Puerto Rico! The Crown Jewel of the Carribean.
Hello from the island of Puerto Rico! The Crown Jewel of the Carribean.
To set the landscape - we’re located at 1800’ elevation in the center of the island in a town called Orocovis, affectionately coined: “The Heart of Puerto Rico”. Orocovis is known for its picturesque mountains, windy roads, breathtaking waterfalls, and their road-side restaurants where locals and tourists together enjoy the energy of Puerto Rico.
Our farm is located at the top of the mountain as you arrive in the pueblo of Orocovis. The land was old cow farms and is very hilly, over 200’ of elevation gain occurs on our farm with hills up to 30°. It’s actually dry a lot of the year with a Mediterrean Climate, wildfires occur at times; however, when it rains, it pours. Our high 24hr rainfall total has been 8”, we have a bio composting pond that holds 50k gallons of water that can go from empty to full in 6 hrs.
When we originally started the farm we were focused on growing everything organically. As the saying goes, ‘You are what you eat’ - our team, and customers, want to be clean. Organic Farming is tough in flat areas, in rainy tropical areas there are even more challenges. The most notable being the large amounts of rain rapidly leach nitrogen and phosphorus out of the soil. This makes it tough for small body fruiting plants to grow well, especially in large rainfall events.
Nitrogen is one of the hardest nutrients to supply organically as well due to the large volume of the nutrient that plants use. Underdosing causes small and mis-developed plants. Overdosing can cause burning of plants and polluting of local tributaries.
Our Solution to nitrogen was, and is, the cows! The beautiful cows give us a way to easily convert the nitrogen in the tall weeds that grow rapidly into organic already composted nitrogen that is instantly bioavailable to our plants or fish. Cows give a bounty of resources and are great for the environment if raised in sustainable ways and places eg: tropical mountain areas!
With the nitrogen from the cows and from doing numerous road trips around the island to source the other nutrients like phosphorus, potassium, silica, calcium, sulphur, among others we are able to successfully make a 95%+ made in Puerto Rico blend that all our plants seems to love and thrive from. We are blessed to be able to learn and have a cross beneficial relationship with our island home.
We hope with our organic mix and farming techniques, we can help Puerto Rico become a self sustainable organic food supplier. If you’re ever interested in taking classes, helping out on the farm, or taking a vacation, message us!