: mowing, planting, improving trails. We also clean and do “turnovers” if we have guests staying in the cabana. We also like to pick a day or two to go shopping or an excursion of some sort. Sometimes we go hunting for plants on the side of the road or check out a beach. Lately it has been so hot, that we have been doing everything we can to stay cool. Since we don’t have A/C that means sitting in the baby pool, finding anywhere that has air conditioning and just milling around, eating watermelon and lots of fluids and trying to avoid the heat of the middle of the day (siesta anyone?). The beach is actually too hot for me on those sizzling days since the water and sand multiply the sun’s effect.

Staying cool in our baby pool in the shade like the hillbillies we are haha!

Fun shopping day out with friend Pauline

Stop in at an authentic chinchorro for una bien friiiia

Checking out a beach in Aguada (Tablerock) -great beach for bamboo driftwood hunters!

Fun on the farm! Dad and boy

Man and his horse swimming in Anasco

Not sure, but I believe this is a cupey flower blooming at our house

Britton had a red RX7 when he was a teenager so this made him gasp when we were driving along in Aguada one day! His 17 year-old self has multiplied! haha

He probably wasn’t listening to this type of song back then though (this is a top hit currently on the radio that we turn up when it comes on, and it’s great for Spanish vocabulary!)

Buying plants at Jardines Eneida! One of our favorite nurseries!

At Jardines Eneida. Check out the video:

I call Puerto Rico “Toon Town” and it’s not without reason…Check out this vibrant little house

And this one…who is very concerned with the modesty of its columns haha

Or this awesomely strange creation seemingly out of a sci-fi movie

Driving up the hills of Mayaguez we had a majestically different view of Rincon and Desecheo in the distance

That’s it for the update. Time flies. I can’t believe that a year ago I was hugely pregnant and just waiting for our little guy to arrive and now he’s almost walking. It’s crazy. Nothing like a kid to make time really feel warped.

Here’s a quick little video of some vignettes of our daily life in Puerto Rico. Hope you enjoy. Oh, and I am trying to do a little more with Instagram if you’d like to follow along.

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Quick Stop in Boulder, Colorado

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Family fun in Boulder, CO

While we were in Colorado we wanted to take a quick jaunt into Boulder. It’s such a fun town to visit and while the drive was much longer than we remembered (Britton used to drive this route EVERY day to work), it was nice once we got Aeden’s belly all filled up (that kid can eat!). We enjoyed walking around Pearl Street, watching the street performers and grabbing a nice sweet treat.

When walking on rainbows is not strange at all!

And the flipflops are HUGE! 🙂

Fun in the fountains

Yum! I scream for ice cream!

Where the buffaloes roam (or are at least in bronze)

Colorful Pearl Street

Loved all the potted flowers! They even had some tropicals planted for the summer

Later we took a little side road to enjoy the Boulder countryside

Overall, it was a fun quick day trip visiting Boulder.

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New Flowers and Friends

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Newest bloom: Evita’s Rose

We are constantly on the lookout for new plants, trees and flowers. It seems that most of the viveros have all the same common plants: trinitarias, hibiscus, bromelias, orchids, citrus, avocados. What they don’t have are heliconias, gingers, plumerias and all the exotic fruit trees. We are currently on the lookout for durian, Australian finger lime, and reina de las flores (this is a common tree, but for some reason we have a hard time finding it for sale).

Also looking for Rainbow Eucalyptus like this one seen on the side of the road

At the last pulguero in San Sebastian we had a good score! We found another Ylang Ylang tree (the fragrance is so divine, it is used in Chanel No 5), an achiote tree (a natural food dye for the color red and very cool looking fruit), a huge Tibochino espiga and a Raffy palm (that’s what the vendor called it). At Jardines Eneida we also found some new trees like a Cordia, Saman and mamayito (lemon drop mangosteen).

The meadow area after a good mow -we need to mow about every 2 weeks now that it’s raining so much

I also found this nepenthes pitcher plant that reminded me of well…you know

All the rain has brought out the mushrooms

And so we bought some garden art to commemorate them

Rainy days at the cabin. Notice the new railings!

Still not sure if we want to put rails on the bridge though

The mosquitos come out a lot more in the rain, so we put a mosquito net on Aeden’s play pen outside, that he promptly pulled down 🙂

He’s our little farmer so we did an impromtu photo shoot with him

Our little red is getting so big! 9 months now

Aeden’s 9 month video update

In order to find the heliconias and ginger varieties we want, we have to find direct vendors. The rhizomes don’t do super well in pots for long periods of time, so they have to be directly transplanted as soon as possible into the ground. They also need a lot of space and water, that the average home gardener can’t often provide (hence why they are not commonly found in the stores around here). Well, I found someone online who specializes in them! Not only did Carlos sell us some amazing rhizomes, he also delivered them from San German and helped us identify many of our wild species. We hung out for quite a while and got to know him pretty well. We scored some plants, but even more importantly a new friend who is as geeked out about botanicals as we are! He is a student at the University in Mayaguez and knows a TON about plants.

With Carlos and the new plants