Tree Planting Trip

Earlier this week, we  loaded up the truck with an assortment of trees, plants, and cuttings.

Then we bumped our way two hours east, out to The Children of the Promise Campus where we introduced my folks to friends and made some new friends.

Cory looked over the campus to decide where the different trees could be placed depending on the size of the tree and how much flooding it may need to tolerate.

Wednesday morning we played with some of the children, talked to various house parents/staff about the types of fruits or trees they preferred around the homes, and Cory placed the potted trees/plants around the grounds.

Following lunch, Cory directed the planting and watering of the trees, including: egg fruit, malay apple, mango, mulberry, starfruit, face roselle, chaya, edible hibiscus, aloe, miracle fruit, bilimbi, biriba, black sapote, jack fruit, dragon fruit, and Barbados cherry.

Ma'afala breadfruit in background to the right of the gentleman.

Cory, Dad, and a staff member also made a delivery to a local Pastor of some trees and plants. Because they happened to be leaving the COTP campus at shift change, they also gave a ride to some of the staff going their direction.

The church/school yard had a good size breadfruit that Cory brought a few years ago and people are asking for more to plant.

The photo is a 4 acre field that the pastor bought to plant and help the community. the former owner had planted one of the new breadfruit and a few local fruit trees. It is good to see the new varieties growing well and starting to produce.

Back at COTP we enjoyed our time learning about the staff and ministry.

After a few more chats and planting on Thursday morning we packed up and headed further east to see the Trou de Nord Wesleyan church and drop off the remaining fruit trees.

Since the phase-one dedication that my family attended a couple of years ago, the church building continues with most of the windows containing nice iron work.

Additional buildings in the church yard include the start of a parsonage and completed bathroom. The banana plants and garden on the property look productive.

Although Pastor Rigo could not meet with us, he reported that the church family now includes 200 new families in need of Konsey books.

Brother Eli met with us and told us that between 600-700 people attend weekly services and occasionally the church is full.

Turning the truck back west to head home, we did stop for one more agricultural visit at Helping Haitian Angels.

Parsonage under construction

Cory and the guys planted some trees at their location almost a year ago and this Wednesday received an email about giving some advice about planting a large garden including fruit trees.

So we stopped in to see how the first trees fared and talk a bit about the new plans. Last year's trees suffered during the dry season due to staff leaving but many of the trees were recovering from the past few months of abundant rain.

 Cory will continue to advise by emails and phone calls and hopefully get them some additional trees to bless the children and families.

We enjoyed some hamburgers and hot dogs in Cap Haitian on our ride back home.

We pray that the trees and plants will grow big and strong and be a blessing to many people as they produce fruit, and seeds for planting.

Trip planning...& trees for sale.

It looks like early next week we will be making a trip to Southern Haiti where the hurricane destroyed the fruit trees and gardens.

Will try to post a few details and a list of prayer requests before we leave.

This week Cory's guys started digging breadfruit root cuttings of the quick bearing Ma'afala variety to build up a good supply to ship or deliver to Southern Haiti. The existing breadfruit variety in the damaged area will sprout many root suckers for regrowing or transplanting so there shouldn't be a need for that variety.

Cory checked what types of coconuts would be strongest in high winds, disease resistant and produce well. He was surprised to find that the strange mutant looking short coconut trees near our favorite beach must be 'Fiji Dwarf' coconuts, one of the top recommended varieties now in Florida due to high disease resistance. He plans to start buying coconuts to use as seeds for new trees. We've also started to save more seeds from various fruits now in season to send south.

For some places the complete destruction will allow for improvement on what was once there. Maybe the trees and corps will be more diverse as the areas get replanted.

A good lesson that both missions and homeschool taught me and remind me of often... to take the time to occasionally check out what is working and what is not and adjust procedure as needed.

This week Cory and I created a new section in the plant nursery for 'sales' .

As more people learn about Cory's trees they tend to drop in to pick up a few trees without notice. Cory and the guys try to head across the river about once a week to check the gardens there and work on them....leaving the non-plant expert here to sell trees.

Last time a man didn't really care that he could be buying a black sapote or and egg fruit, [Cory thinks maybe he got an avocado as one is now missing from that area].

Yes, I do know and recognize some of the trees....but Cory has lots of trees in the nursery and when they are little some have very similar leaves...if you are not an expert on rare tropical fruits.

another nursery area

Another issue we're hoping this helps with is that before when people came for plants, because different trees were scattered here and there-they would see other trees they wanted to buy but some trees Cory has plans for or are experimental and he's not ready to distribute them.

Now with a nice area with trees for sale I can sell without worrying about letting some special tree of Cory's go accidentally. The trees are organized by row and I hold a list of names so I don't sell the wrong type of tree.

Trees in a plastic bag 25 Haitian gouds or 50 for a tree in a plastic pot. Grafted trees cost more. Return the pot for a 25 goud refund. We may add a 50 goud section for rarer trees or decorative plants that Cory doesn't like to spend as much time on. [64.76 goud to a USA dollar-as of this morning.]

So currently selling: egg fruit, black sapote, malay apple, breadfruit, starfruit, mulberry, bilimbi, jackfruit, grafted mangoes, cupuasu and biriba. Grafted avocados in a month or two.

Garden Update by Cory

We hiked to the new gardens Thursday this week.

We need rain, things are still green but even some established trees are wilted.

Gardeners in the floodplain are busy preparing gardens and planting peanuts.

The share cropper has part of our big garden freshly planted to rice.

Note the erosion control berms made of the old weeds.

I have expressed concern to him about topsoil erosion and the berms are the usual local practice although of limited effect on soil loss from our heavy downpours, about 150 inches of rain in a normal year.

It is good having someone working the garden for free to help keep livestock out but he isn't there all the time.

A neighbor reported that he tied up a big cow that was in the garden and said we should come more often.

Damage was minor with nibbles here and there and only one palm mowed off.

I sprayed most of the trees/palms on the underside of young leaves and at the base with deer/rabbit repellent, will see if it keeps livestock and rhino beetles from eating the trees.

Peach palms on campus are blooming again as harvest starts.

One tree that had a small bunch of small fruit last year has four good size bunches now and several flower buds.

 The fruit are much bigger than they look on the tree.

The flavor is good.



Fruit harvested on campus this week:
front - 3 banana varieties (Gros Michael, Ceylon/little Cory, and a FHIA hybrid), breadnut, hot bird peppers, miracle fruit and two barbados cherries/acerola, wild passionfruit.

2nd row - bilimbi (sour fruit) peach palm, sapodilla, breadfruit slice.

3rd row - starfruit/carambola,

4th row - Blanc' mango, atemoya, cacao, avocado, biriba, 'Baptiste' mango.


5th row - squash, black sapote, coconut.

Not included but also producing: guava, African oil palm, regular passionfruit. There would probably still be a few pineapple but the last few disappeared before full size.

May 7th already. Praises.

Cory and Eli's trip went OK and both remain thankful we do NOT live in Port. Traffic was near gridlock on some roads when Cory did some shopping during Eli's test.

Bilimbi

Eli reports that the test went 'OK'. Our calm child.

One of the groups that Cory brought plants and trees for did not make their meeting point. Thankfully the Lord arranged that the couple who generously hosted them on Friday night offered to provide the delivery. 

Anna and I made lots of memories during the weekend but sadly managed to zap a part of the washing machine due to our lack of understanding of the electrical system. 

Starfruit that Warsaw team helped plant.

After the local electrician found the part he thinks fried, Cory found it on-line and ordered 2 since shipping costs more than the $1.60 part. Praying it gets here fast and works.

Cory and the guys planted a couple hundred breadfruit cuttings and about 80 seedling bilimbi trees. 

Thankful to worship with our Haitian church celebrating with them 6 new additions to the Lord's family!

Baby bilimbi trees

Bilimbi, a cousin to Starfruit tastes very sour so other than using it to show the sweetening powers of Miracle fruit or as a lime substitute we rarely used the fruit. 

Now we hear that the local folks harvest the fruit so it no longer rots on the ground, mixing it with other juice and using them in cooking. So time to start propagating. Since there are hundreds of tiny trees under the big tree they transplanted those into nursery bags. 

Over three inches of rain last night will help the plants and trees grow.

Eli and Anna did well with only a part-time teacher but now I'm back. We're working hard the next couple of weeks to pull up some subjects that lag behind our schedule before we leave for missionary retreat on the 19th.

I'm also happy to report that I've compiled our curriculum list for our next school year and plan to order the non-Kindle items this week. We plan to start our new year in July as we do not yet know when we will visit the USA. 

The lack of rain this winter resulted in a bumper mango crop on campus. Did you know that dogs like the sweet Fransic mangos but rarely eat other mangos? 

We made a recipe of mango chutney and Cory spiced up his 1/2. I like it on crackers with cheese!  Easy to make and most fruits can be used to make chutney [a type of fruit relish]