UGACR Sustainable Garden
The Farm has been around for about 20 years; maintained until recently by Otoniel Rodríguez (72years
old), who lived in the house with his family; Doña Alicia, Lilliam, JULIO and GEOVANNY, whom
you may know from campus.
-Family sized farm, run by one or two people
We are working on developing the farm into an educational resource for students and guests as well as
creating a sustainable agriculture extension service for the community while working to increase our
production of produce for the hotel.
Size; Labor, Water Supply
The Hoop Houses and High Houses
Why have greenhouses
In the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, the typical reason for having a
greenhouse/highhouse/hoophouse is to extend the growing season by protection against
frost(sub-freezing temperatures). We are in the jungle though. It is never freezing here,
so why have structures like these? I like to say we have two seasons here: the rainy
season and the windy season. This is a little dramatic but in reality, once the heavy
downpours fizzle out in about October, the heavy winds begin to pick up around
November. The winds continue until February. From March to May in theory there is a
period of warm, dry, calm weather. However, for much of the year, it is very important
to protect some our crops from the extreme elements. Lettuce is the crop we tend to
keep most in the green house. Sometimes things like cilantro are grown under cover as
well. Tomatoes are another crop that suffers greatly from heavy rains and heavy winds.
We are currently constructing a roofed area specifically for growing tomatoes.
Efficient use of space
- It is fairly expensive to construct these houses so we have to do what we can to use the
space as efficiently as possible. We do this by: Panting in the holes of the cement block
orders, planting in recycled vegetable oil containers and in grow bags, made from
recycled animal feed sacks.
Wind breaks
At our elevation and location, winds can get very strong and can make cultivating certain crops very
difficult. Ex: tomatoes, lettuce, chayote, corn etc… the wind is also one of the reasons that we don’t
produce much of our own fruit. Things like bananas and citrus are resistant but , the fruit of trees like
papaya and avocado, for example, are often blown off the trees before they can ripen.
-The banana trees planted around the farm cut down the wind significantly but they can still
only do so much.
-There are smaller, windbreaks incorporated within the farm. These are often temporary or
semi-permanent and help to further cut the wind in specific locations without creating too much
shading.
Ex: Passion fruit vines, weed walls, Crops themselves such as corn or using the
buildings and fences as support.
Erosion
Terracing
Why terrace
-Along with wind, water is another one of the other forces of nature we have to work
with. Erosion here is something we have to take very seriously. We are not only in a
cloud forest where we have several months of torrential afternoon rains, we are also on
the side of a mountain. This combination can lead to major top soil loss if you are not
careful. Terracing is one of the ways we can lessen erosion on the farm.
Where and how we terrace
- We have supported terraces (using concrete block or rock walls) in the center section
of the farm. This is where we plant many of our crops that only provide minimal
coverage. These include things like: carrots, cilantro, celery, etc… these crops are both
harvested within 1-3 months. This means that the soil is being loosened fairly often
when harvesting, tilling and amending. Other sections of the farm are terraced but do
not have a retaining wall. These are sections on milder slopes. In the future we would
like to add support to these terraces as well but with the materials/funding that we have,
we fortified the most severe slopes first. There are also parts of the farm that are no
terraced. These are sections that are planted with larger scale crops such as: corn,
arracache, chamol, ayote, yuca etc… These are crops that cover and protect the soil
more completely. They are also crops that will continue to cover the ground for many
months at a time, which means that the soil is not subject to as much disturbance as with
the shorter term crops.
Pests
Pests include:
-Animal pests include: Agoutis, Coatis, Squirrels, Birds and Monkeys
-Insect pests include: Bean beetle, aphids, cabbage loopers, leaf cutter ants etc…
-Disease pests include: Mildew, viruses, root rot, bacterial leaf spot etc…
Pest Mngement:
-Fence: The fence that we have surrounding the farm was installed to keep out agoutis, which tend to
cause a great deal of damage especially to arracache.
-Birds: the farm being located in the middle of highly wooded areas and having plenty of posts and
small trees within the farm that the birds can perch on, encourages a large number of birds to hang out
at the farm and eat insects like beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars.
-EM (Effective Microorganisms) : This is a fairly new technology that is was developed in Japan and
is becoming more and more popular in Costa Rica. It is a highly concentrated anaerobic culture of
microorganisms harvested from areas around the farm. These organisms are applied as a spray. They
can be applied as an inoculants to promote compost systems, it can be applied to discourage foul odors
and flies, it can be applied as a fertilizer and to reduce risk of disease both foliarly or in the soil.
-Organic sprays: Other organic pest control sprays are used containing things like: Madera negro,
tomato leaves, hot peppers, soap and garlic
-Scouting: it is always important (especially in organic agriculture to scout regularly for bug pests or
signs of disease and to eliminate these things by hand before the problem becomes too wide spread.
-Rotation: It is important not to have plants that serve as hosts to the same insect pests or diseases
planted in the same area over and over again. By rotating plant families around different parts of the
farm, we are able to break of the life cycles of at least some pests that attack certain crops. This keeps
any one pest from accumulating to a devastating number.
-Variety of crops (insert print outs)
Variety is very important for a healthy farm. It is a primary way of reducing pest pressure. By not
producing monocultures of one kind of plant grown all in one place we are not inviting pests to come
and gorge on their favorite food source. We have around 30 different crops growing on our farm at any
given time. Some of which are:
The Soil
-Composts: We have three different types of compost system. The first is made up of the waste
produced by the kitchen during food preparation. These scraps are collected everyday behind the
kitchen and brought to the farm once a week where they are mixed with some form of carbon (saw
dust or dry leaves). Each of these piles is overturned weekly until it is finished (this takes about 6
weeks). The second type of compost is our weed and grass clippings compost. These piles are larger,
contain less nitrogen-rich scraps and are overturned less often. For this reason, they take longer to
break down, but provide a second compost resource when our other compost is running low. The third
form of compost that we have is vermicompost. This is composting using worms to expedite the
process of breaking down waste into useable soil. This waste is made up of mostly cow manure and the
resulting byproduct is referred to as worm castings. These castings are especially good material for
mixing with sand (for better drainage) to fill the seed beds and for making compost tea.
-Mulching/green manure: Sometimes, especially during the rainy season, when there are fewer crops
suitable for planting outside, we mulch/compost directly on top of the beds. By piling weeds directly
on top of an area of our land that is not currently being used to produce crops, we are preventing the
growth of unwanted weeds, enriching the soil with a heavy layer of organic material that will be
incorporated into the soil once it has broken down and also covering the soil to prevent erosion of the
top soil by the heavy rains that are common here.
Our main constraints
-Labor
-Soil Amendments
-Water
Other
Fruits:
People often ask why we do not grow more fruits at our farm. The answer is that though we are in a
tropical country/climate, we are at high elevation which means lower annual temperatures and stronger
winds. Even just down the road in Bajo San Luis, fruits such as mango, cashew, papaya, avocado,
coconut, and soursop are much more successfully grown. Some fruits that do well here are: Citrus
(tangerine, lemon, and oranges), bananas, plantains and cuadrados. We are however going to start to
try out some new fruit crops such as cacao, papaya and jocote and passion fruit.
Bananas:
- Explain that there are hundreds of different banana varieties and mention the different types of
bananas around the farm: Bananas, plantains, cuadrados, and caribes…
-Point out a banana flower and explain how they develop
-Explain banana propagation: that bananas are herbs, not trees. They are propagated vegetatively
through (hijos) that sprout out of the root zone of the parent plant. And that after a plant has produced a
raceme of bananas, it is cut down and the (hijo grows up in its place and will produce again, which it
can do in less than a year).