“Do not expect to see acres of monoculture when you visit our farm.”


We practice permaculture and sustainable annual crops.
Farm tours are free for our guests.

In 2004 we bought the farm from an old Kek’chi man, who lived here for many years and raised almost as many children. In 2001, disaster struck the area. Hurricane Iris destroyed the village of San Miguel including the farm...

The main crops are coffee and cacao, both of which are shade grown. The hurricane destroyed and knocked over most of the trees. The old man was well in his seventies, and all of his children had long since moved out. Faced with the terrible destruction, he eventually decided to put the farm up for sale, since he no longer had the urge to clean up the mess and start all over again. The money of the sale provided him with sufficient funds to settle across the road and take things slower. He is one of our neighbours now.

In 2004, the farm was still a mess but many trees were recovering. It is fascinating to see how resilient nature is! Knocked down trees sprouted new trees from their branches, broken trees had grown a new crown. Vine covered trees came back to life after pruning. Two corn fields were still in use.

We spent five years of cleaning up, pruning and planting and most of the trees are bearing well now. We converted the cornfields into orchards and spent a lot of time keeping the bush from taking over our young trees. As soon as the trees were big enough, we got our horses so they can eat the grass and keep our orchards low, while fertilizing at the same time.

Many of the old plants and trees survived the hurricane. And so we got to know a lot of the traditional plants the Kek’chi use. We grow Chaya, a green leafed tree vegetable known to the ancient Mayans as an excellent remedy for anemia for its high iron and proteine content.

 
We grow callaloo, a spinach-like plant and chicay, a flower bud that tastes amazingly similar to artichoke and jippi-jappa, which tastes like bell mushrooms. We grow coco yam, cassava, string beans, hot peppers, chives, bananas, nopal, limes, grapefruits, oranges, annona, pineapple, mango, avocado, allspice, ginger, breadfruit and much, much more. We grow a little bit of everything :)

Aside from edibles and timber we also grow loofa to scrub, cohunes for the roof and aloe vera as medicine for insect bites infections and burns. Nitrogen fixing plants and trees keep our soil rich and healthy.

Cacao harvest peaks in May and November, but the trees are bearing year round.
The local shade trees in the cacao and coffee fields, grown for firewood, are slowly being replaced by hardwood trees, such as teak, cedar, rosewood and mahogany.

For meat, eggs and entertainment we raise ducks. They also provide us with manure for the vegetable garden.

The coffee harvest is from October till January (Arabica) and February, March (Robusta). We pick and break the berries, ferment them for a day and then wash them and separate the beans from the berries. After at least a week of drying in the sun the beans need to be shelled and fanned. Then it is time to roast and grind. We do everything by hand. You are welcome to take a look or join when we are working at it.