We have a sizeable piece of property on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. When we first ventured there, there were old coconut trees and some sea grape plants…but mostly there was scrub so thick that moving into it was like stepping into an oven…it blocked every sea breeze. And it was scratchy.
We concentrated on clearing and planting the northernmost section, something done with machetes…and very labor intensive. Initially we planted only coconut trees. At first we bought young trees in Bluefields, eight miles away. But as we cleared around mature trees that were already there, those trees dropped coconuts into spaces we had cleared. And the cleared areas allowed those big seeds - coconuts - to germinate and grow.
So we began transplanting home-grown babies instead of buying plants somewhere else. And then we set the un-sprouted coconuts in areas conducive to sprouting, supplying ourselves with a seemingly endless supply of baby trees, which we then planted.
And then those baby trees grew big enough to drop more coconuts and on and on it went…on and on it still goes.
And this is what we have now.
