Fruits, Flowers, and a Furry Friend

It's rainy season here in Costa Rica. This rainy season has been a bit drier than I am used to. We are greeted nearly every morning with blue skies and warm temperatures. By mid to late afternoon, the rain usually starts up. Sometimes it may only last an hour or two or sometimes it may go all night. Conditions are optimal for plant growth: plenty of sunlight and water. I took a morning stroll around the farm and captured some pictures of the showy flowering plants around Finca Carolina. Many Heliconia species are in bloom now which bring a diverse array of hummingbirds to sip their nectar. The bright red flower (Etlingera elatior) shown at right is a member of the Zingiberaceae family and employs showy red bracts to attract pollinators. Known also as torch Ginger or Emperor's Staff, this plant grows vigorously and makes a colorful addition to a tropical landscape.
I had the good fortune of acquiring some cuttings of a variegated Yuca plant (photos below). Yuca, or Manihot esculenta (Cassava) is a staple starch crop throughout the New World Tropics. This variety also makes an edible root in addition to the vibrant leaves. Yuca is one of those great tropical plants that you can literally plant a branch in the ground and it will grow.















Manihot esculenta

Another plant of interest that is fruiting right now is chocolate. Chocolate? Well, chocolate doesn't exactly grow on trees but cacao seeds do which must be dried, roasted and ground before being processed into cocoa butter from which the chocolate we eat is made. The cacao seeds are rich in antioxidants and a variety of alkaloids all of which contribute to the feeling of well being one experiences after eating some good chocolate. The seeds themselves are quite bitter so lots of sugar must be added to arrive at a chocolate resembling what we eat. Theobroma cacao was domesticated by Central American Pre-Colombian Indians and a chocolate beverage made from the ground seeds is still enjoyed by indigenous people throughout the region. In addition, the football shaped capsules showed in photos below contain a rich, white, edible, sweet pulp surrounding the seeds.



















Theobroma cacao

The White nosed Coati or Pizote (Nasua narica) is a raccoon like animal found from Arizona south to Colombia and Argentina. They are omnivores who spend their days foraging for fruits, insects, and small invertebrates. The individual seen in this picture has been visiting the edges of the garden for weeks now. He scratches the ground for eaarthworms and agilely climbs and descends trees. The tree he is climbing is a Cecropia (Cecropia spp) or Guarumo, a pioneer species tree that produces great quantities of a legume-like fruit (botanically an achene), attract a wide range of creatures. At Finca Carolina this includes striking birds like the Firey-billed Aracari (Pteroglossus frantzii) or Cusinga and the Chestnut-mandibled Toucan (Ramphastos swainsonii). Only the older Pizotes live solitary lifestyles so he is likely an adult male. Younger males, females, and offspring live in bands of 5-25 members. At Finca Carolina, I have encountered such groups and they typically flee quickly from human presence. This individual, however, is remarkably unafraid of us. The Pizote is just one of the many species of animal life that UTSI is trying to protect with our Nature Reserve. All photos were taken at Finca Carolina de Uvita, in Uvita, Costa Rica.

Finca Carolina: The Inception

To understand how Finca Carolina came to be what it is today one needs to back up in time, how long? (I must be getting older) let’s say about 14 years. Approximately 1994-1999 at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I studied Anthropology and Environmental Studies and graduated in 1998. However, for me and many other friends with whom I am still close will say that it was the friendships that we made that we value the most today. Lifelong alliances formed for many of us during this period. This was a period of questioning all elements of what we called the establishment or The Machine. Many of the downfalls of industrialized society were becoming more and more apparent each day. Ideas and information from classes about environmental degradation worldwide, unjust foreign policy, the failure of the War on Drugs inspired lengthy conversations that often lasted all night often fueled by red wine and brownies. As we looked at what our modern world had to offer: work like hell for somebody else for somebody else until you’re 65 years old, get your retirement, and head to sunny Florida; we simply were not inspired to follow this route. I personally felt then and feel to this day that we as the human race are capable of much more. One of the highlights of our group of friends was that we possessed a tremendous range of talents including great artists, musicians, writers, and teachers. Incredibly enough, during the years following this era this list has grown to include a number of UNC-Chapel Hill degree carrying farmers, carpenters, furniture builders, and a blacksmith. Dreams of community and working together cooperatively entered the discussions on many nights. For some, those dreams faded after graduation while for others like myself they just wouldn’t go away. I turned to agriculture, particularly organic agriculture as a way to reconnect myself to some of the basic cycles of Nature.

During the course of my undergraduate experience I had an opportunity for which I have always been and will always be grateful: A study abroad semester in Belize. Unlike most Study Abroad students heading off to places like France, England, Spain, etc, I decided to enroll in a program focused on natural and cultural ecology in Belize. I immediately fell in love with the tropics: the fruits were so inviting and delicious and there was always a new fruit waiting to reveal itself to me. In Belize, I met so many wonderful people who were hardworking, resourceful, and ready to share whatever they may have to offer. I also begin to learn about the dynamics between the North and the South, or developed versus developing nations. I traveled to banana plantations where toxic chemicals were endangering the health of workers and entire ecosystems. I saw also in Guatemala indigenous farmers forced to farm marginal, incredibly steep mountainsides while lush agricultural valleys were planted with pineapples and coffee for export. I met so many people who despite tough economic conditions seemed happier overall than many North Americans who had literally all they could possibly need and more at their fingertips. As I looked at the hands of the Belizean people, young and old, and then looked at my own, the hands said it all. My hands were soft, not a callus on them, for they had held little more than books and pens at this time. The hands of the Belizean men and women and women told a different story of hard physical work with their long since hardened calluses. I became inspired to want to learn to work with my hands, to do things that my own education had simply not included. An early mentor for me, Emmeth Young, in the Belizean village of Gales Point Manatee taught me how to build African drums and began my instruction in playing them. I continue to build and play African drums to this day. I also started to learn to use a machete and learned to recognize many of the tropical crops I would later grow at Finca Carolina.

Return trips to Central America brought me to Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua continued to fuel and feed my passion for the tropics. It was Costa Rica, however, that captivated me the most and found myself imagining a life for myself there. Robert, one of my closest allies, entered a sustainable agriculture program of study at Central Carolina Community College and two years later was managing a small organic vegetable farm called Green Toe Ground (The pristine Toe river borders the farm) in the mountains of North Carolina in a gorgeous valley called Celo. He was four years into running the farm when I showed up for what was to be a brief visit but turned into a farm internship that lasted two growing seasons. My experience with farming at that point had been some volunteering at Sustenance Farm, near Pittsboro NC; and I had completed a Permaculture design course in New Mexico under the tutelage of Scott Pittman. At Green Toe Ground I learned the ins and outs of running a small organic farm. Cover cropping, composting, crop rotations, natural soil amendments, nutrient management, companion planting, and green manuring were among the concepts and practices I learned at green Toe Ground. Robert had also been to Costa Rica on numerous occasions and we continued to dream about buying land there to start a self sustaining farm, ecological education center, and ecotouristic business endeavor. When we decided to make a land scouting trip down here in the winter of 2002, our third partner, Dave, who had also traveled to Costa Rica, let us know that if we found some great land that we was in too! Through different means and travels we had all experienced Costa Rica and Pura Vida and had all been captured by it. We were hooked.

We were three guys with a dream: to create a paradise like garden with an existence directly intertwined with Nature. To go to sleep each night listening to a myriad of insects, frogs, owls, night birds, and many others. To awaken early in the morning to sounds of troops of howler monkeys informing their whereabouts to neighboring troops or perhaps a noisy flock of screeching, iridescent, green parrots. To create a space in which all art forms thrive and individuals create and achieve great things because they are doing each day what they truly love to do. To work together towards common goals. To cultivate healthy food on healthy soils. To learn from the local people the skills we would need. To celebrate indigenous culture. To develop small businesses in order to generate money for life’s necessities that cannot be grown or raised on your land (unfortunately in our modern paradigm, life without any money is exceedingly difficult). To invite researchers of the natural sciences to help us identify, catalogue, and protect Neotropical biodiversity. To create a space which someday might instill a heightened appreciation of Nature in the people who visit it. This was our dream and all we needed was the land on which to build our dreams.

So in January 2002 we embarked on a journey to find that piece of land….

Welcome to Pura Vida dreamin'

Welcome to Pura Vida dreamin'. This blog describes the life of an overly educated tropical forest farmer. My name is Andrew Ogden and I am the co-founder of Finca Carolina and UTSI: The Uvita Tropical Studies Institute. Finca Carolina is the name of our farm which was purchased in 2002 by myself and two cohorts Robert Tate and David Starman. UTSI is the business we have started dedicated to ecological adventure and education. Here you can read about the ups and downs of starting an organic farm and sustainable educational tourism business on a mountainside overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Southwestern Costa Rica near the township of Uvita. At Finca Carolina we grow fruits and vegetables, many of which you may have never heard of. We host tours which showcase the primary rainforest and incredible waterfalls found at Finca Carolina. We bought the farm as absolutely raw land and have spent the past seven years transforming it into our vision of a Tropical Paradise. Our dream is that visitors to Finca Carolina will walk away with a heightened appreciation for Nature and the incredibly interconnected Web of Life. We grow all of our fruits and vegetables without the use of any chemical fertilizer or pesticides. This is done out of respect for our natural environment and the many cohabitants of the Finca which include sloths, white faced monkeys, toucans, parrots, and the list goes on and on. I will also introduce you to the many characters one encounters in Uvita from the good hearted locals who have helped me from Day 1 to the random assortment of international characters who have all been drawn to Uvita for one reason or another. One thing we all have in common is that we all came to Costa Rica with a vision and a dream. Nothing personifies that dream better than the Costa Rican national catchphrase Pura Vida (Pure Life). Hence we are all quite literally Pura Vida dreamin'