Fredy our contractor on the remodel of our home is also a papaya plantation owner. Many times during the remodel he would show up with these huge papayas just picked from his finca. It was a treat for Joe and I as well as the workers to cut into one of these homegrown beauties. He has over five hectares of land on the road to Bahia that he cultivates with both papaya and melons. These photos were taken on Wednesday, November 7, 2012. Over the next several months I will be returning to take pictures of the progress and showing the work involved in this farm.
This photo shows some lobsters we received from one of our neighbors and one of Fredy’s huge papayas. This photo was taken back in late August.
I know it looks like nothing has been planted but it has over 5,000 papaya plants in the ground on this five hectare piece of property.
Fredy has 10 workers during the planting season and it goes down to two during harvest. He sells his crop to a group that come to his property every Monday morning during the harvest season, pick the ripe fruit, do a count and pay him under .50 each for his large papayas.
This is the size of the seedlings that the workers are planting, these were started from seeds Fredy had collected from his own papaya and some seeds from a papaya that Joe and I had purchased which was actually a bit sweeter than the variety that Fredy had. I will be going back to the farm with him in about 10 days and will give you all an update at that time.
Once the trees reach a certain height they will plant a melon crop underneath, this will help keep the weeds down as well as hold any moisture from evaporating from the soil.
This is the cistern for holding water. The water is spread through a system of sprinkler hoses set near the trees. This water is replenished by water truck that gets it from the river.
Finding our Paradise in South America 