Published on Friday, March 1, 2024

 

By Victoria Torley

Oh, my aching back.

‘Tis the season to start seeds. So says my friend with the farm, so I am taking his advice. This morning I grabbed all my old egg cartons and planted most of the seeds I got from the U.S. and England.

Some of them are old friends – cucumbers, spaghetti squash, and watermelon. Some are truly new to my garden. I have planted asparagus from root but never from seed so I intend to baby them as much as I can. Brussels sprouts and artichokes are also in the “never before” category.

Then there are things that I have never heard of like “Maravilla de Verano” lettuce. This one is really special and we found it in England. 

The lettuce was developed in Italy to grow in the warmer climates around the Mediterranean including Sicily and even Morocco. Since Metric Man loves crunchy lettuce, we thought we should give it a try.

Even the soil was special today. It is a serious mix of truly cured compost with lots of castings from red wigglers and light orange clay. 

Clay? This is clay brought up from the depths by my old enemies, leaf-cutter ants. 

Clay is full of minerals and the leaf cutters bring it to the surface in tiny little bites when they dig a nest. Mix those little bites with your compost and it should give any plant a natural head start. We shall see.

If you decide to try the “cutter clay,” make sure you keep it dry until you use it or it will clump. Clumping is bad, and fluffy is good, so store it under cover.

My farming friend also said, “’Tis the season to prune your fruit trees.” Hey, my trees still have fruit on them. “No problem,” says he. “Leave the branches that are still fruiting alone.” Well, okay.

So now we have a local expert out pruning the orchard. We have to admit the citrus do need pruning (they also need to be left alone by leaf cutters), so we shall see how this all turns out.

He did have some final words on citrus. Do not top-fertilize! Top fertilizing is spreading fertilizer on the ground. He says that just feeds the grass (okay we admit the grass looks good).

His advice is to take a piece of plastic pipe, angle one end for easy insertion into the soil, shove it in about 6 inches and pour the liquid fertilizer directly into the soil. Do that in several places around the trees and they should fruit like mad.

Okay, we’ll try it, but, oh, my aching back.

Plant of the week.  Talking about citrus. Have you heard about kumquats? Kumquat (genus Fortunella) are evergreen shrubs or trees of the family Rutaceae, grown for their tart orange fruits. Native to eastern Asia, these small trees can be cultivated throughout the tropics, such as Costa Rica.  Kumquat trees reach about 2.4 to 3.6 meters (8 to 12 feet) high. The fruit has a pleasant, sweet tart flavor and is harvested in Florida from October through February. Like almost of citrus, kumquats are good sources of vitamins A and C, phosphorus and potassium.

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