An all volunteer garden

Beautiful chard

Fruit trees

I planted all kinds of things in that bed where the chard is last summer and nothing turned into food except the cherry tomatoes. After cleaning up the bed and wondering what to do next I noticed a small but unmistakable chard leaf had popped up. I've been babying it and eating it ever since. All I can think of is chard  and maybe many leafy vegetables do better in cooler temperatures.

The fruit trees all came up from the compost but except for the papaya they were moved for more space. The citrus on the left  (we're unsure which) is almost a year old. The 3 papayas are just a few months old. The day before yesterday Lorena noticed a new plant and said it was a Guayaba so we moved that over to the lower right. I would have just pulled it up but Hugo confirmed it's Guayaba. A couple of years ago some kids from the Prepa came around with plants as an assignment. I put a Carambola in my yard but had them plant a Guayaba across the street in front of a neighbors but it's not being watered or cared for. Now I have one !!  Love the flavor in liquados but the seeds can break a tooth.

Shrooms in my compost

I had to give up on the mushroom search in both Spanish and English. Nothing even close. I found this yesterday next to my compost pile. I see lots of little ones mostly in the lawn but never a large one like this. All I know is you don't eat mushrooms if you don't know what they are. This one is at least 8 inches across. It was next to all my other volunteers in the compost; tomatoes, papayas and this.

Table top mushroom

8 to 10 inches across

All the other volunteers

Call me a Gardener

Well I'm trying. Been collecting dry material from the yard and around the neighborhood, finally found a place I can buy cheap cow manure and am building a compost. Four bags of manure (like below) for 20 pesos ... I gave him 40.  Mainly I'm just short of plain soil to add to the mix. I gained a bit of soil today digging for new plantings and using compost for fill.    I can enrich the soil for plants that are already in but eventually want a few raised beds for vegitables and need decent composed fill.

I planted one banana a few weeks ago but it suddenly turned brown so I got about 5 more from neighbors. Left the old one in to see if it would recover. This time all with compost fill and fertilizer. Should be the very small sweet and the Chiquita style

The other trees are from a florist up the coast. Very glad my Avocado is coming back after a sloppy transplant. There was nothing but the "trunk" a week ago.

There are too many kinds of Sapodilla/Zapote/Sapote to figure out what kind of fruit this tree will produce ... but supposedly it will reach 20-30 feet some day. just have to keep it away from my dog who likes to excavate everywhere I water.

The Almond tree in front on the street survived hurricane Jova (had to plant deeper) but I'm not sure it will survive the neighbor kids. Two branches are missing on the lower level. Almonds (almendras) are an odd tree and not really a favorite but so many people use them on the street for shade I thought I'd give it a try.

Start of compost

Two lime trees in the back of the garden

New bananas along with 3 more

Almond on street that kids keep breaking branches

Chico Zapote caged from dog

Star Fruit

Coastal Avocado