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If you've been watching my social media accounts, you've
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seen me posting about my recent trip to Puerto Rico.
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I was hoping to see what backyard gardeners were growing
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in a tropical region and also get an idea of what crops are
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economically significant to the region.
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And I was actually surprised by what I learned today on Just
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Grow Something. We're going to talk about what
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crops are prevalent in Puerto Rico and how we can duplicate
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some of that in our own homes, even if we live somewhere that
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is decidedly not tropical. We'll also reveal your answers
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to the October Question of the Month.
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What was your biggest failure in the garden this year?
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Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen, I started
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gardening in a small corner of my suburban backyard and now 18
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years later, I've got a degree in horticulture and operate a 40
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acre market farm. I believe there is power in food
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and that everyone should know how to grow at least a little
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bit of their own. On this podcast, I share
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evidence based techniques to help you plant, grow, harvest
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and store all your family's favorites.
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Consider me your friend in the garden.
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So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
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just grow something. OK, let's start with the answers
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to October's Question of the Month.
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What was your biggest failure in the garden this year?
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From my e-mail inbox, Shelly Orozco says my biggest failure
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this year. It's the same as last year,
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sweet potatoes. Last year I had them in a very
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large planter and the vines were beautiful, but I didn't get any
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potatoes. This year I bought 12 starts at
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a local nursery and planted 3 each in five gallon buckets.
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This year the vines never developed and gradually all died
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off. Not sure what I'm doing wrong,
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but I'm thinking I'll try regular potatoes next year.
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But I love sweet potatoes and I really want to grow some.
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And I feel that because I love sweet potatoes also, and this is
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super frustrating in the case of having, you know, big, beautiful
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vines and no tubers. Often I've seen where these
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vines go crazy, but because of where they're positioned in the
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garden, either in containers or in raised beds, the vines don't
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have anywhere to root into along the way as they grow.
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So wherever these vines touch soil, they will root.
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And this can sometimes lead to more tubers, depending on where
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you're growing. But if that doesn't happen, or
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if you have a shorter growing season and there's not enough
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time for those secondary tubers to develop, then the plants end
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up putting up too much energy into growing vines and not
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enough into growing the tubers. So if the vines are going crazy,
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but you've dug around under there and you aren't seeing any
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tubers developing, it's OK to cut those vines back to about 3
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feet to encourage the root growth.
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The other thing with sweet potatoes is nutrients.
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So they need adequate amounts of phosphorus and potassium to grow
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those nice big tubers. This is especially important
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when we're talking about containers because the volume of
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soil just may not contain enough nutrients to get those plants
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all the way through the growing season without some subsequent
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feeding along the way. The third thing that I've seen
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is just not growing the right type of sweet potato vine.
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There are plenty of occasions where someone buys these plants
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in the garden center and they're told they are edible sweet
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potatoes, when in fact they're the decorative type and they're
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not going to grow a tuber or they're only going to grow very
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tiny little tubers. These plants are bred to have
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those big showy vines and intentionally not grow much in
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tubers. So if you're like Shelly and you
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haven't had any luck with sweet potatoes, think about those
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three things and see if there's somewhere that you could improve
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maybe for next season. But absolutely, I hope that
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Shelly tries again From the Just Grow Something Gardening Friends
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Facebook group. We had a lot of responses.
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If you're not in there, the link will be in the episode
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description. Just answer a few questions and
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you're into a fabulously supportive group of fellow
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gardeners. So what was their biggest
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failure in the garden this year? Amy Davis said everything that
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the grasshoppers demolished. Yeah, I've had that happen too.
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There's been several years where I haven't gotten anything in the
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way of green beans because the grasshoppers have demolished all
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of them. My go to with this is absolutely
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insect netting. Without fail, everything I
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plant, as long as it doesn't need a pollinator, gets insect
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netting. The moment that it is plant
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doesn't matter. Plant planted.
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The moment is planted. It doesn't matter whether or not
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it's a transplant or if it's something that I'm growing
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directly from seed. It goes in the ground and it
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gets covered. It's not the prettiest thing in
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the world. It can be a little ugly
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sometimes depending on how you're doing it, but I would
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rather have a productive garden than a pretty garden.
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So I absolutely would recommend this for everybody if you were
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having any kind of insect problem, specifically
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grasshoppers, I will link in the show notes to the one that I
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use. Now, if you're, you're growing
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something that needs the pollinators, you can start them
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off being covered. But then as soon as those plants
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start to bloom, then you'll obviously need to uncover those
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plants to let the pollinators in.
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But hopefully by that point, the plants will be strong enough to
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be able to combat, you know, the, the grasshoppers and be
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able to, to give you a crop because they've made it to a
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closer to maturity. So there's a little help for
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you, hopefully. Tammy Engel said growing too
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many cucumbers to keep up with and companion planting them with
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my hot Peppers, which stunted the growth of my hot Peppers.
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They took off after removing the cucumbers, but many didn't turn
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ripe before frost. Next year, cucumber gets its own
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space. So companion planting and
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interplanting is always a trial and error sort of activity.
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I think sometimes we hit on something that's really
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effective and sometimes it just doesn't work out and we always
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end up having to learn that the hard way.
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I applaud you, Tammy, for giving that combo a try, though.
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It seems like the kind of crawling habit of the cucumbers,
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if you're letting them grow on the ground, would make an
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excellent sort of ground cover for the Peppers as they grow.
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It just probably didn't work out in terms of nutrient
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availability. So a good rule of thumb when
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we're trying new interplanting techniques is high, low, fast,
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slow. So meaning plant the tall
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growing plants with the lower growing ones and then plant the
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faster growing plants with the slower growing ones.
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And that way you kind of have a staggered usage and you also
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have of of nutrients and you have staggered growth patterns.
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But we also have to think about when these plants are using
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their nutrients, right? So Peppers and cucumbers both
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rely on phosphorus and potassium for producing their fruits.
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So if I were to try this combo, I would plant an early crop of,
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say, pickling cucumbers, the ones that tend to push out a ton
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of little fruits over the course of, you know, several weeks, and
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then they maybe start to die back a little bit.
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And then I would plant the Peppers into the cucumber plants
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a few weeks into harvesting, while the Peppers are generally
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using nitrogen to put on that leafy growth.
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So you have the cucumbers at that point pushing out their
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blooms and their fruits. They're using up the phosphorus
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and the potassium. They're not really relying as
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much on the nitrogen where the Peppers at that point are
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relying on the nitrogen to put out that leafy growth and to get
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big and strong. So then the cucumbers would be
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done and getting pulled by the time the Peppers needed that
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phosphorus and potassium for their fruits.
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But in the meantime, the vines would have provided a ground
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cover to keep the weeds at Bay that would compete with the
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Peppers, right? So and then you could replace
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the the cucumbers with some leafy greens that would
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appreciate the shade of the Peppers during the hottest part
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of the day. Lots of ways to play around with
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inter planting and companion planting and experimenting like
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this is a great way to get more out of the same space.
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It just sometimes takes a little bit of work to get to a winning
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combo so keep trying. Tammy Charla Mcharg said my
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garden failure this year was waiting too long to start melons
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so they didn't have enough growing time in my climate zone
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5B East Coast of Canada. I had two tiny fruit that didn't
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ripen with everything else planned for the garden, they
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were just lower on my priority list.
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I'll try again at some point though.
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The silly thing is I did the same thing two years ago.
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Next time I really have to start much earlier.
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Honestly this is not uncommon for lots of different things.
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Melons for sure fall into this a lot, especially in short season
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areas. But the same could be said for
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sweet corn or okra or anything that is super frost sensitive or
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that needs a lot of heat hours. This is when I find it really
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helpful to lay everything out on a calendar during the offseason.
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So not only do I know when everything needs to be
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transplanted in order to get them to maturity, but I can
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count backwards to figure out when to start them so they're
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ready to go in on time. Now I totally get that.
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You know, things not being as high of a priority as other
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things, even if it is on your calendar.
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That's happened to me the past two seasons with okra.
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For some reason, even when planting fall crops, I've
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underestimated how much time I needed for that crop to make it
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to maturity before either of my frosts hit or the daylight hours
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dipped, and I didn't end up getting anything out of those
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crops. And failure of fall crops seems
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to be a little bit of a theme this season, Cody Ruth said.
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Not a single one of my fall plants made it after carefully
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planting and seed starting in the heat of the summer.
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I thought I'd get much more assistance from Mother Nature
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with the watering, but we haven't had a drop since July
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and I had a surprise surgery that kept me from tending them
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much while they were seedlings. Every single one dried up and
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died. First of all, Cody, I hope you
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have recovered well from your surgery.
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Second, you are not alone. With the exception of my Napa
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cabbage, kale, and collards, every single one of our fall
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crops failed too, and that 100% was because of excessive heat
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and 0 rainfall. We've just now seen our first
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significant rainfall since July, just the past couple of days.
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I think our total rainfall from like July through October was
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less than two inches. So we were definitely and are
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still definitely in a drought and nothing survived.
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So I feel you, and so does Rich Flint, who said my biggest
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failure was everything I planted for my fall garden.
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But a hurricane and flooding will do that to you sometimes.
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Yeah. Rich actually had posted a video
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in the group of him preparing for the hurricane coming in and
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he was harvesting from his shampoo plant.
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If you have never seen shampoo ginger, it's a tropical plant
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and it has this, like, pine cone shaped flower.
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And when you squeeze this flower, you get this fragrant, I
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don't know, juice, I guess you would call it, that can be used
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as a shampoo and a hair conditioner.
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It was actually really cool to watch.
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I'm really sorry about the gardens, Rich, and I hope you
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guys are recovering otherwise from all of that severe weather.
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Matt Trusty said, not really much a failure, but I learned
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you have to thin carrots. Yes, carrots are Divas.
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They want all the space to themselves.
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So, you know, unless you want tiny, skinny little skin,
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scraggly, you know, carrots, they absolutely need to be
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thinned. The easiest way to do this that
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I have found is actually take a little pair of snips and just go
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along the soil line and snip the tops off to the width or the the
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spacing that you want them to be, which is generally speaking,
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anywhere between two and four inches apart, depending on the
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size of the carrot that you're growing.
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Trying to pull them #1 is really tedious #2 you're disturbing the
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roots next to the other guys. So it really is easiest just to
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take some snips and go along and just cut those greens.
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And you can do that a couple of different times.
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So you can thin them in stages. The other way too, is to plant
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them more thinly when you do plant them.
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So, you know, a lot of people use seed tape, either a
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purchased seed tape or stuff that you're, you can make
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yourself where you either take, you know, toilet tissue or
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something similar to that and you space the seeds out in the
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tissue and then you lay it out in the garden and water it in
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that way. You know what the spacing is.
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Another way to do this is with sand.
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So if you can mix your carrot seeds with the play sand and
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then you use that to sprinkle your, your carrots in, in the
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lime, you're going to have better spacing with the carrots
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because it's it you're getting the sand in there too.
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I hope that makes sense. But that's what I'm doing this
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year. I'm planning on doing for my, my
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fall over winter carrots is doing it that way.
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So that's another, another trick to make sure that they're
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planted more thinly than but I know that it's hard and they're
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tiny. So snips take use the snips.
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Sarah Boyson Hashman said Biggest failure was ourselves.
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We busted butt to get all the plants good and strong and
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replanted after the animals and hail kept damaging the garden.
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But then everything was so late to produce anything and we were
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in a busy season and not able to truly put away the bounty.
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We got some put away, but most of it got fed to the chickens.
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Now that is truly frustrating knowing you put so much effort
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into the garden only to find when it comes time to reap the
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bounty, other aspects of your life have taken over to the
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point that you can't do anything with it.
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You're not alone in this one either, Sarah.
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I think this happens to a lot of us.
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I'm just glad at least your chickens got to enjoy the
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garden. Hopefully.
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Bonus points for really tasty eggs.
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And finally from YouTube, What was your biggest failure in the
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garden this year? John Voichtech said was excited
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to try our glass gem and Peaches and cream corn crops, but an
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animal ate all of them just before they were ready for
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harvest. Our biggest fail this year?
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Brainstorming for better solutions for next season.
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Yes, I absolutely get that one. We have spent years trying to
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outsmart the raccoons and the deer, and at one point we
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thought maybe it was, Oh well, maybe we just plant more so that
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we have more to share. No, didn't work out that way.
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As a matter of fact, the deer come through a lot of the time
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and they just continue to eat the tops off of the plants as
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they're trying to get to maturity.
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And then once they do finally get to maturity, it seems like
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quite literally the day before we're ready to go and harvest
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because we know the corn is going to be right at its peak.
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The raccoons will come through and quite literally just eat the
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the ears right off of the plants.
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Super frustrating. So what I did last year, which
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absolutely worked and I think you can do this either in raised
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containers or in an in ground bed and it should help.
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I used bird netting and I quite literally wrapped the plants.
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So I have 10 planter box direct planters out in one section of
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my front yard and I used those. I designated those for my sweet
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corn and planted all the sweet corn in there, planted them in
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blocks so I was sure that they would get pollinated.
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And then I used, as they got to maturity or you know, they got
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tall enough, I used a bird netting and quite literally just
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wrapped around the entire block of those plants.
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It created a physical barrier where the deer and the raccoons
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couldn't get in. I didn't lose a single ear of
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corn after I did that. I had one that I lost and it was
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before I wrapped the the corn up.
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So if you can use and it's not the insect netting, it's
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definitely bird netting. So it's much larger.
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Although I guess the insect netting would probably work too
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and just sort of wrap it around to give them like a physical
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barrier that doesn't have to be something that is there
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permanently. I know a lot of people will
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actually like fence their gardens in.
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I got too much garden for that and I got too many different
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areas where I'm gardening for that.
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So the bird netting seemed to to do the trick.
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So I feel like we finally found a solution.
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So hopefully that will help you. And then finally, Jacqueline
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Whitmore said, I can't decide if my onions or my corn were my
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biggest failure in the garden this year.
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It was my second time trying corn.
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My first time was an epic fail. However, the corn I did get was
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the best I've ever tasted so I'll never not grow corn again.
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I just need to figure it out. It was my first time growing
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bulbing onions and although I got some tiny onions, I know I
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can do better next year. I learned what not to do and I'm
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looking forward to trying again. I hope you had an awesome,
00:16:42
restful vacation. I absolutely agree that fresh
00:16:46
picked, homegrown sweet corn cannot be beat.
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It is absolutely worth the effort, but the struggle is
00:16:53
real. So you know, if your problem is
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maybe not that the critters are getting to it, but it might be
00:17:01
pollination. You have to remember that corn
00:17:03
needs to be planted in blocks. So they don't rely on insects
00:17:07
for their pollination, but they do rely on the wind or air
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movement. So when you start to get the
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seeds that come out at the top, that's where the pollen is
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located. And then when the ears start to
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form, you have the silks coming out.
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Every single one of those silks needs that pollen from the top
00:17:28
of the plant. So essentially, when the wind
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blows the pollen from the top of this plant.
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And if you're, if you're watching me on YouTube or on
00:17:35
Spotify, I'm doing all my hand movements right now.
00:17:38
But if you're just listening, think about, you know, what a
00:17:40
stock of, of corn looks like. The one that has the pollen at
00:17:45
the top is going, that pollen is going to fall down, but it's not
00:17:48
falling directly down. The wind is sort of blowing it
00:17:50
off, so it's going to go down at an angle, which means it's going
00:17:53
to pollinate the one next to it, right?
00:17:56
And then vice versa, that plants pollen is going to go to the one
00:17:59
next to it. So if your corn is not planted
00:18:02
fairly closely together in blocks, they're not all going to
00:18:06
get pollinated. So that usually is the biggest
00:18:08
problem for home gardeners trying to grow sweet corn is
00:18:12
that maybe you're only growing them in one or two rows and
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there aren't enough of them together.
00:18:17
So I would always recommend at a minimum you're doing like a four
00:18:20
by four block so they can all pollinate each other.
00:18:23
In terms of the onions, I know you might have actually
00:18:27
commented on the onion planting video that I did is terms of
00:18:31
planting them in the fall. I also have lots of info on my
00:18:35
website if you just search for onions.
00:18:36
And I will also link my beginner's guide blog post for
00:18:41
growing onions and my downloadable quick reference
00:18:43
sheet in the show notes as well. My biggest failure this year had
00:18:48
to be the failure of our fall crops.
00:18:51
I have worked a lot of years toward getting the timing down
00:18:55
just right for our area because it is usually so incredibly hot
00:19:00
in the late summer at the time that I would need to be planting
00:19:04
those crops. But I also know that I have to
00:19:07
adjust that schedule based on the weather conditions.
00:19:11
And this year I just downright blew it.
00:19:13
Like I said, the only fall crops that did well are the Napa
00:19:16
cabbages, the collards, and the kale that are just killing it
00:19:19
out right there right now. But I got nothing in the way of
00:19:23
lettuces or other leafy greens, none of my brassicas, and I
00:19:27
totally failed to even plant my carrots or my beets.
00:19:31
Now the catch to all that is that it's still unseasonably
00:19:35
warm here right now, and we are finally getting some rain.
00:19:38
So I still have a chance to get some more things in the ground
00:19:41
that can overwinter and pop up in the spring, but I still have
00:19:44
to get my garlic and my onions in the ground because, you know,
00:19:48
I chose to go on vacation rather than getting those in on time.
00:19:51
So anything beyond that, I'm going to consider a bonus.
00:19:59
And as far as my vacation went, it was awesome.
00:20:02
It was restful. But I also tried to consume as
00:20:06
much about tropical gardening and the most common crops on
00:20:08
Puerto Rico as it could while I was there.
00:20:11
What I didn't see, though, was much of anything in the way of
00:20:16
actual vegetable gardens. I mean, we traveled from.
00:20:20
San Juan, which is kind of on the northeast end of the island.
00:20:23
And then we went all along the shore along the north side of
00:20:27
the island over to like the northwest corner and then down
00:20:31
the western shoreline and across the southern shore about to the
00:20:34
halfway point or so. And then we also traveled the
00:20:36
interior of the island a little bit on the southwest side just a
00:20:39
little. So it was only kind of 1, I
00:20:41
don't know, 1/3 of the island that we didn't really hit at
00:20:44
some point along the coast anyway.
00:20:46
And then a lot of the interior we didn't get to, but in all of
00:20:49
that time that we were traveling around, I didn't see a single
00:20:54
vegetable garden in terms of what I would recognize as a
00:20:58
garden, meaning, you know, growing tomatoes or cucumbers or
00:21:01
things that would actually do really well in that climate, you
00:21:04
know, squashes and, and all kinds of things didn't see a
00:21:07
want. And and there was like salad on
00:21:10
the menu when we went to eat places, but the salad consisted
00:21:14
of a bed of lettuce and like 2 slices of tomato.
00:21:17
And even my husband's uncle was like, this is not tomato because
00:21:20
it was so pale and it was so awful.
00:21:22
It made me miss my summer tomatoes.
00:21:25
And you know, it's not that the vegetables aren't utilized.
00:21:29
It's only certain vegetables, I think, that are utilized in a
00:21:31
lot of the cuisine on the island.
00:21:34
You know, the components of San Cocho, which is a Puerto Rican
00:21:37
type of a Stew, includes things like kombucha, squash and corn
00:21:42
on the cob and different root vegetables.
00:21:44
But I didn't see anybody actually growing any of that.
00:21:49
What I did see in a lot of backyards was a lot of the
00:21:54
tropical fruits. I think things that like really
00:21:57
grow, you know, plentifully and easily.
00:22:00
So star fruit. I had my first star fruit that
00:22:03
was so good, sweet but sort of citrusy with like a crunchy
00:22:09
texture, kind of like a firm melon.
00:22:11
Very very tasty. Saw a lot of bananas and
00:22:13
plantains in people's yards. Avocados, but not like the
00:22:18
little Haas avocados that I'm used to seeing in the grocery
00:22:21
store like avocado avocados as big as my hand.
00:22:25
I will do a video on this one because it was amazing.
00:22:27
Like the main fruit part was larger than my palm and then you
00:22:31
had the like longer lobe port part that was longer than my
00:22:35
fingers. They were massive Acerola
00:22:38
cherries or Barbados cherries. These are very sweet.
00:22:42
They have 3 seeds in them, which I noticed as I was consistently
00:22:45
spitting the seeds out. Those were just kind of randomly
00:22:48
growing in people's yards, canepas, which was something my
00:22:51
husband was very excited to show me.
00:22:53
These are small, round green, what we referred to as a droop.
00:22:58
So a stone fruit that has like a pulp that has a little like a
00:23:02
single seed in the inside. So think of like a like a, a
00:23:06
Peach, but much, much smaller. And it does have a sweet pulp in
00:23:09
the inside, but it's ripe. But it needs to be truly ripe
00:23:12
otherwise it'll pull all of the moisture out of your mouth if
00:23:15
you eat it before it's ripe. These were growing everywhere,
00:23:18
breadfruit or what they call pana.
00:23:21
I decided I really like breadfruit.
00:23:23
It has a texture like potato, very filling, has a lot of
00:23:28
fiber. So heads up, if you start eating
00:23:30
a lot of bread, fruit and you're not used to it, yeah, it might
00:23:33
clean you out. So just keep that in mind.
00:23:36
And then coconuts, you know, just randomly growing in
00:23:38
people's yards, which I got to have coconut water straight from
00:23:41
the coconut, a little straw. It was actually kind of cool.
00:23:44
Some things that we're also growing that I didn't get a
00:23:46
chance to try, like passionfruit, guava, papaya,
00:23:49
mango and Jobo, which is similar to mango.
00:23:52
And some of these things aren't actually even native to the
00:23:55
island, but they've been grown there for so long, they're just
00:23:58
kind of synonymous with Puerto Rico.
00:24:00
Some of the other staples like juca and batata, which is sweet
00:24:04
potato, right? Those are things that can also
00:24:06
grow there. But again, I didn't see anybody
00:24:08
doing a lot of this sort of dedicated space in their yards.
00:24:12
Interestingly, many of the specialty crops that Puerto Rico
00:24:16
is known for aren't actually even economically significant to
00:24:20
the island. I mean, less than 1% of the
00:24:24
island's gross national product comes from agriculture, which is
00:24:28
kind of astonishing to me because it's so easy to grow a
00:24:32
lot of things there. So let's talk about four of the
00:24:37
tropical crops that are grown in Puerto Rico that we might think
00:24:40
of as synonymous with the island and how we can grow those in our
00:24:44
own yard, even if we are nowhere near tropical.
00:24:47
And we will start with one of my favorites, coffee.
00:24:55
So we got the chance to visit a coffee Hacienda that is now
00:25:00
managed as both a historical site and a nature preserve, and
00:25:03
got to see how the coffee used to be produced there.
00:25:06
Coffee has a long history in Puerto Rico, having been
00:25:09
introduced in the early 1700s while under Spanish rule,
00:25:13
originally just being grown to be consumed locally.
00:25:17
But by the end of the century, Puerto Rico was producing over
00:25:20
1 lbs. Of coffee per year and that
00:25:24
number continued to increase to where by the mid to late 1800s,
00:25:29
Puerto Rico was the 7th largest coffee producer in the world.
00:25:33
But that changed quite a bit when the US annexed the island
00:25:37
and there was a series of natural disasters that leveled
00:25:40
much of the agricultural areas. So when the Domino's Sugar
00:25:44
Company rolled in, the focus quickly shifted from coffee to
00:25:48
sugar cane. I learned a lot about Puerto
00:25:50
Rico's history on this trip and how their agriculture has
00:25:53
shifted according to who is in charge of the island.
00:25:57
It's interesting, to put it mildly.
00:25:59
So coffee plants require partial shade, consistent rainfall and a
00:26:05
well draining, slightly acidic soil.
00:26:07
So Puerto Rico's mountainous and shaded areas meet this demand
00:26:11
beautifully. So coffee actually can flourish
00:26:15
in Puerto Rico. Nowadays, most of the coffee
00:26:18
grown on the island is actually just consumed locally and there
00:26:21
are a lot of different sort of artisanal brands.
00:26:23
Only about .1% of coffee produced in Puerto Rico is ever
00:26:28
exported. So you're not likely to find
00:26:30
Puerto Rican coffee in your store unless you go looking for
00:26:33
it. Now if you live in a tropical
00:26:35
area, you can grow your own coffee plants.
00:26:39
You have just need some rich, well draining but slightly
00:26:42
acidic soil so we can sort of mimic that volcanic soil
00:26:44
condition of Puerto Rico. You want to plant your coffee
00:26:47
plants under taller plants so that you provide that shade that
00:26:50
it likes. It likes indirect light and then
00:26:53
maintain regular moisture. Just allowing the soil to dry
00:26:55
slightly between waterings and mulch is a good idea here.
00:26:59
So you can retain the moisture and regulate the soil
00:27:00
temperature. But if you are not in zone, I
00:27:03
don't know. 9/10/11 then you can also grow coffee plants and I am
00:27:08
super excited to try this by growing them in a container.
00:27:11
So you can plant coffee plants in a large container that can be
00:27:14
brought indoors. You can grow them as a house
00:27:17
plants, even though they may not reach full productivity, but you
00:27:21
can bring them back out in the summertime so long as you are
00:27:25
maintaining a temperature between 60 and 70° as a minimum
00:27:30
to sort of mimic that tropical condition.
00:27:32
So when you bring it in the house, you want to keep it in
00:27:34
indirect light, maybe near a sunny window or under some grow
00:27:38
lights, but not too much direct light because again, they like
00:27:41
those sort of shaded conditions. So yeah, watch me start growing
00:27:46
my own coffee next summer. OK, and #2 let's talk about
00:27:51
bananas and specifically plantains, right?
00:27:54
They are both staples in Puerto Rican cuisine.
00:27:57
Plantains especially if you've ever had something called
00:27:59
tostones, they were yellow plantains that have been sort of
00:28:03
mashed and formed into a little disk.
00:28:05
And then they're fried and salted.
00:28:06
They're very good. They're very crunchy.
00:28:08
But bananas also are are sort of important.
00:28:11
And these are kind of significant to agriculture.
00:28:13
Again, not as like a large scale export, but that's mostly
00:28:18
because there's a really high local demand.
00:28:20
I mean, plantains especially are definitely significant in terms
00:28:23
of just local consumption, right?
00:28:26
The interesting thing, and I did a video about this on both
00:28:30
Instagram and a larger one on YouTube talking about the way
00:28:33
that plantains and bananas grow. They're actually not trees.
00:28:38
They are an herb that regrows from an underground rhizome or
00:28:42
corn. So the what we call a pseudo
00:28:46
stem that looks like a trunk is actually the individual leaves
00:28:49
coming up and they're coming up super tightly wrapped around
00:28:52
each other. So they look like a a stem or a
00:28:56
trunk. And then those leaves start to
00:28:58
come up out of the top and they will produce one set of fruit.
00:29:03
Now this could be multiple bunches, especially with the
00:29:06
bananas, but they come, they have one long stem that will
00:29:09
come out, produce all these little, you know, bunches of
00:29:11
bananas or bunches of plantains and then they will have the
00:29:14
flower at the end of it. Once it's done fruiting, that's
00:29:18
it that that plant is done producing.
00:29:21
So either it would naturally die back or what is typical is it
00:29:24
gets cut down to save the energy from those underground rhizomes
00:29:28
because that's when a new where a new one is going to grow from,
00:29:32
right? And typically takes around nine
00:29:33
months or so for these plants to produce.
00:29:36
So obviously they like a warm sort of humid region.
00:29:40
They do need well draining fertile soil.
00:29:44
If they're growing them for cultivation in terms of, you
00:29:48
know, a farmer, they're going to plant them in rows, spacing them
00:29:51
about 10 feet apart to allow for the full growth.
00:29:54
They can also be grown in clusters too.
00:29:56
And they do grow best in the areas of the island they get
00:30:00
abundant rainfall. There are sections of Puerto
00:30:03
Rico that do not get as much rain as the rest of the island.
00:30:07
In fact, some of them are downright dry.
00:30:09
And as you drive through, you can kind of tell where there's
00:30:11
regions are because the the greenery isn't as lush and it's
00:30:16
actually not even as green. You can see the landscape is
00:30:18
sort of browned out a little bit.
00:30:21
If you live in a tropical environment and you want to be
00:30:25
able to grow your own bananas or plantains, then again, just
00:30:27
think about adequate spacing around the base of each plant to
00:30:30
accommodate those really broad leaves.
00:30:32
And you want a loamy fertile soil with really good drainage
00:30:35
because we don't want those roots to rot because we're
00:30:37
relying on that root system to regrow those plants every year.
00:30:41
And then bananas and plantains actually do need consistent
00:30:44
moisture, especially during dry spells.
00:30:47
So, and it seems from what I understand talking to people,
00:30:50
that the bananas require more water than the plantains, which
00:30:54
kind of makes sense if you know the texture.
00:30:57
Bananas tend to be, I don't know, a little bit more moist
00:30:59
than plantains. Plantains seem to be a little
00:31:01
bit drier. So maybe that has something to
00:31:03
do with their water requirements.
00:31:04
I don't know. But these are tall plants with
00:31:07
very large leaves, so just know that they're going to be prone
00:31:11
to some wind damage. Now, if you want to grow these
00:31:15
at home and you don't live in a tropical environment, you can do
00:31:19
that. I actually have a friend here
00:31:21
who grows banana plants in her backyard every single year.
00:31:26
Now, obviously they haven't produced a fruit.
00:31:29
I mean, I'm in West Central Missouri, so we don't have a
00:31:31
summer that is long enough for that to happen.
00:31:34
But they do grow every single year and she has gotten flowers
00:31:37
off of them. As a matter of fact, she
00:31:38
actually got some fruit on it this year too, although I don't
00:31:41
think it was, you know, long enough before our frost to
00:31:44
actually have those fruits develop.
00:31:46
You can either do them in a container if you, if you want to
00:31:51
bring them in and you really do want to try to get them to
00:31:53
fruit, it's going to have to be a large container.
00:31:55
We're talking a 15 gallon container and you're likely
00:31:57
going to need to put some wheels on it in order to be able to
00:32:00
wheel it in and out. If you do want to do that, make
00:32:03
sure that you when you bring it in, you keep it in a very warm
00:32:06
humid environment. During the cold months, you
00:32:08
might want to use a humidifier or mist it to make sure that
00:32:10
you're kind of replicating that tropical humidity.
00:32:13
There are dwarf varieties, so those are a little bit more
00:32:16
manageable indoors if you're really going to want to try to
00:32:20
grow this. In fact, where we were staying,
00:32:22
the variety of bananas that were growing in the backyard were
00:32:24
actually a dwarf variety. So it was a very low growing
00:32:27
plant, but there was a ton of fruit on it.
00:32:30
The other option too is to just grow them decoratively like my
00:32:33
friend here does, which we liked the kind of tropical vibe so
00:32:37
much that we're actually considering doing that.
00:32:39
We can actually plant them out here and just let them do their
00:32:42
thing. They will grow and they grow
00:32:44
fairly quickly and get those big leaves on them and they're just
00:32:47
cool to look at. And then the end of the season
00:32:49
they'll just die back. We cut them down and they'll
00:32:51
overwinter if we mulch them really well and they'll come
00:32:53
back on their own again in the next year.
00:32:55
So if you want the fruit and you want to bring it indoors, 15
00:32:59
gallon container, try the dwarf varieties.
00:33:02
Otherwise, you know, just enjoy the tropical vibe outside during
00:33:05
the summertime #3 on our list of tropical plants that you might
00:33:09
want to grow at home that does grow in Puerto Rico is
00:33:11
pineapple. I had the tastiest pineapple I
00:33:14
have ever had in my life and it was a mini pineapple.
00:33:18
So Pina, I'm going to try to say it, Pina Quito, so small mini
00:33:22
pineapple. It was super sweet.
00:33:24
It was super juicy. And I mean, Puerto Rico is the
00:33:28
ideal tropical climate for growing pineapples.
00:33:31
Again, one of the thing that is mainly for the local markets,
00:33:35
but also specifically for tourism, like pineapples, do you
00:33:39
contribute a lot to the sort of agritourism sector?
00:33:43
Because you know, you can line them up along a fruit stand as
00:33:47
people drive down the highway and they see I fell victim to
00:33:49
them, like, oh, I want pineapples, right?
00:33:51
But they were so good. They were tasty pineapple
00:33:53
plants. Again, they thrive in that
00:33:55
sandy, acidic, you know, soil. So that's very common in Puerto
00:33:58
Rico, that very volcanic soil. And they're grown typically in
00:34:05
rows to make sure that each one of those plants has ample space
00:34:09
for the very broad leaves. So if you are in a tropical
00:34:12
environment and you want to grow your own pineapples, again,
00:34:15
sandy, slightly acidic soil, you're probably going to want to
00:34:18
add some organic matter because they do need some good drainage.
00:34:21
Pineapples need full sun in order to produce that really
00:34:25
sweet fruit. So you are definitely going to
00:34:27
want to plant them someplace that gets direct sunlight, a lot
00:34:30
of sunlight, right? You also want to allow enough
00:34:33
space between those plants to prevent the competition for that
00:34:36
sunlight and also for the nutrients.
00:34:38
The one thing about pineapple though, too, is you want to make
00:34:40
sure that they don't get waterlogged because that can
00:34:42
lead to root rot. And also, from what I
00:34:45
understand, that also tends to sort of dull the sweetness of
00:34:48
the fruit. I liken that to something
00:34:51
similar with us, like in our tomatoes.
00:34:52
You try to grow a tomato and it gets too much rain and it
00:34:56
doesn't taste as strong. I I'm guessing that maybe with
00:34:58
pineapples, it's the same thing. Now, if you grow in a cooler
00:35:02
climate like I do, you absolutely can grow pineapples
00:35:06
in a pot. And if you're on YouTube or on
00:35:09
Spotify, this is my pineapple plant.
00:35:14
Actually, it's one of two now. It really should be probably 3
00:35:18
times this size, but I did not have it in the proper spot
00:35:22
outside in in the the sun this year.
00:35:25
It did not. I put it on my back porch.
00:35:28
I actually have two of them and they didn't get nearly as much
00:35:31
sun. They really should be much
00:35:32
larger than that, but they're thriving.
00:35:34
They're doing just fine. The pineapples grow really well
00:35:36
in pots and as a matter of fact, you just take the top of a
00:35:40
pineapple that you bring home from the grocery store.
00:35:43
You can plant that top in a container of just like cactus or
00:35:47
succulent mix and there you go. Put it near AS facing window in
00:35:51
the in the winter time or give it some grow lights.
00:35:54
Put it outside in the summertime in the full sun.
00:35:57
Let it do its thing. You definitely want to make sure
00:36:00
that you're keeping it above 60°F at night.
00:36:02
You don't want to get any cold drafts.
00:36:03
They are barely sensitive to the cold and it can take up to three
00:36:07
years, but you will get a fruit eventually out of them that
00:36:10
produce a new pup or fruit, sometimes as quickly as 18
00:36:14
months in a container, but definitely at least by about
00:36:17
three years again, if you're putting it in enough sun.
00:36:19
I did not do that. I'm hoping next year, you know,
00:36:22
I think about it properly in the spring when I'm putting them
00:36:24
outside and maybe I'll have, I don't know, some fresh pineapple
00:36:27
that I can grow myself here soon.
00:36:30
And then the last one is papaya. Papaya is a little bit of a a
00:36:34
local staple in Puerto Rico. It's often sold fresh or
00:36:37
processed. It can actually be grown in a
00:36:39
lot of regions of Puerto Rico. It's just that warm climate you
00:36:42
can get a continuous harvest out of them.
00:36:44
Dried papaya is actually a a popular snack or treat.
00:36:48
They also need a sunny, warm area well draining ample
00:36:52
moisture. A lot of the time they can be
00:36:54
grown from seed, but they do require a little bit extra care
00:36:58
because they are kind of susceptible to pests and
00:37:02
diseases. So if you are in a tropical
00:37:05
environment and you are growing these in your own home, you want
00:37:07
them in some very well draining soil.
00:37:09
You want them in a sunny location just like the
00:37:12
pineapples. They really want that full
00:37:14
sunlight. The soil should be moist but not
00:37:17
waterlogged, and you're going to want to keep an eye out for
00:37:20
those common papaya pests. So aphids, whiteflies, spider
00:37:24
mites, and fruit flies are the most prominent ones, but you
00:37:28
also have to watch out for nematodes as well if you want to
00:37:32
try to grow papaya in a cooler climate.
00:37:35
I don't think I'm going to take this effort, but you can grow
00:37:39
dwarf varieties. They can be grown in containers.
00:37:42
Put them outside in the summer, bring them indoors during the
00:37:44
colder months. They need that bright lights.
00:37:47
They definitely need to be near like a sunny window or under
00:37:50
grow lights. Warm indoor temperature is
00:37:52
definitely above 65 Fahrenheit. High humidity, so use a
00:37:56
humidifier if necessary. This, again, may be something
00:37:59
that is just kind of done, you know, for the fun of it as a
00:38:02
challenge to try. I don't think you're going to be
00:38:04
able to grow enough papayas indoors or in a cooler climate
00:38:08
to actually, you know, get too much in the way of fruit.
00:38:11
But the dwarf varieties, you know, you may get a few fruit
00:38:14
every year and that might be worth it.
00:38:15
I don't know, Maybe I will give it a try.
00:38:17
We'll see. Now, I know there are plenty of
00:38:23
fruits and vegetables that I didn't talk about here that are
00:38:26
grown in Puerto Rico and other tropical climates, Soursop,
00:38:30
jackfruit, rambutan, yama, etcetera.
00:38:32
But there are so many things that can be grown in tropical
00:38:37
climates. I just, I couldn't get to them
00:38:39
all. And I did say I was really
00:38:41
surprised by the lack of vegetable gardens in people's
00:38:45
yards. That doesn't mean they don't
00:38:48
exist. I didn't see the entire island,
00:38:50
but it was pretty obvious to me that folks were taking advantage
00:38:53
of the trees and the plants that tend to just kind of grow wild
00:38:57
without much care and harvesting from those, rather than trying
00:39:01
to tend a garden of things that would no doubt do phenomenally
00:39:04
well but require a lot more care, like eggplant or cucumbers
00:39:08
or tomatoes, Right? And we can't forget about the
00:39:12
devastation from Hurricane Maria in 2017 and the effects of that
00:39:17
that are still being felt across the island.
00:39:19
There were plenty of small farms and school farms that were wiped
00:39:24
out during that storm. And while some of them were able
00:39:28
to rebound very quickly with help from the residents of their
00:39:30
own barrios or neighborhoods, and they were subsequently able
00:39:34
to supply food for those neighbors, others weren't so
00:39:36
lucky. So I look forward to going back
00:39:39
and exploring more of the island and maybe tour more of the
00:39:42
interior areas where maybe more small scale agriculture is
00:39:47
happening to see if maybe more people there are growing their
00:39:50
own tropical backyard gardens. Don't forget to check the show
00:39:55
notes for the references and the resources for this episode for
00:39:57
some additional information about everything that we talked
00:40:00
about today. Until next time, my gardening
00:40:02
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
00:40:04
talk again soon. Thanks for listening to another
00:40:07
episode of the Just Grow Something podcast.
00:40:09
For more information about today's topic and to find all
00:40:12
the ways you can get in touch with me or support the show, go
00:40:15
to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com. Until next time, my gardening
00:40:19
friends, keep learning and keep growing.