Second Year of Gardening -- A Joy

It's been about two years since we began gardening. The first year we were pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, and it was a backbreaking effort. There was so much to do, and we had so far to go. Now we can see the results of two years of hard work, and it is truly rewarding.  Flowers, vines, trees, vegetables -- we are blessed. Maybe next year we will be able to pick our first orange.

GRASS
Much of the second year was spent on two onerous tasks -- redoing what we did wrong the first year, and putting down grass. Both of these things minimized the time we had to spend on what we love the best -- growing flowers and vegetables -- but they had to be done. I know grass is frequently pooh-poohed in gardening circles, but we wanted to create a backdrop for our beautiful plants, and we wanted to preserve our spectacular view. Expansive lawns do have their place.

Two kinds of grass were planted, using two different methods. We started by planting native pasture grass -- called jenjibrillo -- put down as rectangles of sod. We'd had good luck with a local sod merchant and had him put down a second batch for us. This time, unfortunately, it did not turn out as well as the first. Within a month or so it was taken over by white clover. Also, over time the first batch devoloped kikuyo grass, which must have come with the jenjibrillo grass in the first place. It is an invasive exotic species. The best thing about the jenjibrillo is that it thrives on average soil. The worst thing is that it grows quickly during the wet season and has to be mowed every week.

After our unfortunate experience with the native grass, we switched to St. Augustine. Some of it was planted as sod, some as runners. I purchased the sod from EPA, a Venezuelan-owned chain similar to Lowe's or Home Depot back in the States. It cost about $2 a square meter (about 10 square feet). I installed it myself.
One large area I had planted in St. Augustine runners in order to save money. The total cost for runners for about 400 square feet came to only $5. It took the runners about five months to spread and cover the surface and, unfortunately, there was considerable soil erosion due to the slope. If I had to do it again, I think I would have bought sod, even though it is much more expensive. The St. Augustine does not look as lush as the native pasture grass. I think it requires more topsoil. So far I have only had to cut it twice.

Happy Gardening!

The Weather -- 1st Year of Data Collection

I began recording daily weather information on June 20, 2010. Now that I've completed one year of data collection, I can report two big surprises:
  (1) it is much rainier than I'd expected
  (2) it is much windier than I'd expected.

As for annual rainfall, I was originally expecting something in the vicinity of 80-90 inches. This was based on the data provided by the Aranjuez station in downtown San Jose, only seven miles away. Average rainfall there is 70 inches. Our property is 1,300 feet higher, in the central volcanic range, and I reasoned that we'd receive an extra 10-20 inches. Then I discovered weather data from the station in Barva, only two and a half miles away, and only about 400 feet lower elevation than here. The average annual rainfall in Barva is 90 inches. What I recorded in the first year was a whopping 145 inches.

My guess is that this higher-than-expected rainfall is due to two factors:
  (1) during this period we were experiencing a niña, which brought about 50% higher than normal rainfall
  (2) we are located near the Zurqui pass, which allows wet, stormy trade winds through the mountains from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.

As for the winds, I didn't acquire a wind gauge until November 2010. It is a handheld device, so I only take readings when we are experiencing high winds. The high wind recorded to date is 34 miles per hour. 2009 was much windier than 2010. I'm guessing we had winds up to at least 50 mph. I wasn't expecting winds this high, as I'd been visiting my wife's family near downtown San Rafael (2.5 miles away) for the last 40 years, and knew what to expect, I thought. Again, I think the fact that we are located close to the Zurqui pass is the main contributing factor to these high winds.

The high rainfall and high winds have been two of the four complicating factors to gardening here (the other two factors are the clayey soil and the invasion of African star grass). The rain, combined with the clay, tend to waterlog the soil and cause fungal infections in root systems. This requires the use of either raised beds or drainage ditches to channel the water away from the plants. Many of the plants cannot withstand the high winds, so they have to be planted on the leeward side of walls and fences.

Happy gardening!

July Weather Report

Nun Orchid

Rainfall increased significantly, from 10.9 inches in June, to 15.5 inches in July. Despite the increase, we received more sun, and no fog. There were two dry spells: six-days early in the month, and 10-days toward the end. The first dry spell was accompanied by moderate northeast trade winds. The rest of the month was calm.

The increased sun was beneficial for the tomato plants growing in the greenhouse. We now have a fairly extensive system of drainage ditches around shrubs and trees. As a result, they seem to be handling the rainy conditions much better this year.

Temperatures stayed the same as June, with the average high of 78 degrees and the low of 63. The high for the month was 82 (on July 5); the low, 60 (on July 14).

Happy gardening!

Grubs, revisited

Grubs dug up from a 5X5 foot section of the vegetable garden

In May I posted a message about grubs and how, with an application of a special kind of nematode, I had eradicated them. Well, as it turns out, that assessment was a little premature. You see, with the life-cycle of local beetles and grubs, the beetles are out and about in April and May. This means that there are little or no grubs in the ground at this time of year. So, even if I hadn't applied any nematodes to the soil, there wouldn't be any grubs in the soil at that time of year. In June I began to find lots of grubs in the ground. There are some large areas with no grubs, and other areas with lots of grubs. So, apparently, the nematode application has had some effect, but the effect has not been uniform. Overall, I think there are fewer grubs in the soil now, after applying the nematodes. So, the situation overall has improved.

Happy gardening!

June Weather Report

June was generally rainy, cloudy, and foggy. We usually had a couple of hours of sun in the morning. However, the veranillo de San Juan (Little Summer (or dry spell) of Saint John) arrived early in the month, bringing us a week of dry, sunny weather. The veranillo generally makes its appearance around Saint John the Baptist's saints day, which is June 24. This year it arrived on June 7 and lasted for eight days. It was a welcome relief.

Total rainfall came to 10.9 inches, down 7 inches from May.

Warm weather has continued, with the average high of 78 degrees and the low of 63.

Happy gardening!

May Weather Report

View from my balcony of the afternoon fog

The rainy season has arrived. That's kind of an understatement. Whereas rainfall for March totalled, 4.5 inches, in May it rose to 18.1 inches. With the rain came cloudy weather and high humidity, and the winds have died down to almost nothing. Fog frequently rolls in in the late afternoon.

The amount of rain caught me by surprise, and has kept me busy clearing out the drainage ditches around trees and shrubs. The grass has to mowed more frequently. Some erosion has occurred where I cleared and planted St. Augustine grass runners. The grass is spreading quickly now and hopefully will fill in during the next several weeks.

Warm weather has continued, with the average high of 78 degrees and the low of 62. We hope June will be a little dryer.

Happy gardening!

The Pond, Part 3

When we began to build a pond, we thought we had quite a bit of experience with ponds already. The main difference between our old pond back in South Carolina and our new one here in Costa Rica was principally size -- the new one is almost 50 times bigger than the old one. As much water evaporates daily from our new pond as the total volume of the old pond. We've discovered this was an oversimplification. We grew water lilies, but they were hardy water lilies, not tropical ones. We had koi, but they eventually were eaten by predators. So, we didn't know what would happen over the long haul. We had frogs, but they were different species than the ones here. When we put all of these differences into a dynamic, interacting system of plants and animals, we found we were constantly facing new situations and new challenges.

Water harvesting seems to be working well. It is too complex a system to explain it all here, but  in essence, our 1,100-gallon storage tank works as a reserve for the pond. In the dry season, we collect as much as we can in the tank, and then pump it into the pond as needed. This last dry season was actually pretty wet, and we only had to add city water to the pond about twice a month. In the rainy season we get too much rain -- the overflow could cause errosion problems downstream. So, as soon as the reserve tank fills up, we pump it into the pond. Thus, when the next rain comes, it doesn't overlow into the pond until the reserve tank is full again. This gives us a cushion.

We have four kinds of fish -- koi, goldfish, swordtails, and angelfish. Someone warned us that the angelfish were very territorial and would go after the other fish. This may be true for aquariums, but it has apparently not happened in the pond. The koi have grown by leaps and bounds. A couple of them are now about 10 inches long. They are very colorful and we love to watch them.

The swordtails give live birth, and have been prolific. We started with about a dozen, and now have somewhere between one hundred and two hundred. The koi lay eggs. We're guessing that many of the eggs get eaten by other fish. We now have at least eight baby koi, measuring from one to three inches long. We haven't seen any baby angelfish or goldfish yet.

Me, with the first water lily

Our original water lily began to pine away and eventually died. This was very upsetting to us. We'd never had a water lily die on us before. We're not sure what the problem was. About three weeks ago I had a chance to get another water lily. I was at a gathering of gardeners at the Biesanz Woodworks in the nearby city of Escazu and Barry Biesanz offered me one of his beautiful white lilies from his pond. He even had wading boots for me. They came all the way up to my armpits. I thought it was a bit of overkill, but it turned out I really needed them. It was difficult to see in the murky pond water and I ended up taking Barry's largest and most beautiful plant. It was unintentional. I promised myself I was really going to take care of this one.  I planted it the next morning in a pot that was almost twice as big as the one I'd used before, and I gave it some really good soil and organic fertilizer. I also put some extra heavy stones on top of the soil, to be sure the koi didn't bother the roots.

The amphibian population has changed. The frogs we had captured and brought to the pond stopped croaking months ago. We haven't seem them either, but our handyman said he saw one last week. One evening in early April we began hearing what sounded like a large bullfrog croaking. I suspected it might be a cane toad, so I looked up the call on the internet, and sure enough, that's what it was. We learned that cane toads are poisonous, and can be lethal to a dog if it should bite the toad. Fortunately, the toads seem to be staying near the pond, which is fenced off.  About ten days after we heard the first toad, he was joined by another one, and then another, and then another, until we had at least six toads. They've been serenading us every evening for two months now, and we just love it. Most of them have left in the last couple of days, so mating season seems to be coming to an end.

Cane toads mating

Okay, now we have the cane toads and the water lilies in the same pond. Sound like a good combination? Yes? Think again. The cane toads had lots of choices about where to lay their eggs, but they all chose the one big water lily. One morning we found the water lily floating on the surface. Gadzooks!!! What was going on? We pulled the water lily out of the water and discovered that the leaf stems were completely covered with about a three-inch layer of frog eggs. We figure that the jelly mass was so buoyant that it pulled the plant right out of its pot. We sprayed the eggs off with a high-powered hose, re-potted the lily, and are praying that it recovers from this catastrophe.

Many of the toad eggs had hatched before were able to remove them from the pond. Suddenly we had thousands of tadpoles. We don't know how many, maybe 10,000? We read in the literature that the tadpoles are, like their parents, toxic.So, we've been skimming them out of the pond. Each day the number decreases and we think we're down to only several hundred tadpoles at this point.

As reported in the last pond post, the water hyacinth are much smaller than they should be. I have created a separate section in the pond for them, so that the koi can't eat their roots. Unfortunately the koi have learned to jump the barrier, and seem to love to do it. So, my next project is to make it taller.

So, you can see the pond has been quite a challenge for us. Fish and amphibians are doing fine. Plants have been problematic. If the water lilies survive and prosper, we will be overjoyed.

Happy gardening!