Not many words are needed. Here are a few snapshots of our day yesterday.
Just hanging out with some particularly friendly turkeys
Britton literally hanging out
Surrounded by beauty
A pretty Kitty
And a funny Tina Turner chicken named Grandma singing “What’s Looove got to do with it?”
Yesterday we visited Govardhan Gardens located between Mayaguez and Maricao. We were interested in this private fruit farm because the owner, Sadhu, has one of the largest exotic plant collections on the island. We have picked up quite a few exotics from a variety of nurseries around the island, but there were still some trees we had difficulty finding. We were excited to learn that Govardhan Gardens has pretty much any tropical fruit tree you can imagine!
Rambutan on the tree at Govardhan Gardens
We made arrangements with our friends Greg and Frances who were also interested in seeing his place. We took a tour of some of the property and visited his goats who were super cute!
Sadhu and his goats
Greg and Frances with a Bilimbe tree -the fruit grows right on the trunk!
In addition to fruit trees, Sadhu also prides himself on an extensive collection of rare and high quality bamboos. We are considering bamboo for a living fence along one edge of our property. But that will be another day.
Rare golden bamboo
We picked up a nice assortment. I would have bought more, but they are quite a bit more expensive than some other nurseries, so we just stuck with the ones we have been interested in for quite some time. It is amazing how fast our property can just go through plants. To really give it a tropical lush garden feel, it must be packed! Which is fine with me as learning about and finding new, ever-more-exotic/rare plants is one of my favorite pastimes now.
Truckload of more plants!
Here’s what we came away with on this trip to Govardhan Gardens:
Nutmeg– Used to make the spices nutmeg and mace. I am interested in getting a full spice collection including black pepper, cinnamon varieties, vanilla (we are currently growing), cloves, cardamom, ginger, galangal, etc.
African Breadfruit – Like traditional breadfruit, it can be used as a starch and even ground into a flour to make bread.
Dwarf Acai (2) – We have been looking a long time for acai. I love plants that are both beautiful and useful. Acai is a great looking palm tree and the fruit is one of the highest in antioxidants.
Jaboticaba- Strange tree whose dark purple grape-like fruit grow on the trunk of the tree. It is used extensively in Brazil.
Triangle Palm -This is an ornamental tree that we had been wanting for a while. It grows in the shape of a triangle and is quite striking.
Lipstick Palm- This is also an ornamental palm tree whose shaft is red-colored.
Black Sapote- According to Sadhu, if you pick this fruit at just the right time it will taste like chocolate pudding. If you freeze it and then shave it into a bowl, it tastes just like chocolate ice cream. I am a huge fan of ice cream, so I had to have this one! 🙂
I have no doubt that we will be back at Govadhan Gardens again in the future. Sadhu was extremely knowledgeable and helpful and I look forward to learning even more from him as well.
A friend of ours recently posted a warning similar to this title. Shortly thereafter, we were working in the area under our newly found avocado tree and we spotted the tell-tale leaves. They are holly-like lined with spikes. The plants can grow small or long and almost resemble a viney tree.
Comocladia Dodonaea
I was careful of handling it, but then a small amount touched my leg. I expected a painful burn like the stinging nettles we also have in the yard. But no, there was nothing at all. No sensation whatsoever. I was relieved. I had expected either a pokey burn or perhaps to swell up with hives as I do when I touch sunflower plants. So I thought perhaps I was one of the lucky ones that does not react to Urushiol, the plant oil in poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, and Carrasco, this Puerto Rican poison ivy. We continued working without much thought again about the plant and cleared a nice sized area.
However, about two-three days later I started noticing rashes appearing in certain places, then more places. On my forehead, on my arms, on my hands, on my belly, on my back, all over my legs. I was covered in red welts. The next day they blistered up and then started oozing. They were super itchy and I sometimes just couldn’t help myself but to scratch them. I tried every ointment and remedy I could find. Hydrocortizone cream, anti-itch cream, turmeric, zinc oxide and cocoa butter.
Of these, the zinc oxide was probably the most effective but really, I just had to wait it out. After about a week, they had lost the inflammation and started to scab and heal. Working outside in the jungle is a lot of fun and hard physical work. It is difficult to want to wear a lot of clothing when it is 80-85 degrees and high humidity, but if you see this plant, beware! I certainly will be much more careful the next time I do! Thankfully, it is not widespread like some of the other jungle discomforts (like the biting ants).
Urushiol, the active compound in the plant’s sap can be neutralized with rubbing alcohol.
We decided that walking up the hill to fill the chicken and turkey water was becoming a bit too tedious. Granted it is good exercise, it is kind of a pain. Since it is a pain the turkeys and chickens sometimes let us know that they are out of water by following us around. The whole flock. It is kind of funny, but also can be a reminder that getting them water is a chore. The distance from the cabana to the turkey coop is about a football field (down, then UP hill).
We figured that since we put the coops along the property line, we could also drop in a new PVC water line along the border. This serves two purposes. Easy to water the birds, but also the plants.
It is pretty dry in Rincón during the winter. It is nice because the humidity drops as well as the temps just a few degrees. It really does feel perfect out, but the plants and especially the new plants have to be watered. We have been dragging around 150ft of hose to do the task, but since we have expanded our area of planting, we think it is time to expand our infrastructure.
Truck with Pipes
We are now clearing/planting almost to the end of the property line on one side, we are putting down lots of grass seed and we spend quite a bit of time “down below”. The mower, the chainsaw all the gardening equipment is starting to live at the turkey coop for convenience. Having a water tap will be perfect!
A nice thing about living in the tropics VS a temperate climate is that I don’t have to bury the water lines. It makes finding and fixing leaks easier as well as installation. There really is no need to bury the line. Not that it makes laying 400 feet of pipe thru the jungle easy, but if I had to bury the pipe I would probably not be doing it!
Ducking Under the Mandarin Tree
We have installed the new system and I had to fix a few leaks due to hooking up to some old PVC that was dirty. Lesson learned, sand/clean the old pipe before cementing. I should have known because I have worked with copper pipe quite a bit, oh well. If you want it done right, do it thrice!
New Faucet On The Coop
This project cost ~$150 more or less. We decided to do this because it actually made our lives easier. We had thought about installing a rain catchment system but did the calculations and decided that for the amount of water we use, it was far cheaper to use the water system already setup and maintained by the city. Plus we have a reserve built up in the lines to our house, so there would be little to no gain and more maintenance and cost. When we build the main house, we may setup a rain catchment off the gutters/roof.
In either case we planted lots of grass seed, planted new trees, transplanted trees and watered the birds with ease today!