Greetings from Costa Rica

I retired and moved to Costa Rica for several reasons, the people, country and climate. My home is in the Central Valley 6 kilometers north of San Ramon de Alajuela in a village called Los Angeles Sur (I tell everyone that I live in South LA, just 3,000 miles south from downtown LA). Our home is at 3,800 feet which gives us wonderful weather, 54 has been the lowest with the low 60s as the low average, the highest was 85 with the mid 70s as the high average. We do get a lot of rain which, visit my blog (http://agardeninparadise.blogspot.com/), will drown regular gardens so my garden will have a roof. I was a mechanical engineer which has lead me thru several methods of gardening (lots of reading of several books and methods). Many years of moving and getting thru life didn’t help me much with gardening though. While in Bakersfield CA I tried some of the square foot gardening method and made some of the modifications that lead me to building the garden that I now have. Besides me and my wife, Caroline (ex school teacher), there are 5 cats, 2 dogs, 4 parakeets, a pair of silkies with 5 young ones, a pair of bantams with 3 young and 7 egg laying hens. I welcome any comments on my blog; any comments emailed to me and of course any help others have regarding SFG in the tropics. One of the reasons for the garden is some of the veggies we love that we are used to are not grown in quantity here in CR if at all. The locals don’t have the same taste for some of the veggies we like so we will raise our bell peppers, jalapeños, spinach, old fashion tomatoes, okra and others. It will be interesting experimenting with growing things here as there is no killing frost ever. Some things will grow year round here. One thing is a tomato plant, it will be interesting in seeing how that does or doesn’t work. With the New Year things will get back to getting finished and I can get busy experimenting with my garden. Oh, sorry for not saying so before, my wife loves to garden too; she is waiting not very patiently for the garden to be done so I had better get with it.

Art

Hi, Art, and welcome!

Bakersfield sounds like a tough place to start gardening. If you can get one going there, you can do anything. Can't wait to hear more about your family garden...and we have some readers in tropical latitude areas who I'm sure will be thrilled to have two more gardeners join their ranks!

Please let us know how it goes, and remember, we love pictures!

Happy gardening
Megan

Hello Art and welcome.

You are indeed in paradise. CR is on my bucket list, I would imagine you can grow anything and everything with SFG! Best of luck and look forward to your sharing your experiences....and photos

Welcome Art!

Kim

So nice to "meet" you.

What an adventure!

Looking forward to hearing about your gardening adventures waaaay down south of me.

We LOVE pictures.

I would love to live in a warmer climate, but can't get the daughter, sil and grandkids on board.

And I 'ain't goin nowhere' without my Babies!!!

Betty

It is very nice to receive such a grand welcome. There will be lots of photos to come. I am wondering if I should post some of the photos from my blog???? The begining and progress of my SFG which I do have several of. My object of growing veggies in my block raised bed garden is many fold, saving the ol' back is just one of them. What I will have spent total for this block garden is less than the cost of a tiller and many of the garden tools I won't be needing. Several people mentioned how much I'm spending till I remind them of their cost and all the labor they will expend preparing their gardens not to mention the time they'll spend weeding. My back yard is fenced with chain link which I plan to use for climbing crops like mellons. I will make the beds 2'X4' at the base of the fence. I will use the same plastic netting matterial that is used for onion bags to make hammocks for the mellons.
Oops, I guess that I had better just post these things as they occur. One does have a tendency to ramble when one is gardening, huh?
Again, for the warm welcome, looking forward to lots of great advise and lots of great veggies.
Y'all have a wonderful New Years Eve.

Looking forward to seeing more of you around, Art. Sounds very adventurous to move down there. Like Zen, my bucket list includes Costa Rica since my wife's and my honeymoons were supposed to be there 11 yrs ago....but got derailed by faster than planned kids...lol. Maybe someday. Until then, I will live vicariously through those I know that live/visit down that way. Many good seasons to you, and welcome aboard.

Welcome, CR Art. I loved reading your post. I think it was a ray of sunshine for many of us feeling the cold and dark of winter. We are dreaming of planting, but we can follow along as you and the others who live in warm climes are actually doing it.

So again, welcome, and please send pictures.