The Money Tree

The Money Tree was Originally Posted on March 19, 2009 by lavarock

The farm has begun to shift into high gear in the past few days. Four of the five zones of water have been tested under pressure and the last zone is awaiting some parts. A carpenter has come by and we talked about extending the house roof and how we can get water to the bottom catchment tank. It will take him a day or two to do the work and I think he should be able to get to it in the next week.

In the top zones I am planting so I can prune in the Beaumont-Fukunaga style. This has the rows of coffee trees closer together almost like a hedge. Then you prune 1 row out of every 3 each year. To get started with this process it helps to have the rows planted in order (a year apart) so that they are all different heights when it comes to that first pruning a few years from now. A better alternative is to plant a short row and perhaps 2 taller rows. This seems to increase the yeild a bit and still allows you to start pruning without having too many trees too tall before getting into the rotation. Think of it like children. You have them slowly so that when one outgrows his clothes, the younger one can wear them.

To get started, I have ordered over 530 smaller trees which I’ll pick up today. Then I have 1,060 taller mature trees which get delivered Friday. I’ll let the trees acclimate here for a few days, as they were grown a bit higher up the mountain. I have to schedule workers to plant them, but first I had to work out a dilema.

Up where I am planting, there is lots of soil and lots of grass. When the trees get planted they will already be a few feet tall above ground. There will be grass right next to the trunk and that is a problem. I would either have to have workers use string trimmers or Roundup very close to the trunks. An alternative is to use a weed mat, lay it out on each row, punch a hole in it where the tree holes are, and plant the trees through the hole. The weed mat allows water to seep down t othe roots, but not let weeds grow up. I had to weigh the cost of the mat and installation against hundreds of dollars of Roundup each year and the cost for someone to weed and spray.

So you can see that I am still spending money and have no return from the new trees yet. The 500 trees are $3.50 each, the 1,000 taller ones are $5.00 each and the mat about $1,500. That is about $8,600 worth of checks to write this week. However, then I have 1590 trees setting roots and drinking up rain. To get catchment water caught is the deal I’m waiting the carpenter to tell me about. I have temporary electric to the pump but need to get that permanently run. At least if I can get the carpentry done, I can make do until a bit more money comes in.

No one will tell you that farming is a winning proposition, but we do it anyway. It is satisfying when a project such as this finally comes together and certainly when it all works in the end. That day is rapidly aproaching and I still expect to have plants in the ground by the end of the month!

I still have work to do, and am juggling that with my second job up in town but soon I hope to be able to sit back and relax a bit. That is when I can get things like the kitchen remodeled and the brakes on the truck replaced. Little things like that