Oh my aching back!

Happy Friday!

Of course, when you're retired it doesn't have the zing it used to have. The plants still have to be cared for, fertilized, watered (sometimes, or sometimes kept from drowning), and the dreaded W word – weeding.

Weeding is like the seven labors of Hercules without his muscles. Down on your knees in the dirt and be careful you don't disturb a nest of fire ants, with long sleeves and gloved hands, you wield your trusty tools and curse at the weeds as you dig their roots from the ground.

I have to say that cursing at them is actually helpful. Grab that weed, shake it, call it George or Sharon (presuming you know a George or Sharon and don't like either one – you can fill in other names) and toss it into a bucket. Ahhh. Don't you feel better already?

Seriously though, you have to get them faster in Costa Rica than you did in the states or Canada. I can remember turning my back on weeds for a week in Georgia then coming back and finding that they had hardly grown. Not here. Turn your back on a weed in Costa Rica and it turns into a shrub in a week. Okay, maybe I exaggerate. A little.

Seriously, though, a friend recently told me he was going to buy grass seed and plant a lawn around the house. Sadly, grass seed seldom outpaces weed seeds. Weeds are survivors. They don't have to produce something useful (their flowers are usually small and don't take much energy), so, unlike a green bean or a dahlia, they can put all their energy into . . . being weedy – and a nuisance. If my friend really wants a green lawn, he'll have to put down sod, a lawn grown under special circumstances where every weed is given the boot.

Of course, he will still have to cope with the wind-borne seeds and the ones that the birds drop carelessly on his new lawn, but that's better than having to watch his grass seedlings out-competed for soil and sun. At some point, though, he will be like the rest of us, laboring under a hot sun, pulling or digging out weeds that threaten to engulf his fine carpet of green.

Me? I hope that some of you have heeded my call to do some succulent gardening. Putting in a flowering carpet with tangled roots and ground-hugging greenery that helps blot out weeds before they get started. Well, some of them, anyway.



Artocarpus altilis, the humble breadfruit, a dietary staple in many parts of the world, is actually available in Costa Rica at the Cocobolo Tree Farm  near Liberia. It was named for its bread-like texture when it is cooked, although it supposedly tastes more like a potato. In Costa Rica, plant it below 650 meters and it can grow into as tall as 26 meters (85 feet). If you want both shade and fruit, this is a great tree. It also produces well once established. In the right location, expect 50-150 fruits a year. Okay, corny joke – that's a lot of bread (fruit). Sorry.  This picture is from Cocobolo Tree Farm.

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