California 2 Puerto Rico

The tomatoes that Eddie planted in the cool garden beds that he made, are starting to get big. So Stefan and I decided it was time to make some tomato cages. Luckly(?) we have 6 big rolls of fencing left over from putting up the fence in the backyard, so we recycled one roll into tomato cages.

Making tomato cages:

Caging tomato plant:

Tomato plants caged:

Look! Tomatoes!:

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When Stefan’s buddy Eddie was in town, he spent a lot of his time gardening and planting random things in our yard (thanks, Eddie!). He threw some lettuce seeds in places that he figured that they would grow and, guess what?! They did!!

I decided to make myself a midnight snack the other day and enjoy the fruits vegetables of our labor…

Fresh lettuce growing in our planter:

Picking the lettuce:

Mmmmm…:

There is something about growing your own food that makes it taste so much better. I can’t wait to plant more yummy vegetables!

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Stefan and I have been putting some effort into planting trees in the backyard and it’s coming along nicely! We threw down some grass seed a couple of months ago and it’s growing in pretty darn good for the little to no effort we have put into it. Today and yesterday we planted two 6′ MacArthur Palms and we turned that cool twisted tree stump that Stefan found in the quebrada, into an exotic planter of sorts.

Two new MacArthur palms (left side):

I wanted to do something cool with the stump and I figured that planting things around it would bring it to life, so we planted a triangle palm, macarthur palm and a red heliconia, in front and behind the stump.

Stump before:

Stump after:

We also want to plant something between the triangle palm and heliconia, but we havn’t figured out what yet. Perhaps some herbs, flowers or a vegetable?

We have another macarthur palm, a red palm, a pair of avocado trees and a mini flamboyan that we are going to plant in the backyard tomorrow. We also picked up 4 new coconut palms at the beach today, but we havn’t decided where to put them yet…

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It’s weird for me to go from working out in a gym 4 times a week, to not really knowing what to do with myself, since we moved to Puerto Rico. I guess it’s just transitioning from Southern California to Puerto Rico, but I certainly got a workout today, while working in the backyard. Killing two birds with one stone!

Here is what went down…

First, grab a cinderblock from the cinderblock pile:

Run the cinderblock 100 yards to the other side of the house (and place in line):

Repeat 15 times.

Run down to the dirt pile and shovel dirt into the wheelbarrow:

Run the wheelbarrow up the hill:

Shovel dirt into cinderblock “planter”:

Repeat steps 3 - 5 ten times.

Everything was fairly easy, except for running the wheelbarrow up the hill. That was HARD. I had to get a running start at the bottom, which would get me half way up. Then I would have to set down the wheelbarrow, (so it wouldn’t slide back down) and reposition my feet. Then I would literally have to inch up the rest of the way. I’m sure my neighbors probably were watching me and laughing their butts off.

Nonetheless, we got a nice temporary planter around the backside of the house so we can start growing out our jungle

After planting some ginger, birds of paradise, etc.

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What a great trip. It was awesome having Eddie and his new family down at the house for the past couple of weeks. They flew down to watch the house and enjoy the heat of the Caribbean (as opposed to the chill of Rhode Islane).

While here, the house turned into a home. Their 2 month old baby girl helped the place smell like baby powder and numerous ointments…the oven was kicking it at all times of the day…water was constantly boiling for either coffee, oatmeal or tea. Someone was cooking breakfast or cutting fruit. When the kitchen of a house has life, it feels like a home.

Eddie worked his ass off on our yard also. He planted new seed, helped set up a watering system, helped me organize where certain plants and trees should go and helped me understand the process of growing plants just a little bit more.

Cheers Eddie Thacker

Thanks for the help…it is greatly appreciated!

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I am such a novice in this construction thing. I was a typical office worker (that surfed and came from a fairly active background) that was making some money and decided to give up the life in the fast lane for a couple acres in Puerto Rico and a fun little project (sarcasm). Finish a six bedroom, two bath house in Rincon Puerto Rico. Haha! Give up the fast lane? I have been busier now than I have ever been in my life and I have spent more Cash Money in the past eight months than I ever did in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Manhattan or La Jolla gourmet restaurants and clubs combined.

I have learned so much (including how to spend money), but today young grasshopper, I give you advice from an experienced (1 project) Do-It-Yourselfer. This advice will help you keep it together on a big project like ours. Every time we do a clean up, I feel a million times better about our progress around the house. So, here is my advice to you: Keep your construction site clean and organized

Today, I had a little Tom Cat come and scrape all the extra concrete, scrap wood and trash out of our backyard. We worked filling two large dump trucks (about 8 meters each) for about four hours and are now pretty much ready to plant some grass seed in the backyard.

We are also expecting our plants from Montoso Gardens tomorrow…so before they get here with the tropical plant and fruit delivery, I am having 8 meters of Top Soil dumbed down by the mango tree so we can make a little shaded nursery area for some of the younger plants and have the ability to back fill the big plant holes with rich top soil.

Starting the clean up of our back yard

Our Rincon backyard looking pretty good.

It feels great to see our back yard clean like this. I wish I kept it clean and organized from the beginning, it would have saved me so many headaches.

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The plants are coming!

Last week Stefan and I went to Montoso Gardens in Maricao, Puerto Rico, where the have all sorts of interesting exotic plants. Like lemons as big as your head! Well, as big as my head at least…

David Brunner was nice enough to show us around and educate us on various exotic plants that they have on their farm. We placed a fairly large order and the plants should be arriving shortly. Here is what we will soon have planted on our property:

2 Areca Catechu palms 6′-7′
2 Macarther palms 7gal., 5′-6′
1 Triangle palm 3gal.
1 Red Sealing Wax palm 4′-5′
2 Grafted Rambutan trees
1 Grafted Abiu
2 Purple Grumichama 1gal
1 French Peanut 1gal
1 Cinnamon tree 1gal
1 Cannonball tree
1 Grafted Maprang
1 Noni
1 Mangosteen
1 Yellow Jaboticaba
1 Spanish Tamarind
1 Aemygdiana rhizome
1 Tahitian Ginger 3gal
2 White Torch Ginger 1gal
4 Red Torch rhizomes
4 Pink Torch rhizomes
2 Cacao Trees 1 gal
1 Ae Ae Banana 3′-4′ division
1 Peanut Butter Fruit 2gal
3 Pink Ginger 3 gal
3 Red Ginger 3 gal
3 Polynesian Princess Ginger 3gal
6 White Bird of Paradise
4 Orange Bird of Paradise
3 Mexican Gold Heliconia 1gal
3 Oriole Orange Heliconia 1gal
3 Iris (red) heliconia 1gal

Most of the plants above you may have never hear of, but that is because Montoso farms specializes in exotic fruit trees from around the world. If you’re looking for the standard fruit trees (mango, orange, grapefruit, etc), you won’t find those at Montoso farms. They are far more interested in rarer varieties of fruit, which is fine my me…I can’t wait to have our property overgrown with interesting plants and fruits!

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I recently got a hot tip from The Kruses on where to get some great plants, here in Puerto Rico. Karina recommended Montoso Gardens, which is in Maricao:

Montoso Gardens has all sorts of great exotic fruit trees, flowers, nut trees, spices, palms and more. They even have an online store and will ship plants for very reasonable prices. Stefan and I are going to head over to Montoso Gardens sometime this week, so we’ll let you know what we end up with :)!

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Jerry did the work on the downstairs shower pan and also the shower pan for the outside shower. They both came out pretty darn good! Here is a picture of the outside shower and the new shower pan:

It may not look that impressive to you, but here is what the shower looked like in May :

The shower pan is one of the most important parts to building a shower and it’s probably the hardest to get right (Luckly, Jerry is a master with concrete). Essentually you need to slightly slope/angle the floor so that the drain is at the lowest point. This is so that all the water flows towards the drain and doesn’t pool and sit stagnant in your shower. Gotta love gravity!

I also planted a foxtail palm and some purple flowery plants around the shower, for that “Yes, I am showering in the jungle” feeling :D.

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A mere 3 weeks after planting grass seed, our lawn got its 1st mow today. I can’t believe how fast the grass grew in. Awesome!!

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