Coffee Pruning, Part 2

I’m not certain if this is just a feature of the tropics or is due to some other factor, but what I’ve noticed with our citrus trees, particularly with our lime, is that there is no distinct period of bloom with an equally distinct fruiting period, leading to harvest. At least with our lime, [...]

Pruning Coffee, Part 1

There I was, heart in mouth, bouncing along in 4 wheel drive up a “road”–read rutted dirt track– barely wide enough to accommodate the truck, with ditches or dropoffs on either side. Ahead of me, Maria Ruiz, 4th generation of Ruiz women who have been the driving force behind farming this land, in her [...]

If You Got It, Flaunt It!

One of my very favorite flowering trees is the poinciana or flamboyant (Eng.) tree–we know it here as flamboyán, in Spanish. I even have a scientific name for it! Delonix regia (Bojer) Rafinesque, thanks to a nifty little book called Tropical Blossoms of the Caribbean by Dorothy and Bob Hargreaves. The flowers appear [...]