Home for Sale Costa Rica

We are not in the real estate business. My parents want to sell their small home in Costa Rica approx. one acre near a nice creek and small town/village outside Venado. They just retired this year after more than 40 years civil service and don't want to travel as much anymore. They are asking $40,000 for the lot with Tico style rustic house. They just built a very nice fence around the property that cost them about $2000. For more info please contact me at costaricanaturally@gmail.com

New School Year and More New Reforestation Contacts

Hi everyone! We've started a new school year at Marian Baker School in Tres Rios so that's probably why you haven't heard from us in a long time! Now we have one in 6th grade - Middle School! and prep or kindergarden. I'm teaching 5th grade this year and have an awesome class of 9 students, with whom I'm blogging on studeous.com

We are working hard on the reforestation front and have finished up our big project in the Osa. Besides our current reforestation maintenance contracts we are searching for good land for several clients. Listen to one recent letter:

Dear Sir,

I am interested in contributing to a reforestation project in Costa Rica.

Please contact me with information about the process that you follow.

Kind regards

xxx

Hi xxx,

I hadn't answered your email yet, because frankly I was trying to figure out how best to go about it. We offer planting services to people that want to plant trees and reforest for a fee, and we also offer real estate services for those that want to find good farm to reforest, but we haven't gotten anyone that wants to contribute directly or finance a project right out until now. I've thought about answering you by telling you we'll plant trees on your behalf or maybe getting you in touch with one of our clients that is starting up - one is from Singapore and starting a timber fund, another is from the US and starting a smaller reforestation project with several private investors, yet another just contacted us from the UK to start an ecolodge combined with a reforestation project. So maybe you can tell us, what exactly you are looking for and we'll get you connected?

Best Regards,
Christina

Summer vacation Costa Rica farm style

My sister in law Grace and her three kids, another cousin and our girls got together for a farm picnic on Finca Ojo de Agua in Venado, San Carlos. We rode the pony, fed the fish in the tilapia pond, swung on the hammocks and saw the black "borrego" mini pigs. We also hiked to the river and had rock throwing contests. We didn't go in the river because it was already getting late in the day and in the rainy season one should always be cautious about swimming in a mountain river because a "cabeza de agua" or head of water could come washing down from above. We actually saw a big hornets nest so we quietly left the river and adventured on back to the antique (30 years old) cottage. We fixed up some ham and cheese sandwiches with chips and apples for a nice picnic at the cottage. We saw mangos, guayabas, squash, plantains, tiquisqui, oranges and limes but we didn't pick anything because most everything was out of season.

Update on Leaf Cutter Ants

It's been about two weeks since abuelo sprayed all the garden with the onion/garlic mixture and we haven't seen a leaf cutter ant eating the veggies or the leaves. In fact even the little worms that were "bugging" our zucchini have gone to find better leaves. Leaf cutter ant problem solved for now! We will see how long the effect of this substance lasts. The best part is that we didn't have to put any toxic chemicals on the garden in order to get rid of these insects!

25 hectare restoration project

Planting 2,000 trees a day, Hector and his crew may just be back in a few weeks instead of months as we had previously thought. Because this client wants to max out the potential for wildlife and birds, we are planting a wide variety or polyculture of 625 native trees per hectare as opposed to the regular monoculture 816 trees per hectare. We also have to plant in a pattern that is not distinguishable from the natural forest, which is pretty difficult! When you plant in rows and diagonals for commercial plantations sometimes you error a bit, but try to error on purpose! Today Hector is out walking the site with the landscape architect so hopefully I will get a positive phone call today if all is well! Keep you all updated.

Restoration Ecology

Today Hector set off with his planting crew in the big truck to the Osa Pennisula to begin a two month long tropical rain forest restoration project. We've been working for the past few months on a bid for the 25 hectare (with a possiblity of up to 100 hectares) project and we've finally signed contracts and headed forth to plant more than 15,000 trees in order to jump start the natural forest regeneration process. Usually our clients want us to plant trees for a future commercial value so we plant in straight lines utilizing mostly teak and some proven native lumber trees, but this time we can do what we really like to do: plant as many native trees, as large as we can transplant, with the specific intention of restoring the forest. The challenge to this specific property is that it has been used as a cattle ranch for more than 50 years was very well managed with exotic grasses. These exotic grasses are reforesters' archenemy because they threaten the very life of any seedling because they compete (and usually win) for the light from the sun and for the nutrients for the soil. We have also on our minds others' experience with growing native species after such a long time period of exotic grasses - with special thanks to Lynn Carpenter of University of California who suggested we "obtain fine roots from the parent tree or any other tree of that species, wash the soil off them very gently, chop the fine roots into pieces less than an inch long, and put about a teaspoon of those roots in with the seedling that you plant in the nursery." This helps return the "mycorrhizal fungi that should be in their tree parent's soil". Although we have also read that in some areas this may not be as much of a problem and a simple application of "cal" should prevent some percent of tree loss. We also have recently read about an ongoing project near Dominical associated with the Cornell University that if you would like to read about, check out this web page: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428133928.htm#
So hopefully between all of this advice and the experience of the Hector, Lucas and the crew we will have one more successful reforestation project planted before the end of this rainy season. We'll keep you posted!

Vegetable Garden

My in-laws are helping Hector plant a vegetable garden and soon we'll have plenty of yucca, tequisqui, radish, tomatoes, chiles, culantro, pineapple, corn, green beans and bananas. Hector paid a tractor about $20 an hour to turn up the soil and then my father in law made the beds. I'd say in about a month or two we'll have enough for our two families, and maybe for my sister and brother in laws too! (if they stop making jokes about my Spanish ;) Today my mother in law made a home remedy for the "sompopas" or the leaf cutter ants that are just eating up everything in sight. We got the recipe from Super Goms in Monterrey:
1/4 k onion
1/4 k garlic
800 ml alcohol
200 ml water
let sit for 8 to 10 days and then use a tablespoonful for each liter of water; spray on affected plants
I'll let you all know how effective it is.