Varieties to Plant and Altitude in Central America
(previously titled Cultivating People in Central America)
One of the first things that people who start to live here in Central America consider is what to plant and how to cultivate it. And the list of possibilities is usually of vegetables commonly grown in temperate zones. Most of these can be grown but many will take a bit of special care. You are better off starting with easy-to-grow and more trouble-free tropical vegetables, such as winged beans, the taros like ñampi or tiquiste, yuca, jicama and so forth.
The most critical information you need is your height above sea level. From sea level to say 500 meters, you are in the hot zone and most temperate varieties and crops will be troublesome. From 1,000 to 1,500 meters is the warm temperate zone, like in San Jose. Best for temperate crop gardening. From 1,500 to 2,500 is cooler temperate climate which many northern vegetables like. Above 2,500, well have you thought about blueberries! I personally would not consider a community too much below 1,000 meters as it would probably be too hot for comfortable physical work. The elevation of a piece of land is critical but almost no one from the North knows to consider it.
- Gaiasana's blog
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Comments
not easy
Hi, Welcome to the site.
We've successfully grown papaya, sugar cane, katuk, camote leaves, okra, corn, yucca, malungay, and kangkong 200m from the ocean at 5m altitute in the Philippines. What crops exactly are you thinking of? I'd tend to agree with the original poster here, that your first inroads into gardening in the tropics would be most likely to be successful if you start with something that you know does well here. Experiment a little with anything, but don't get your hopes up too high from the beginning. It takes a lot of new tricks and different varieties to be successful in a new climate.
You might get a few ideas about things to try by considering the recommendations I gave to a question about planting varieties for Nicaragua. Your climate will be even hotter than hers but the leafy greens mentioned at the end of the article are likely to thrive wherever you plant them.
Peter
temperate varietals in the tropics
I live in Panama, my property is beachfront, not much above 10 meters. I am attemptting to grow long season variety temperate crops in this environment however my earth is well drained high in nitrogen and has proven to be very prolific when planting citrus. The soil ph will need to be adjusted, shady canopies and drip irragation system then through into the mix a good composite of organic materials I think it might work. Has anyone ever tried to do something of the nature?
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