# A question for "Gardens of Mexico"



## phredo (Aug 15, 2009)

I put this in a new thread because it's not exactly a garden question or comment. My question is this: how did you all find places to live in Mexico that were large enough to allow you to have such nice gardens? Although I visit Mexico frequently, my visits are usually of the "vacation" type and don't usually include looking at real estate; but my web searches from up here in Northern California only seem to find quite small lots or houses on quite small lots or huge tracts of land in the boondocks for mucho $$.

I live now on 1/2 acre where I have an about 1200 sq ft veg garden and half a dozen fruit trees. My dream would be to find a 1/2 to 1 hectare place with enough water to garden and close enough to town life to be able to either walk or bicycle. Is it possible to find such places for sale in Mexico and for not too much money (e.g., $40k US if it were just land, construction existing or possible at reasonable cost)?

I'd really love to hear some answers and/or opinions.

Thanks,

Fred, in Sonoma County, CA


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

[I_]


phredo said:



I put this in a new thread because it's not exactly a garden question or comment. My question is this: how did you all find places to live in Mexico that were large enough to allow you to have such nice gardens? Although I visit Mexico frequently, my visits are usually of the "vacation" type and don't usually include looking at real estate; but my web searches from up here in Northern California only seem to find quite small lots or houses on quite small lots or huge tracts of land in the boondocks for mucho $$.

I live now on 1/2 acre where I have an about 1200 sq ft veg garden and half a dozen fruit trees. My dream would be to find a 1/2 to 1 hectare place with enough water to garden and close enough to town life to be able to either walk or bicycle. Is it possible to find such places for sale in Mexico and for not too much money (e.g., $40k US if it were just land, construction existing or possible at reasonable cost)?

I'd really love to hear some answers and/or opinions.

Thanks,

Click to expand...

_


phredo said:


> Fred, in Sonoma County, CA


[/I]

Well, Phred, as a fellow Northern Californian who last lived, in 2001, in the Mayacamas between Santa Rosa and St. Helena, on eight acres of forested land and all the land needed to grow all the vegetables one needed, I will tell you that we bought a 1/3rd acre lot on Lake Chapala for a very reasonable price and could, if we were so inclined, grow all the vegetables we could ever consume with several harvests a year. Since we are not farmers and vegetables are unbelievably cheap here, we are content at picking the oranges, limes, lemons and grapefruit off the trees and copious amounts of herbs at the numerous harvest times annually. 

Your major mistake is that you are seeking properties on the internet and, thus, are being quoted prices way over the market you would be quoted if hereabouts. You must come here to find the right property and it would help if you spoke at least elementay Spanish. You can, under the right circunstances, find all the land you need for your vegetable garden around Lake Chapala and in numerous other places in Mexico but you will never find that property on the internet.


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## phredo (Aug 15, 2009)

Thanks, Hound Dog, for the information. Interested that you lived so close to where I do, which is just outside of Guerneville. I sort of suspected that I would not find the best deals by looking on the internet, but I thought I would probably get an idea of what is available even if marked up by 100%. It's just that almost all the pieces of land with or without homes on them I see for sale there are smaller than 1000 m3 or bigger than 100 hectares. The very few I've seen in the range I'm talking about were a few around San Miguel for something like $500k US (just land). I was beginning to think that maybe it is illegal for a foreigner to own land larger than 1/4 acre, which actually be the case within 50km of the coast (or something like that.)

Although not raised as a farmer, I've become interested in growing at least a large fraction of the food my wife and I eat. Last year I grew about 35 lbs of dry corn, 25 lbs of fava beans, 12 lbs of other dried beans, 100 lbs of potatoes, 20 lbs of garlic, 20 lbs of onions, and 10 lbs of wheat, besides the basil, tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers, and enough lettuce, bok choy and kale to keep us in large salads throughout the year. The quantities don't sound like that much, but it ends up making up a pretty good chunk of our diet You say that your 1/3 acre would allow you to "grow all the vegetables we could ever consume", but my experience is that, on our half acre, we don't have room for much more than the 1200 sq ft garden we have now, what with the room the house, carport, driveway, several sheds, and some fruit trees take up. That's why I mentioned wanting something more like 1/2 to full hectare. I'd like to grow more corn and wheat (or some other grains), plus a little more of the other stuff, and would like to have about a 3000-4000 sq ft garden (or "farm", if you will.)

Also, it would be nice to be doing this somewhere where there are neighbors doing something similar, so I wouldn't feel like a complete freak and would also be able to share ideas, tools, etc. But as I said before, it would be nice also to be somewhat near a town and not too cut off from some culture other than just campesino life.

All ideas welcome.

Fred


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

I just bought 2 lots side by side so have the house on one and garden on the other .... more or less. Standard lots around here are 10x20 meters so I'm working with 20x20. Limes, avocado, star fruit, zapote, bananas and a big Neem with babies popping up below from seeds dropped. Most everything is fairly new so learning as I go. Oh ... lots of tomatoes


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## cuylers5746 (Mar 19, 2012)

*Gardens in Mexico*

We acquired this property . from my wife's Aunt in a Will. It's really two smaller houses, that with my money we put together as one house and renovated all the plumbing, electrical, replastered a lot of walls and painted. It's like 2250 sq. ft. and a 250 sq. ft. "garage" in the rear patio. It's got a large laundry room in the garage with a toilet and a storage area for my fishing equipment and sports equipment - really no room for a car. The lot is like 38 ft. wide and 200 ft. deep, the longest on the block. And, it's only 3.5 blocks from the main town square, yet I go into my garden and can hardly hear any street traffic. It's my oasis, but still we live so centrally located in the "Colonial Hysterical". Best of both worlds, and walk everywhere. Sometimes we don't even get the car out of our parking lot for a week or 10 days. Healthy living for sure.

The garden is 38 ft. wide by 60 ft. deep. Plenty of room. I call the house "Casa de Recuerdos" as it's furnished from furniture from three different houses/condo that we used to have in USA and the rest from crafts, furniture we've picked up while visiting beautiful Colonial Cities in Mexico. The garden I call my paradise. It has a Mango Tree, that got diseased, that I had to cut down recently. Used to have kilo sized mango's. We have a Medallion Grapefruit Tree, a Mandarin Orange (Tangelo) Tree, and a class 1 Guayaba Tree (my prised tree), that puts out orange sized golden fruit. I have 5 different colored Bouganveilla large bushes in hedges along the walls.

As a real plus we have the neighbors (down sun to the West) with a 35 ft. Haas Hybrid (twice the size of Haas regular fruit) Avocado Tree that hangs partially in our yard. This year we got 150-175 beautiful Avocados from it. Most years I wake up go inspect the ""back forty", (ha, ha) and tell my wife if it's a 1 or 3 or 5 Avocado day - as they just plop onto the ground from the neighbor's tree. This year my son visited and he's an Avocado Freek, so we had to pluck them with my "Professional Grade Mango Plucker". He was in heaven eating 5-6 alone by himself each day. He's a health freek and loves to substitute Avocado's for Mayonaise.

We have about 15 roses and some other flowers for me to keep the wifee happy with flowers on the table most days. But, vegetables? No, we live in the Tropics in Tepic, Nayarit. Couldn't even get to harvest any tomatoes here, as the bugs will get there before you can even wake up in the morning! We have 3 Gardenia plants and two Jasmine for real nice fragrances as you walk among the plants. I have a nice herb garden in my left over 5 gallon paint buckets. More on that if anyone is interested as it solved some interesting critter problems. We have a nice patio set out back for Bar-B-Ques, and some swinging Love Seats to sit watch the birds, butterflies and smell the flowers. They come at different times of the day, and I swear they think that I built this garden for them? Some of the little colorful tropical birds and humming birds have become like friends and are not much afraid of me, just curious.

So, my whole point to you is; you don't need that much property as you're suggesting.

Instead you need to think smaller, and think about building a couple of large Green Houses down here if you want to harvest "what you sow". Think Mitler Boxes in Green Houses. I'm sure I could harvest easily enough to eat on here on this small patch this way, and that's between all the trees I've described above. As previously stated the vegetables and fruits down here are so cheap it's not worth it. The other day in the Bodega Aurera I bought 6 nice big beef steak tomatoes for 8 pesos = $.63 USD. Think like $3-5.00 USD in California for that? They're even cheaper than Roma's usually as the Mexican's are used to using those mostly for cooking and not the Beefsteaks?

So think smaller, and think about growing what they don't have so cheap in the markets here. Like your Kale. Live here a season and visit the huge Commercial Market areas where the farmers bring in their produce (can buy right off the truck real early in the morning for a whole lot cheaper than I described above), and buy by the crate. Then what ever they don't have at ridiculously cheap prices plan on growing that. Think the Mexican Way = quicker, cheaper, faster , simpler than in USA. Build your Green Houses with a cement floor base, with PVC pipe for the ribs and structure and thick clear plastic for the walls. 

In another email I can describe around here what you can buy, home and house for cheap if your interested. I had some old guy try and sell my a couple of hectares just yesterday while sitting on the back of the Presidente Municipal enjoying my "helado" and watching all the people.


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## phredo (Aug 15, 2009)

Thanks, cuyler, for a really great account. I lived for several years on the Kona coast of the Big Island, just off of Napoopoo Road on the way down to Kealakakua Bay. If these names are all "Greek" to you, suffice it say, "in Hawaii." Conditions were much as you describe: it was much easier and "natural" to grow fruit trees than vegetables. I always ate several papayas a day and an avocado or two, plus lots of guava and citrus. Usually I had a stalk of bananas hanging from a rafter ripening. There were some people who actually lived on nothing more than the fruit they could glean from along the roadside and from unoccupied land. And I remember that mine and other peoples tomatoes didn't make it past the fruit flies and other bugs, and it was difficult to grow many vegetables because of the bugs.

So I understand what you're talking about and agree with most of what you said. Your place sounds like paradise, with town and solitude both nearby. About the only point I take a little issue with is something both you and Dog said, that some food is so cheap it doesn't make sense to grow it: why would I want to work a lot to grow 100 lbs of potatoes (although perhaps they're not so cheap in Mexico?) when I can buy them for, say, $15? Well, here's why:

In my opinion, fossil fuel (gas powered tools and petroleum based fertilizer) isn't going to last too much longer. I'm interested in learning how to grow food on not much land with hand tools and not much outside fertilizer. There's a guy in Northern California who has been working out methods for doing this for about 30 years. Here's more information than you'll probably want, GROW BIOINTENSIVE workshops with John Jeavons , but take a look at it and you'll see where I'm coming from. Besides the idea that the oil is going to run out and the big farms are going to go down the tube, another reason for what I'm doing is that much of the food from the big suppliers is contaminated and unhealthy in various ways. For example, I don't know how it is in Tepic, but in La Paz, where I was recently, I could only find one tortilleria in a lot of asking around that sold non-Mazeca corn masa or tortillas. I believe much of Mazeca's corn comes from the US, and about 90% of US corn is genetically modified. I put some energy into fighting for Proposition 37 in California's last election, which would have required labeling of GMO food, and which lost by a slim margin after Monsanto spent $25 million to defeat it. Part of what I love about Mexico is being destroyed by big business agriculture as the campesinos are displaced into urban slums. Growing your own corn is one way to fight that, and there is a vibrant campesino movement in Mexico that thinks that way.

Well, more than enough of that. I just wanted to show you that I do have my reasons for wanting to grown a large chunk of my own food. And, besides, I really enjoy doing it. My wife and I will sit down to a dinner of corn cakes (we treat the corn with lime in the Mexican way), beans, tomatillo salsa, and a big salad, and marvel over the fact that it all came from home, with olive oil and the fuel to cook it being the only things that came from the outside. Of course, we probably marvel more than many people doing the same thing all over the world, because she grew up in Queens and I grew up in Chicago and Indianapolis.

And yes, if it's not much trouble, I'd be interested in learning about low cost real estate in or near Tepic, a place we've visited several times and like, nice city, good altitude, not too far from the States. How much was the guy asking for the two hectares and how far from "town" was it? I don't think we'd be moving soon, but right now I'm looking for information. Since it would be hard to give up our place here and I don't think we exactly want to do that, and since it would be difficult to have gardens in two places at once, I'm not quite sure what I want to do, to tell you the truth, but I'm trying to figure it out.

Thanks again for your post.

Fred


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

I live on the south coast of Jalisco and have had great luck with tomatoes so far. Cherry tomatoes would be 10+ feet tall if they could support themselves. Found one worm when they were young and that was it. Have about 15 volunteer tomatoes growing on my compost pile that I've just staked. We are surrounded by tomato and chili farms but they spray - I'm just going to watch closely. Have to spray lime trees and a few other plants a couple times a year to stop aphids (plaga). Good luck with cilantro and other herbs but carrots and radishes - nothing. Wondering if seeds brought down from up north have something to do with it as I got no northern corn but local stuff is doing fine.


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## cuylers5746 (Mar 19, 2012)

Hi Fred;

Yea, I know of those places on the Big Island. Funny, I compare this area to Hawaii, but say the people are nicer. They know they have it great living here, and yet don't seem to have that edge about outsiders Haoli's
like in Hawaii. I prefer living here. I surf, dive, Bass Fish, Salt Water Fish, love the Hot Springs and of course
all the really nice Huichol and Cora Indians that make it a more colorful place than Hawaii.

I hear you. Actually my son has made me so much more aware of all that you described. He's like one class away from his Landscape Arch. Degree and really into rare exotic fruits and cultivars. He's super hip on nutrition too and with almost a photographic memory. About a month ago on his visit down here we took him to th Pto. Vallarta Botanical Gardens. The owner was so impressed with him he wanted to over him a job as an Asst. Aboretist. I kid you not.

Here's my beliefs. We've depleted the top soil so much in the States, and with the decades of chemical fertilizers used you end up with only about 40% of the nutrients passed on to you when they pick the food. If it's bought locally maybe you get all that? If shipped long distance bumping along on the highways you loose another 25% of the nutrients? Then if you buy it frozen you only end up with 20% of the nutrients. If canned you get 10% or nothing? So, I can hear what you want.

My son is really into the heirloom seeds and says there is a hug conspiracy in the USA with Monsanto, and the other Agricultural Companies to try and eliminate them - instead they sell you seeds that when the plan blooms the seeds are now sterile and can't be sown. That and he says they're pushing for laws making it illegal for yo to sell any of your crop to neighbors. What the heck is going on in the USA?

My favorite corn in the USA is Zellwood Corn. Northeast of Orlando in Zellwood, Florida they harvest it each winter. It's a super sweet and very tender white corn. Speaking about corn. Have you ever been to the Jala, Nayarit corn festival? It's about 40 miles east of here in a super quaint almost 100% controlled INAH old pueblo. They say they show corn at the Fair each year that's over 18" and sometimes almost 2 ft. long.

Tomatoes. Yea, I'd like a hot house and still may do that for them. My son has shown me like over 50 different kinds of tomatoes, chocolate brown tomatoes, that have a smoky taste to them, tomatoes from all over the world.

Then there's the anti cancer fruits Gogi Berries, etc. that you can grow here because it's Tropical. Berries grow here too. Over by the coast, my surfing buddy Wayne Hankins has a friend with property on the front side of Mt. San Juan that has like 160 fruit trees, over 40 different kinds. Wayne himself was growing on some land what I would call huge Bread Fruit, but he call them something different. He says the Japanese buy up all you can produce. He says you can make up to $90,000 USD per year off a hectare growing those things.

I'll ask some of the old boy's what you can get hectares for on good land. If I were you I'd go for at least 5-10 hectares as the area is expanding so rapidly – they're calling Tepic...”the next Metropolis”?
It would be a good investment. Also I have a Caner down the street who believe it or not his name is Sr. Cane! I also have a family of Charo's 3 doors from me that have 10 hectares with dairy cattle. I'll ask them. I think that land along the Jalisco, Colima coasts is pretty expensive. I sat next to one of the owners from the USA of an Agricultural Farming pear and exotic tomatoes and he said they had to pay like $4500.00 USD equivalent for hectares in the little valley's between the ridges of the Sierras. Here I think they'll be a lot cheaper as it's big Sugar Cane Country?

Then if you want to live in a little Paradise about an hour away from Tepic and 1.5 hours from Guadalajara? There's the absolutely stunning “Valle de Amatlan de Cana”. Up at 4000 ft. or above elevation with 3 really cute old villages from the 1500's when the Spanish discovered it while exploring for Gold. Oh, and in Amatlan de Cana (the Pueblo), they have a lot of Hot Springs even a hot river. And, not to miss the “El Mato Springs”, open when not in rainy season. Stunning arroyo with a small stream that people from Nayarit love to go visit, swim and picnic. People in Nayarit are really into the natural stuff, and we have my favorite Balnearo only about 20 minutes from my house just over the hill The old guy has 3 natural pools, ton's of beautiful Bougainvilleas around, and stream with those big spreading roots like in Hawaii.

I really think you need a vacation down here, I can meet up with you and point you in directions to explore to find your little oasis. Like on the front side of Mt. San Juan they still have two mall little coffee growing pueblos. Takes a 4 x 4 to get there.


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## phredo (Aug 15, 2009)

[re. Sparks] As it happens, I just spoke yesterday to someone who lived on Kuai for 18 years. She said she did have problems with some kinds of tomatoes but that her cherry tomatoes did really well with not much bug issues. And I don't even try to grow carrots up here in Sonoma County: it's so hard to keep the soil moist long enough for them to sprout, and if they do sprout the slugs or something else gets them right away. I know many people seem to do fine with carrots, but I'm too impatient or inattentive or something.

[Cuyler] Thanks for the nice respone. It looks like your son has been listening to the same people I do, and more besides. There are so many ways to try to relate to all the unpleasant aspects of contemporary culture, politics, economic issues, etc., from ignoring it all completely and just trying to get on with ones life, to spending all ones time trying to do something positive and ignoring other things in life, or to just fretting about it and not doing anything. Mostly we try to find some balance, do some good when we can and it's not terribly inconvenient, and try not to be downwind. Somehow I got interested in sustainable gardening, probably because I enjoy it and it fits in with other things I spend time on. As an architect, your son has a big opportunity to do some good work.

Anyway, I've had a few busy days and haven't had time to look up the Valle de Amatlan de Cana yet, but I will as soon as I can (I have to water the garden and then maybe plant some peas and/or potatoes first), and thank you for the idea. I really could use a trip down there, but it's not happening right away, for a few reasons. We can't get away right now anyway, but also my wife is a little down on mainland Mexico, after we made an attempt two years ago to spend two months in the same place so we could see what "living in Mexico" would be like. It was right when there was a lot of dengue reported on the internet, so, after flying in to Puerto Vallarta, instead of finding a cottage to rent in, say, Rincon de Guayabitos, we rented an air conditioned studio smack in the middle of the Playa Los Muertos beach scene, because we thought the AC would mean good screens and thus no zancudos. She was pretty sick for a few days, we didn't have a very good time in general, and she still hasn't gotten over it. On the other hand, she really liked our recent trip to Baja Sur -- more outdoors, less noise, nice people; so that may be our Mexico future for a while, at least.

Something I found out about Baja Sur that was interesting to me is that there are areas on the East Cape side with water. I knew about Todos Santos on the Pacific side, but it's rather pricey and also pretty trendy and chi-chi with lots of art galleries, and that's not to my taste, especially the "pricey" part. On the east side, there doesn't seem to be such a large aquifer, but a number of smaller ones. Many people doing organic gardening, with organic "farmers markets" in La Paz and San Jose del Cabo.

But just because I can't get to Tepic right away doesn't mean I'm not interested. Besides being interested in the region itself, anything I learn about there tells me more about the situation in Mexico everywhere.

Why would it be important to have a greenhouse when the climate is so good? As a bug screen, basically?

I appreciate what you said about the beauty of those small towns, and that may very well be the sort of place I would like. On the other hand, I also like urban life and like the idea of being not too far from it. By the way, do you know much about what it's like to live in the area up above Vallarta, where Mascota and Talpa are? [update: I looked up Amatlan de Cañas and it looks like an area I'd really like to explore. What are the names of the other two towns? Do you know if there are small farms in the area?]

Also, I agree with what you said about the differences between living in Hawaii and Mexico.

To other people reading this, remember that the thread is about finding reasonably priced land in the 1/2 to 2 hectare range, suitable for "subsistence" gardening. Electricity not too important, but some access to water - pozo or pipa - a must. All tips and experiences welcome.


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## Greenlady (Feb 8, 2013)

Hi Everyone! We just built a beautiful new home in Tulum, Mexico on two side by side lots. We have lots of room for gardens. We left a large portion at the back of the property to make a serene walk through a designed 'jungle' and at the front side of the property would like to have trees for screening for privacy, fruit trees and a garden for vegetables and culinary herbs.

A friend who lives there says we need to layer in crushed limestone, Rellena Rojo and then only about 6 or 7 inches of topsoil from the region. Does this sound right? A worker spit out some papaya seeds and we now have to plants about 4 feet tall in the existing soil, though we need to raise the level about a foot to be level with poured concrete walks. He also insists that we should only plant palms as they don't drop leaves like other trees. I'm thinking thats fine around the pool, to minimize maintenance, but as a Canadian Master Gardener, I should think that decomposing leaves etc. in the backyard will only enrich the soil.

Looking forward to your answers as I'm way out of my league here.


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