See the photos of our plants.PHOTO
When we bought the land, over than half had no one plant because the owner was preparing to plant the rice; in the lower part of about a manzana (less than a hectare) there was a young forest of Madero Negro and in the quebrada ,40 large cedars. Without even knowing how it was we began to plant trees but, again, do not deny that a lot of help came from permaculture's course and its instructors, to teach us how to make a nursery and to create our own plants and to make available a large quantity of seeds difficult to find in Ometepe. Today in the farm is hard to find empty places to put new trees so much we planted and still we are far from stopping.
We have a small bank of seeds that we collect on our farm and everywhere we go,trying to select the best plants. All what we want to plant from seed or from cuttings goes to nursery where the plants are treated, cared ,and multiply until we move into the field. Maybe is the more important area of the farm, and nearby there is a small garden with vegetables, medicinal herbs , tobacco and spices.Towards the month of June when the rainy season begins, the plants are moved from the nursery to the field where they grow. For the first 2 or 3 years will receive a lot of care, such as water, compost,
protection against parasites and the wind and a lot of mulch (organic cover ), then they must survive alone apart some routine checks.It 'hard to make a list of the plants we have, although we are planning a census. I can briefly say that we have planted many native fruit trees, decoration plants, timber, and also many plants that come from the continent, from Central America and other areas like Asia and Africa. To give an idea i do a small list: about 400 different species of coffee, 40 coconuts, cacao trees, 5 different types of bamboo, lots of cedar, guanacaste, cahoba and local timbers, various species of mangoes, avocados,
about 200 citrus trees (lemons, oranges, grapefruit, tangerines), noni, guanabana, anona, star fruit, jack fruit lots of plants with edible leaves , 2 African baobab, pejibaje, 1 tagua, many trees for the production of seeds for decorative handycrafts, 200 royal palms for the roofs, african oil palms, many decorative plants of all species, agave ,cactus,xabila , pitaya , over 2000 bananas of 14 different species and much more.
In the farm is forbidden to hunt animals and even foreign neighbors are doing the same then we are creating a recovery area for wildlife now almost gone and in danger of extinction. In recent years , thanks to the shelters that we built in various parts of the farm are returning the iguanas (the iguanas like stones and we have built pyramids of stone to make their nest) ,that before were commons throughout Ometepe. We are waiting for the monkeys to come down from the volcano to give us a visit and we've planted in the upper part of the farm many mangoes just to invite them. There are several armadillos and hares, and a tremendous amount of different insects and spiders typical of tropical countries. Fortunately we are far from the lake and the slope is exposed to the wind so there are no mosquitoes. There are also generally unloved animals like snakes and scorpions, but not considered hazardous to humans; since 2002 no one person or child died from the bite of these animals that are usually well away from people.
Many are the birds with very bright colors, like the blue of the urraka, the yellow of the luis and the green of the parrots that are moving in groups of hundreds. Often in the dry season you can see groups of billions of ants that are going together to hunt small insects entering and cleaning the cabanas .An advice : when you see them is better to leave and after 1 or 2 hours they move, but if are annoyed, they attack anything and have a powerful venom that hurt.
