Gardening
in Panama - Articles
Submitted by Others - Finca Santa Marta:
- Finca Santa Marta - a 45 acre
organic vegetable and fruit farm in western
Panama near the Costa Rican border
Finca Santa Marta
Buenos dias from the beautiful Shenandoah
Valley of Virginia.
My wife Kim and I are developing a 45 acre
organic vegetable and fruit farm in western
Panama near the Costa Rican border. Our farm
has a km of frontage on the Rio Gariché. We
are still part timers in Panama and travel
back and forth from our home in Virginia.
The project has been quite an adventure for
the last 2.5 years.
We have 8 full time employees in Panama
including a great Panamanian manager, Tino,
who lived in the US for 28 years before
returning to Panama to retire. He is a very
active 65 year old guy who truly enjoys the
challenges of helping us develop the farm.
Our goal is to grow a wide variety of
organic vegetables, fruits and herbs and
distribute them to retired gringos living in
western Panama. Eventually we hope to have
enough production to deliver once a week to
Panama City as well. We also are working to
grow organic free range chickens for meat
and eggs and will add organic farm raised
tilapia in the future. We are also planning
to have training seminars at the farm to
teach locals how to avoid the use of
commercial fertilizers and pesticides. We
have met a couple who live a few km from us
and are also master gardeners from the US.
They are looking to share their vast
knowledge and experience with others and
will be an important part of our training
center. We also know a bilingual Panamanian
who has been studying medicinal herbs in
Panama for the last 25 years and he will
also be leading some training seminars.
We have been able to shuttle back and forth
about once a month this year.
Saludos,
Ron y Kim Miller
Finca Santa Marta
Healthy Food for Panama
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