Tree planting trip and garden update by Cory

peach palm by our house

Tuesday Cory and the guys went to plant about 40 trees on a 1.5 acre garden near the new industrial complex and banana plantation.

The garden is owned by a relative of a pastor and at least one mission employee.

We have had good rains and even Cap Haitian had rain the night before but the garden area is more arid and hadn't had a good rain for a week or more. 

The garden had sweet potato, pigeon pea, and bananas, along with wilted 6" tall corn and shorter beans.

The soil is deep and mango trees in the area are thriving.

We planted mangoes (Florida varieties and a Florida/Haitian mango seedling) egg fruit (canistel) jack fruit, starfruit, and a few of several other fruit species to see how well they grow in this area, and a couple bamboo and South American mahogany.

Wednesday we checked the 3 gardens across the river. All doing well and no more livestock damage although a calf had briefly been in the big garden earlier that morning or the night before.

We hear the calf owner has it back but we haven't heard if he paid the fine. They are out working during the day so it isn't easy to get news.

Mesquite trees next to the garden. Looks like LaGonave

Rice coming up in our big garden

Mosquito traps, chocolate nursery and volleyball credit.

Cory recently visited three of the gardens. All doing well.

Reading a recent article about controlling mosquitoes prompted a new project, since with the good rains, we are suffering from a large mosquito population.

Three different tools and lots of muscle were used to cut up old tires into pieces. The hack saw and machete worked best.

Next the pieces were placed around the perimeter of the campus.

Water that had been in the discarded tires with larvae was filtered and mixed with additional water to fill the new "traps".

After the larva are filtered out, a pheromone remains in the water that lets mother mosquitos know it is a "safe" place to lay their eggs.

Now the traps will need to have the water filtered  once or twice a week, destroying the immature mosquitos, and re-setting the trap. Any container that holds water could be used.

Cory visited the location where the big chocolate tree nursery is being built.

This USAID sponsored project plans to start thousands of cacao trees to be distributed around the area to small farmers.

Chocolate prices are good so many gardeners are planting cacao trees for the export market.

 Last year the new trees that were planted did not have real good survival due to the drought.

We should also give credit to the Haitian government for the volleyball tournament they sponsored at no cost to the players, including room, board and transport.

The olympic sports complex was built as an encouragement to Haiti's youth after the earthquake.

 It looks like many youth teams enjoy these modern facilities throughout the year.

The away teams for tournaments use the dorms and Port au Prince teams return home each night.

Bamboo and Peach Palm harvest, by Cory

Today we harvested the first bunch of fruit from this peach palm [at the bottom of the blog on the right-hand side].

The only one with fruit at this time, it didn't get pollinated, so seedless fruit.

If they were pollinated the fruit would be larger and have a higher oil content.

 I was told that in Costa Rica most people prefer the seeded fruits.

The fruits with cracks in the skin like these are considered superior.

These did have good flavor, and texture like dry potato, but enough oil that some came out of the fruits while they were boiled.





Met. David is building a nursery project large enough to grow 12,000 cacao seedlings.

The price farmers get for cocoa beans has been high the past few years so many farmers are planting cacao trees in their gardens.

They place stakes at 3 meter spacing to calculate how many trees they have room for before getting trees from nurseries.

He needed bamboo poles for the shade structure so we agreed that he and his work crew could cut part of the bamboo clump in our back yard that is shading a few of our fruit trees.

One is a mandarin orange from South Haiti that we hope fruits soon.

This bamboo is from the government project near the mountain town of Marmelade and was planted about 2010 in a ravine to hold back the erosion.

We are still propagating this variety but there hasn't been much demand for bamboo plants.

Met. David wants a few plants now to put at 3 locations.

We ended up with 3 dozen poles and we had also harvested about a dozen during the past couple years.

We cut less than half the clump. It is amazing how productive bamboo can be.

Several species of bamboo from Marmelade, January '09

Garden update

We are enjoying more variety of harvests as new fruits come into production.

Bushels of star fruits are almost ready to share with the summer conferences.

 This Ma'afala breadfruit tree came from the Breadfruit Institute almost 3 years ago, Aug. '11 as a 2 or 3 inch tall plant.

First harvest June '14. A few other people we shared trees with have also reported fruit set.

 Starfruit and a small Ma'afala breadfruit

 Guajilote, year old tree fruiting in a gallon pot. Looking forward to trying this.

 Bamboo sprouts.

Jackfruit. Supposed to be 'Super Thai' but can't tell the difference from our 'Black Gold' so not sure of the variety.

They are productive now for small 5 year old trees. Sweet aromatic fruit.

Looking forward to first pitaya/dragon fruit harvest now that one of the self fertile varieties has a flower bud.

Vanilla pods

The best for last... Due to a drier than usual year we enjoyed a great mango season April through June. Mangos rotted on the ground even along the main road just miles from Cap Haitian and the main road less than a mile from Port Margot. 

Many people nearly live on mangos while they are in season. Cory tried to limit them to about half of daily diet. 

The campus mango production ended abruptly in July, except for a few of the new varieties that are just coming into production.

 The photo is Okrung, Van Dyke, and probably Florigon, photo taken today. We also enjoyed Valencia Pride, Fairchild, and Choc Annon, along with all the Fransic and Fil blank we could eat, from huge campus trees.

Peanut butter fruit and second visit to Second Mile

A thunderstorm last night added 1 1/2" to our summer rainfall totals and so far the area is wet.

Heat and moisture agrees with many plants on campus.

This week we all tried "peanut butter fruit" and at least 3 of us adamantly believe that the name should be changed as it sets your brain and tastes buds up for total disappointment.

 The pasty texture may be a bit like peanut butter but to us taste nothing like peanuts, more of a unique sweet, tangy taste.

Sunday we enjoyed watching Gener's two youngest boys get dedicated in church on Haitian father's day.

A funny moment when Gener went to return to his seat which he had taken with the men's Sunday school class earlier the Pastor briskly told him to sit with his wife and sons.

He grabbed his Bible and sheepishly returned to the front of the women's area.

Yesterday we worked hard on school work as well as finishing up our summer newsletters and June thank you notes. 


Thankfully we mostly finished before needing to unplug and turn off the inverter for the storm.

Today the kids and I continued with our school work while Cory and the guys headed with a truckload of plants back to Second Mile Haiti.

They enjoyed talking about the fruit trees and plants while placing them around the Second Mile property. 


They have good dirt, water and good gardeners so we expect the trees and plants will do well, providing not only nutritious fruits for the mothers and children at Second Mile but for the local families as well.



Since there is only one large tree on the campus there is plenty of room to plant.


The trees we planted included peach palm, acai palm, star fruit, jackfruit, breadfruit, everbearing bush mulberry,  barbados cherry, cupuasu (chocolate relative) large lime, lemon drop mangosteen, miracle fruit, bananas, ticazo vine and two types of bamboo. Also left chaya cuttings (vegetable bush), aloe barbadensis and artemisia (malaria medicine).

They shared fresh brown eggs from their chickens and a few pounds of their black eye pea harvest with us as a token of gratitude.

Always glad to share knowledge, trees and plants to those helping others.

On the way home the guys saw akee fruit and a different kind of breadfruit trees.

Memorial Day weekend.

A fresh, cool start to the Memorial Day weekend this morning as 3 of us enjoyed sending off Dan, Joy and Holly early. So back to 'normal' life now.

Pastor Dan and Joy serve as our area directors, field mission directors, teammates and friends!
Holly assists them.

They arrived on Wednesday in time for lunch and in time to visit a few minutes with a small group of visitors who came for a very short visit to campus.

We enjoyed meeting one of the new MAF pilots and a USA business man and welcoming GP team members Pastor Greg [first time visit to Fauche] and Pastor Carl.

National superentent of the Wesleyan church, Pastor Deucet even spent a couple of minutes playing a bit of volleyball with Anna before they started back to the airport for their return flight.

[Report from Port-au-Prince is that the older volleyball teams from Fauche are doing well!]

On Thursday we talked a lot and fit in a long garden walk in the afternoon.

Friday some of the district pastor's attended English class with Joy and held meetings.

Yesterday afternoon Cory loaded their truck with plants and trees for their place by the sea.

We celebrated USA Memorial Day before the weekend with limited school on Thursday and Friday. Will pick things back up on Monday while celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary!

Recent rains greened up our area and we celebrate with the dry areas of Haiti also enjoying some needed rains but saddened to hear reports of flooding damage in other areas.


After a month without French lessons we restarted this week-reviewing the books of the Bible while adding new vocabulary lists of grocery story, weather, animals, and transportation.

Our teacher also restarted the last bit of editing needed for the health book revision and Cory started to proof it too!

Timber bamboo growing nicely and look who found an underwater home in one of them! If you look hard you can just make out the frog-he's facing toward the right.

The bird, bamboo and garden.

Anna's bird, Phenix is learning to fly well and today had to be fished out of trees a few times with a long bamboo pole. 

We hope it is ready to release completely tomorrow but we don't know yet if it will learn to find its own food.

 Cory visited a nearby ravine to see what could be done about a request for bamboo plants to stabilize a where it is eroding its banks. They decided to wait until the fall rainy season to do the planting since summer tends to be the driest part of the year. 

  Cory is trying another bamboo propagation method at the clinic garden where a clump of bamboo was blamed for making the trail to the latrine too dark at night so about 3/4 of it was cut back.

A few wheelbarrow loads of charcoal soil/sawdust mix held in place with a cut up sack skirt should allow rooted stems to be cut and separated in a few months.

 A neighbor of the campus has shown that even the local heavy clay can grow peppers, okra, and bananas if given some irrigation and planted with compost.

Bamboo, English and Konsey Updates

Tuesday turned out warm like yesterday reaching the low 90's added by the nights not cooling off as much as earlier in the month.

Late last week Cory only gave the new timber bamboo a 60% chance of living after the trip North as both plants lost most of their leaves. 

Today at noon in full sun neither plant's leaves drooped and both plants pushed out new leaves this week!

So unless something eats them both should survive their move to the North. 

Cory and guys continue to prepare the yard for the team. Cory repotted some plants as we prepare for the warmer, drier weather. 

Anna continues to practice volleyball with the school team.

Eli started a new ministry today by taking some time after school to help Dr. Winick, our local dentist to practice his English pronunciation.

This will be a mutually beneficial relationship as Dr. Winick helps Eli with his French and Creole.

Our French professor showed up yesterday for the first time after the Warsaw team. I'd assumed he did not come on the 13th or other days because the local school is on vacation.

He'd assumed we would call and confirm.

He completed editing the Konsey book so I gave him a few new topics I plan to add to the next edition.

We plan to have French tomorrow afternoon and then restart following the KCC team's visit next week. 

Books, bamboo and blessings

A bright sunny start to the week following a cloudy cool weekend.

Saturday three of us worked on the family library cards for the Book Herder project.

We decided to number the cards in 4 different colors so that if the day arrives when dividing into groups is needed because of the limited number of books, each group will already have a color.

Saturday the truck returned along with Cory's two timber bamboo starts.

Once he can propagate more plants he will start to disperse this very large bamboo.

Care will be needed in choosing the locations as the tall bamboo will produce shade limiting what can grow close by it.

Yesterday the Fauche Wesleyan Church Women celebrated with a special service rounding out a week of special services.

We enjoyed the decorations, three special music groups including the women visiting from the Port Margot* church, a good sermon about throwing far away anything that will prevent us from running the Christian race and then a special offering.

A blessing to worship with the women and rejoice with them while being encouraged in our faith at the same tim.

* [How to say Port Margot. Anna was informed by a friend this week that by pronouncing the T in "Port" she sounded like a foreigner. Interesting that after all these years I never questioned why we dropped the T on Margot and not on port.]

Tomorrow Cory plans on sharing some fruit trees and plants near Cap.