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.

Non Proactive CFE

It took me 3 weeks and mutiple tries to get CFE out to cut a mango tree that was growing around my power lines to the house. Has to be done twice a year because they won't cut the whole tree down that is almost growing in the street.

Ok so they miss my house or a few others because they are less important than the main power lines .... but they are ignoring the main lines as well.  After the Monday morning storm there were close to 30 CFE guys out with chain saws and machetes cleaning up the mess and making a mess. CFE never cleans up after.

So power went out about 5AM and it took them 'till after 10 to fix the problem.  Power back on for a 1/2 hour and out again until after 4PM while they cut many, many trees down to a safe level. Just for good measure they cut the power again about 6PM for 10 minutes. I went outside and bellowed my feelings at CFE and they may have actually heard me.

Main road mess - partly storm and partly CFE

Huge tree near my house

All machete work

Plants and trees like the winter weather

Well they must is all I can figure. The compost pile is sprouting tomatoes, a melon and baby Neems. The lime trees were quiet for almost two months and now are full of blossoms. My avocado tree that has done almost nothing since I got it is suddenly sprouting new branches and leaves.

I transplanted the avocado to a more open area and realize that probably shocked it but that was about a year ago. One major branch died and what was left was way lopsided. I trimmed it today to balance it out a bit.

Lime trees are very unruly, with branches going in all directions. The best I can do is cut some of what I call 'suckers' that grow straight up and look to be non fruit producing. I doubt I can keep them at standing on the ground picking level but so far so good.

I'm gonna have a bunch of baby Neem trees if I can get them planted in pots in a month or so. They are just coming up from dropped seeds from their parent tree which is now about 5 meters high. I might offer a few to neighbors if they look healthy.

My 2 Cherry tomato plants are producing 20 or so a day but the neighbor kids are eating them as soon as they turn a little red (with my permission). The cilantro and sweet basil are doing fine. Herba Buena (mint) and Romero (Rosemary) are new and some radishes and chives are just popping up. Gardens are good

Avocado coming alive

Lime blossom

Largest neem baby

More neem

Tomato in compost

It's mushroom time again

Normal mushroom time is during the early summer rains but after 5 days of winter rain they are popping up in the yard. Looks like we may have 2-3 more days and the Weather Underground even said we might get thunder showers tonight -- they are seldom accurate. We should have sun by the end of the week.

Plants and lawn are loving it. The new sisus vines (like ivy) are halfway up the 3 meter walls, new leaves and branches on new trees and my badly abused avocado (transplanted twice) is starting to sprout new growth. Even the banana that I salvaged from a vacant lot has a strong second leaf.

The worst part about rain here are the roads and they are miserable.