OUR PLANTATION
Our plantation is located on the southern slope of the Balian river valley, west f Mount Batukaru and the small village of Sanda, in Pupuan. The plantation slopes down from the top of the ridge of the valley, all the way down to the Balian river, a very clean river. Due to its geography we enjoy spectacular views over the valley, neighboring plantations and rice fields.
Until about 10 years ago our plantation looked very different, as the upper part was actually rice fields and only the lower part was a plantation. After a couple of minor land slides the owner decided to convert the rice fields into a coffee plantation, but you can still see the terraces of the former rice fields.
We now grow about 30 different fruit trees and other crops, and we love to add more! Here are some of the main fruit trees and crops.
Coffee
Pupuan is famous for its excellent quality Robusta coffee. We probably have about 100 coffee trees. We had a lot more, but have cut down quite a few to make space for our development as well as other crops.
Coffee has a distinct yearly cycle and harvest here is usually around July. We have coffee trees flowering throughout the year though, particularly shortly before new rain arrives. We love that, as the smell of flowering coffee trees is really something..!
As for the taste of Pupuan coffee, come over and try…
Vanilla
We have cleared some of the coffee terraces and planted vanilla. Until the 80s Pupuan was a major raw vanilla producer, and vanilla is now making a comeback.
With our vanilla we are an Associate Farmer of Royal Spice Gardens Indonesia, a company in Bali aiming to become a major global high-quality vanilla producer.
We currently have about 600 vanilla plants and this year expect the first small harvest of vanilla beans!
If you’d like to know more about Royal Spice Gardens Indonesia, check out this link:
Avocado
We have quite a few avocado trees. Initially a local variety only, excellent for juice. Unfortunately they fruit only once a year and for a month or two we have too many to eat…! Why is that unfortunate? Because we don’t have avocado the rest of the year..!
We have recently planted 50 new avocado trees, mostly the famous Hass and Miki, the large buttery ones, as well as a Vietnamese red variety. We will wait patiently for them to fruit…!
Durian
Durian! Our favorite, by far…! You either hate it or love, for us the latter.
We have about a dozen durian trees, 3 different varieties. Most of them now produce fruit, while a few others have been planted recently.
We are still a bit confused about the seasonality, as it seems the trees fruit twice a year. Perhaps because of the changing weather..? We don’t mind though!
Bananas
Every plantation has bananas, as they are so important in Balinese ceremonies and offerings. We have a couple of different varieties. Some are very small and sweet, others more the type known in the West, and others are only good when cooked, steamed or fried.
I love the flowers of the banana tree. Not only because they are so fascinating and beautiful, but also because they attract some of the more spectacular birds during the day, and bats at night!
Papaya
Papaya trees grow very fast, and produce fruit within almost a year! We have plenty of papaya trees, but initially only half of them produce nice sweet papaya. Others produce fairly tasteless fruit, which we are happy to leave for the bats and birds.
We have recently planted California Papaya, famous for being so sweet! This variety does not grow very tall, and you can pick the ripe fruits just by hand.
Cacao
In Indonesian they call it coklat, chocolate! How appropriate. As that is what most cacao are used for.
Sanda is actually a bit too high for Cacao, and most trees suffer from fungus, causing so-called pod-rot. The trees produce plenty of cacao pods year round, but once the pods start to ripen a fungus takes over and makes the pod rot away. There’s unfortunately not much you can do about this.
Pineapple
We love pineapple and we have a dozen or so pineapple plants. They don’t receive enough sun to become really sweet though. Juiced they are pretty good!
What we didn’t know before is that it takes about 2 years for a vanilla plant to produce a single mature pineapple! Given the space, sun and time you need to have a regular supply of pineapple makes it not really interesting for us to further develop.
