Garden Report

Not much going on other than school, weeding, plants. Had a nice clinic chat yesterday and visited the adult literacy class in the afternoon talking on uterine fibroids, vaginal infections, and a few other mini-topics.

Eli will head back to the USA the end of this week and have one week to visit with family while packing and shopping for his next school year at Calvin.

A teacher's training conference is scheduled to occur on campus later this week.

Cory and guys tend to visit the gardens across the river on Tuesdays.

Cory was told that bananas don't grow as well in a sugar cane field, but peach palm do fine next to cane                               and other garden plants. One of the largest from the seed collected Costa Rica April 2014.

About 1/4 of the larger garden has been weeded/hoed by the share cropper in preparation for planting rice in September.

It makes the fruit trees much easier to see now that the corn is gone.

The trees are still growing well but ready for some rain.  It looks promising later this week with a tropical "wave" of showers approaching from the East.

Mulching around the fruit trees and palms in the grassy areas in June and July has paid off, resulting in dark green new leaves.

No cow or goat damage the past week but the rental garden has rhino beetles feeding on about half of the peach palm roots and hearts.

Peach palm can send out new shoots from the base even if the heart is eaten so it usually survives beetle attack.

About a tablespoon of motor oil around the base of the palm works as a repellent for at least a few months.

We found two of the potted coconut trees in the nursery had been attacked over the weekend. The trees were pulled out of the pots and 3 beetles killed but they probably ate the bud already and the coconuts will then die.

 The beetles tunnel into the base of the palm, eat up into the bud, and tunnel down into the dirt, eating roots and hiding deep underground.