Circa 2010: Living off the land

We have kept in touch with the owner of the development who actually lives a few metres from us. He is a really cool and has been updating us on everything. He got the electricity poles in (woohoo) but was still working on the WASA connection to the property. He also has a tractor guy that comes in to cut the grass ever-so-often as I guess he wants to keep the property neat for potential buyers of the remaining lots but it's also a major plus for us for the time being.

As I mentioned before, I want a good bit of land with my house. The initial specifications of my dream house from secondary school included it being on no less than two lots. Growing up in the West, we never had much of a yard but my mother never let that keep her passion for gardening back. She has all the herbs a Trini needs to 'flavour the pot'.



This woman will plant in anything: bricks, buckets, old sinks, anything. We also had a Julie Mango tree growing in the most awkward of spaces with concrete all around its base but it still managed to produce a lot of juicy mangoes every year that everyone in the house would fight for and fall out with each other over.

When I first met Samurai's family and started to visit the house in Central, things were different. First off their house is one of those really beautifully old, rustic, colonial type houses surrounded by lush greenery. It's really lovely and every time I left, I left with bag of fruits, citrus, cakes, provision, juices... and anything and everything his very generous mother had. It was just in her nature to give away and having a yard with many mature trees made it even easier. My sisters would joke and ask me if I went to the market with all of the stuff I brought back and sadly, there was still a fight for the mangoes I got.

So now we have a whole acre and I envision Samurai and I having our dream house with a large and mature garden filled with fruit trees and provisions and herbs and a little of everything. I picture us with children climbing the trees and stuffing their bellies with mangoes and pommerac. I want to be able to get up on a Sunday morning and pick most of the items for that day's meal from my yard, down to chickens and all.

Samurai also shared this idea but wanted to start this 'garden' before the house came so that when we do move in, we'll have some trees to live off of. We wanted to be as self-sustainable as possible seeing that our finances would be limited so we started gathering plants from my mother-in-law, Samurai's friends and a few plants shops. We also bought a few items from the Government farm in St Augustine. They had very little stuff at the time but their prices were really good.

Now, my mother-in-law has a rich yard, yes, filled with lovely trees and plants, Maneuvering through her yard, however, was a bit much because no landscaping or even little walk paths were incorporated pretty much like anyone's yard in these areas. In fact, many Trinidadians don't 'fuss' about landscaping but thanks to HGTV and DIY channel, however, I want that landscaping with neat little walk paths and well-manicured lawn. So Samurai's plan to just pelt tree like mad in the soil didn't sit well with me but he convinced me with the idea of having Starch and Julie mangoes to my heart's content so we tried our best to determine the proposed location for the house and began to plant outside of that area.

We also found out about this organic plant shop called WaSamaki not too far from our soon-to-be home. They were really nice and helpful with a lot of rare fruits and plants for sale on their farm that your Tantie and Mammy used to talk about but were so rare to find that the prices made them a one-time 'splurge' purchase just to try it.

Our land was covered in very thick brush. At first I was a bit despondent and wondered what the hell we were getting ourselves in to. The high razor grass, weeds and vines were so strong and think that it felt like you were walking in quicksand just to get through. The soild was another concern. It was thick clay soil, thicker than my legs!!! lol. It was sticking to my brand new gardener boots like if I was making a mold. I wondered if this soil would cause a problem to build a house on because just digging a hole took sooo much effort. We found a few treasures though. The soil was laden with earth worms which is great for drainage and for the plants. We also found several Tumeric roots and watching the land from the roadway, it was obvious someone used to plant here a lot.

Anyways, once a week for a few weeks we rounded up Samurai's brothers and we all went down to cut pathways in the bush with a weed whacker with the poor thing struggling to perform. The more we went, the more I realised that with a good clearing, care and planning, this yard will be so beautiful.

We planted:
Citrus trees (lime, grapefruit, orange)
Starch and Julie mango (a must)
Soursop
West Indian Cherry
Carambola
Coffee
Governor Plum (this was different to what we thought it was, the big juicy bumpy plums are apparently called Jamaican Plum)
Sapodilla
Tamarind (sweet)
Pommerac
Caimate
Guava
Bay Leaf
Ley Ley
and much more

I would never think gardening was such a great workout. I think I lost a pound or two every time we went to do some work. The only thing I didn't do was use that whacker. I think when we establish our garden I need a lawn mower (ride-on preferably) because that thing is not designed for my body so we made a deal for when we got the house that he washes the clothes and I will cut the grass.

In fact we made a few deals:
He cooks and I will wash the wares
He scrubs the bathrooms and I will sweep and mop

The pond next to the back of our lot was very large so a section of the land was a bit swampy from the water that seeped in. We planted a few coconut trees in this area. Throughout the entire acre we dug holes and planted and weeded. My mother even came once to help us plant some stuff but I think she underestimated the work involved, lol.

Samurai's mother started some Breadfruit trees plants for us by slicing the root of her tree with a cutlass which made new shoots. We went to plant two of them but the next two weeks when we returned, one disappeared and the other died. We tried another time and that one disappeared too. Strange. Could someone be stealing our plants?

After we planted most of the stuff we had, our visits were just to go back with the tray of the van filled with bottles of water for the plants. We had to walk back and forth along the length of this land to water these plants which felt like torture at times but a few of them were really striving and the pride from seeing these little babies grow was motivation enough to continue.

As it got closer to Christmas however, the gardening slowed down to not at all. So all the plants, dead, stolen or thriving were out there to fend for themselves until the new year.