Published on Friday, September 6, 2024

By Victoria Torley

You know you’re a gardener when:


You get used to people staring at you. Why? Because it is 90 F, the sun is beating down, and you are wearing a long-sleeved shirt and long pants. And a hat. And boots.


You have an entire first aid kit in the kitchen. You know exactly how much antibiotic ointment to put on a scrape and how to make a Bandaid last for more than a day. You also have a supply of ice packs, ace bandages, ointments for stings and, in the back of the closet, a set of crutches.


If you are a woman, you have more gardening hats than you have pairs of shoes. You don’t like shoes anyway and only wear them because of the fire ants.


Your neighbors are used to your spouse standing on the porch yelling, “Time to come in!” You stay out longer anyway.


You and sunburn have made peace with each other. You let yourself get burned once a month and wear extra clothes the rest of the time.


Your doctor is used to seeing you come in on crutches. She just sighs and wonders what part of the body you have hurt this time. She also wonders if you need an x-ray.


Your vegetable garden gets more attention than your loved ones. Oddly, they don’t seem to mind.


Your conversations usually involve the size of your Big Boy tomatoes and the quarts of string beans you picked the morning.


You made a lot of walking sticks but you keep putting them down and losing them. You promised yourself that you would spray paint them orange... when you get around to it.


You know 15 different ways to kill leaf-cutter ants. Two of them actually work.


Your spouse won’t accept a hug until after you shower. You shower three times a day.


You have several sets of gardening tools. They are all dirty.

You keep a tarp in the back of the car because your spouse objects to manure spills.

You have finally learned to shake out your boots before you put them on. Scorpion stings are painful. The doctor understood. Your spouse didn’t.

You decided to try one of the peppers on a plant you don’t recall planting. Your screams startled the neighbors.

You have your own mug at the emergency room. The nurses call you by your first name.

You know how to make bokashi without using wheat bran. You even know what bokashi is.

Yes, we gardeners know what we are... we are a bit loco.

Plant of the week. I recently saw my first Erythrina poeppigiana, the coral tree or in Costa Rica also known as the Poro tree.

My tree's bright orange flowers are an odd shape and grow in clusters. I had to stop and take some cuttings but they aren’t doing well.

This is a great tree that can grow to 30 meters or be trimmed to 3 or 4 depending on the size of your area.

As it turns out, the flowers are edible and are said to taste like green beans. Plant this beauty in full sun and average soil for amazing color.

Poro is a tropical evergreen tree with conspicuous orange-red flowers. It is mainly used as a shade tree in coffee and cocoa plantations, hence the Spanish name "Madre de Cacao."

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Find more amazing stories about gardening in Costa Rica on the AM Costa Rica Garden page. Questions on this article, Ms. Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached by emailing victoriatorley1@gmail.com
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