Abel, The Man, The Legend

Abel has been a great boon to our family and our garden. Every day he brings down a large bowl of freshly picked vegetables and herbs for us and it is always wonderful seeing Sara’s whole body light up with joy as she looks into the bowl to see what gifts he has brought for us. Not only is Abel a hard worker and a talented gardener, he also has a wealth of knowledge about indigenous and folk gardening practices which have helped us greatly in nurturing our garden (and even our ayahuasca). To a westerner, talk about plant spirits, energies, plant personalities, and their individual likes and dislikes can sound like a bunch of superstitions, but Abel brings to us traditions and practices which have proved to be fruitful for many hundreds of years. These traditions include planting crops following the moon cycles. Our bean trees for example like to be planted during the crescent moon in order to grow strong and fruitful, or when pulling banana stalks for replanting, this should be done during the full moon. Once, Sara began planting tomatoes. Abel, seeing this, stopped her and told her that the tomatoes, “don’t want you to know where they are and so in order for them to grow for you, you must throw the seeds over your back and not look where they fall.”

Red Peppers

Some plants are very sensitive to the energies of different people. Sara had asked Abel to plant for us Ruda, a medicinal herb which makes a cleansing tea for women during their moon and is also used in dreamwork, and Abel refused to plant it, telling her, “Ruda does not like me and will not grow if I plant the seeds.” Ruda must have an affinity for Sara however, because she took it upon herself to plant some seeds and we now have a very healthy and happy Ruda bush! We are always looking to learn new practices and traditions and one such potential source is the rumor of a local Curandera who knows many secrets about plants. We have sent Abel off on a mission to find this Curandera and learn as much as he can. Abel has truly become part of our family and we grateful for all of his love and dedication.

Abel and Bruce showing off while harvesting oranges.

And now for a mouth-watering list of the many vegetables and fruits we have growing at Tierra Mitica: lettuce, roquette, cabbage, basil, chicory, coriander, parsley, mint, carrots, bell pepper and hot pepper of varying strengths, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, sweet potato, yuca, green beans, tomato, corn, avocado, plantain, banana, papaya, trees of lemon, orange, lima, mandarin, mango, and guanabana, cacao and coffee, just to name a few. Many of the seeds have been sourced from the US, Greece, Italy, and France, and in the future we plan to source our seeds from Kokopelli, an international organization which protects and spreads organic and ancient varieties of seeds.

Abel overlooking his crops

Good things are happening!