- This is the plot of land reserved for the new tea installment. I was really excited to have such a great spot to work with. It’s a pretty steep incline (~30˚) with compact clayey soil rich in nutrients and worm activity.
- The yoga pavilion in the background
- Plotting the contour for the tea rows
- Staking out the tea garden. Each plant is spaced 75cm (~2.5ft) from each other and each row is spaced 6 feet apart. Minus the walkway, this area of land (about 2000 sq ft) will hold about 150 plants. I could easily reduce the space between plants and rows to plant a greater density, but this is more of a long term sustainable approach, offering lots of room for each tree to bear roots and expand its crown.
- 3,4,5
- The zig-zag walkway to help prevent erosion.
- wow, lots of healthy green weeds and grass growing with all of this rain
- the contour changes after the first three rows, so I installed a “v” shape row to reveal that change (see next two pictures)
- first blueprint, not to scale.
- notice the change in row design to accommodate the change in contour.
- Intern, Austin, weed-wacking prior to planting
- pre-dug holes. I did this year a couple days before planting, which was a bit of a mistake because so much rain falls here that it collects in the holes due to lack of drainage and runoff took some soil away.
- ready to be planted
- I know this probably looks strange, but what I’m spraying isn’t chemical, in fact, it’s a 5 herb compost tea created by the farms’ ethnobotonist, Rafa. I’m inoculating the soil by spraying each hole and the pre-dug soil. I also added some bd compost to each hole + some coffee grounds for acidity.
- Off to their new home
- Tea keiki’s are ready for planting :)
- Intern, Isabell, enjoying her time on the farm doing rainforest certification work, making chocolate, and planting tea.
- Love planting Tea in the tropical rainforest of Costa Rica :)
- Finishing up
- Mainly done for now. A little more landscaping is necessary, but essentially this garden will be raised and ready to harvest in 3 – 5 years.
As an intern at Finca Luna Nueva, one of my projects is to install a new tea garden next to the yoga pavilion. The intention is many fold; we want to increase our tea production to run workshops and tours in the future and to sell tea at the gift shop here at Finca Luna Nueva; another intern is researching the certification and retail aspects of this future product; and we also want our guests attention, while practicing meditation or yoga in the pavilion, to be drawn along the flowing tea rows into the surrounding rainforest. Of course, we also want this garden to be practical and aesthetic, which is why the rows are planted on the contour for ease of harvest and maintenance.
This garden will also receive byodynamic compost preparations, and follow a sustainable harvesting and pruning routine following the biodynamic calendar. Each plant and row has been provided plenty of space for long-term development of roots and crowns, not the mention the zig-zag walkway installed to prevent erosion of the land. These tea babies have been seed propagated from a mother tree standing 40 feet tall, planted back in 99′, meaning they have genetic diversity and strong tap roots.
The bed has been officially installed as of yesterday (Sept 18th). It only took two days to plant 145 tea plants, and while some minor landscaping still needs to be done, the bed is in its nascent beginnings. Properly maintained and cared for, it should be harvestable in 3 – 5 years.
I’m actually already working on the next garden, which is quite different from the first one. No flowing contour rows this time, but I’ll save that for another blog update. I’m kept quite busy at la finca these days, trying to finish up the cob-oven project (which I’ll blog about in more detail later as well), designing and installing more tea beds, propagating tea, doing lots of Biodynamic research, tending to guests, making chocolate, hiking to volcano craters, and mapping out the logistics for my tea workshop in October, drawing tea pictures and writing agriculture poetry, among other enjoyable activities.
Pura Vida
TLC