We were landscaping our backyard and planted these two palm trees that will eventually be where my hammock goes. Since it’s going to be a couple of years until they are strong enough to support a hammock, I decided to plant a garden in between them for now:
I dug out the rock/dirt and replaced it with a mix of better quality soil. I ordered all sort of interesting seeds from seedsofchange.com and decided to plant spicy mesculin mix (a lettuce assortment), scallions, tigrella heirloom tomatoes, black krim heirloom tomatoes, purple bell peppers and edamame (soy beans).
48 hours after planting the seeds, I saw sprouts!
Here is the garden on day 5:
The scallions, heirloom tomatoes and purple bell peppers also have tiny sprouts, so they are growing well too. I was wondering if the heirlooms would grow since the package of seeds had all sorts of advanced directions that I ignored in favor of throwing them into the dirt and hoping that they would grow…
Popularity: 51% [?]
You BOUGHT seeds? My neighbor lady laughed at me when I marveled at how her tomatoes were bigger than mine and we planted at the same time. The secret? plant what you eat - literally - she had an eggplant from the store and ate most but chucked a chunk into a prepared garden bed. The tomato plant was from seed she removed and washed from a store bought tomato. After disappointing zuchinni results I may buy a locally grown one and harvest the seeds! It makes sense. At the nurseries there is a limited supply of Puerto Rico seeds. The tried and true Washington ones don’t always work here! Let me know what works and what doesn’t…we have mini watermelons on the vines, green beans packed in the freezer and more tomatoes than we can roast…katrina
Katrina - I know, I probably sound like a crazy person to Puerto Ricans that plant their own food. BUT, I can say that I have not yet bought a tomato in Puerto Rico that I thought, “Yum! This is a fabulous tomato”, it’s been more like, “Well, at least it will add a little color to the wilted lettuce that I am going to call a salad now…”. The tomatoes that we have grown so far have been AWESOME. So delicious and I’m harvesting new tomatoes daily. Well worth the $2 that I spent on the seeds. Also, the local Econo grocery store has the worst lettuce, so I’m SO excited to see the lettuce growing in our garden. I want to grow interesting and unusual veggies/fruits that I can not find at the local supermercado, but I have been spitting orange, grapefruit and watermelon seeds over the balcony to see if they grow. Oh, we did successfully plant passion fruit seeds from a passion fruit that we found in the quebrada and they are now cool climbing vines up the sides of our porch. No fruit yet, though.
We also had disappointing results with squash and melons. I’m not sure why, but I’m going to try again.
With the squash I think the varieties are not for constant heat. With pumpkin you need to get the calabaza from Puerto Rico seeds since it is a Carribean pumpkin and doesn’t need a cold period. Seems like the tomatoes we’ve planted (Cherry and Early Girl) turn out just like sugar! Your fruit seeds will grow nice trees but it will be a long wait for fruit (avocados are around years and citris can be 6-8). Best to go to Enaidas and get grafted trees - you will get fruit in 2-3 years. They are good about labeling if the seeding is “from seed” (not preferable) or not. You can look for the graft at the base of the trunk - they use a V shape graft which is obvious. A friend grows awesome swiss chard which is a cole crop which I wouldn’t think would grow here. Don’t know where she got the seed but I am sure it is a specific variety bred for tropical climates. Don’t bother with zuchinni or yellow crook neck - tried them twice (part shade and sun) and they gave me a huge growth burst, 2 or 3 fruits and then died. Should be tropical carrot seed available. katrina
Steve often sends me postcards with funny (corny) poems or limericks from his office to my office. I know, weird. I have hundreds. But your new palm trees reminded me of one he wrote, so I dug it up. Bear with me now…. This is to be sung to the Beverly Hillbillies theme song:
Well, the first thing you know, ol’ Stephen is a star,
The kin folks said, “Steve, move away to PR!”
Californi-ay is the place you oughtta leave,
So he packed up his wife and left to plant a tree.
A palm tree, that is… Coconuts… Rum… Hammocks.