Fruit Farming as a Family in Olon, Ecuador

Alley Dufour teaches us about her life as a fruit farmer in Olon, Ecuador.  She talks about the benefits of growing plants as she raises a family. Her 2 year old can name all of their crops and is often seen nude and in his farming boots feeding the chickens and playing with the baby goats.  As a gardener she suggests always sticking to one goal/project at a time. 

Follow Alley and her family farm on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/fincaforestalamancay?igsh=aXpxdnoxazBtYzJl

Transcript

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Welcome to the Flower Power Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Waters. Today we have a very, very special guest, my youngest sister, Ali Dufour. Allie lives in Olan, Ecuador, right on the coast. I visited her twice there, once with my son, once on my own. And she and her husband, Jack, love gardening and planting and farming and bought land, built a house on it. And it's just amazing. The growth that they've made, what they've learned and how much they know how to do after just a little bit of time in Ecuador. I hope you really enjoy this conversation. Okay, here we are with Allie Dufour. We're so excited to have you. She's got her little one napping. So we've got at least 30 minutes to talk to Allie. So Allie, do you want to just talk a tiny bit to start things off with how you ended up living in Ecuador on a fruit farm, fruit and Goat cheese, eventually farm. Yeah. My husband and I used to work online and, we ended up in coastal Ecuador, that was our favorite place of all the places that we were, we were able to live in different places cause we were working online and this little town in coastal Ecuador was our favorite. So, when we bought a little piece of land, that's when we sort of started to get. Our hands dirty and learning about just how tasty homegrown papayas are and homegrown bananas and just, just how delicious homegrown food can be, and basically it snowballed from there and, we bought a bigger piece of land and, just sort of slowly learning about how, how to do for, for starters, just growing food for ourselves and then hopefully figure out what we can commercialize to then sell to others. I remember the first time I visited you in Ecuador, we met your gardener friend, and you just said, this is this older man, you know, only speak Spanish, and just Ali and Jack were talking to him, and he'd helped them so much with so much advice, because you know, every different conversation. I mean, there's so many things to learn and you've found all the people to, to learn from. So who was he? And was he your, one of your favorite people to learn from? Is he still around? I mean, where we live, they're sort of that, that older generation, there is a lot of. used to do a lot of agriculture. So it's awesome that if you find people sort of in their fifties and up, usually they have agriculture in their past. so there's lots of knowledge right here. And that man in particular still was. was working, was still gardening. So he was super helpful and we would ask him about different seeds and where you could find certain certain seeds and, he would show up with little banana starters for us to, you know, start our first bananas and stuff. I think he was really excited that we were, I think a lot of the younger generations here are doing less agriculture. So I think he was excited to see it. Younger people coming in, really interested in, in growing stuff and sort of seeing where our food comes from. That's so interesting because I feel like that's so true even here in Virginia. I'm on this native plants, Facebook page. And so I went showed up to this one woman's house because she had some yarrow and some small plants and she was giving away for free. So excited at the fact that I was young, because I think that, you know, she's just, Oh, somebody young who's going to carry this on, he's going to teach others and, you know, it's not gonna end with us like that generation. So I think that's interesting. I like to think that there is a young, some young blood sort of coming into that field. I feel like a lot of people are, are getting more interested in it. Just with friends that we know back in the U S and here, it seems like it's Maybe there's some seeds that are, that have started in that, in our generation. That's what this podcast is all about. So I'm so excited. It's our first episode and we're going to inspire people to garden and plant things. And, I learned so much from you, Allie. I mean, You've inspired our entire family with your story, you know, leaving a corporate job and starting your own online business, traveling the whole world, doing that. And then, you know, just sticking to what you guys felt like was the right thing for you to do. And, so what are some things that you've learned? I know you've, you do a lot of visiting of farms, both in Ecuador and when you're back in the States visiting, what are some things you've learned from? Those visits that you're trying to incorporate into your farm in Ecuador. Yeah. I mean, it's been funny. I'm from Virginia. My husband's from Kentucky and as we're learning about Growing food and, just planting and doing it in a sustainable or regenerative way. So, we recently visited a, great farm outside of, Northern Virginia, called Polyface Farm. And... Learned a ton. What would be a synopsis of what we learned? I mean, one thing that I think there's so much to do when you, I mean, you have this piece of land. We have so much we want to do here. and. You know, you want to do it in a way that's just like perfect and you, don't bring in a bunch of Fertilizer and sort of we want to do it sort of self contained The idea that this place can turn into a forest while we farm it like sort of Leaving a forest in our footsteps. so there's just lots you want to do and there's lots of ways to do it. And everyone has different different ways of doing it. But I think when you visit these farms, a lot of times, one thing that we like to see, or it's like been eye opening is how they a lot of times there is a focus of, you know, you can do all this, all of this stuff, but you have to start somewhere. And so focus on one, one aspect and try to, you know, for us, Right now we're learning about sort of animals and how they integrate with plants, and in order to learn how they integrate, we have to learn about animals. So right now we're learning a lot about animal impact and through goats even though our bigger goal is lots of planting with the animals help we kind of got to start somewhere. So I think it's nice when you see A farm that's even maybe 30 years old, but they still are working, working at that goal and slowly adding on, Improving their,, vision. I don't know if that is a long winded answer. So I started gardening after Mother's Day. Our parents and my son Ian, your nephew, planted two small beds as my Mother's Day gift. And that just got the whole thing started. So then that, that was there. And so then I decided to do some on my own and now it's looking amazing. I mean, in my, I'm so proud of it. and so now I just, this weekend started on the other side of the garden, like you can always have a new project. Yeah. Yeah. It's gotta be like this addicting feelings. I'm just like, I want to plant more, like, what else can I do? You know, I have all these goals, you know, with vegetables eventually. So yeah. That's right. Yeah. But even an established farm of 30 years still has their projects. Yeah. Totally. Definitely. So speaking of vegetables. One thing I've always wondered, and this might seem like a silly question, is why do I have to go to the store to buy seeds, tomato seeds, pepper seeds, when I eat all of that stuff at home, why can't I just save the seeds and plant them in my vegetable garden? Yeah, that's a really good question. So it's, it's different for all seeds, I think, but I would say a lot of the fruit, a lot of vegetable seeds, like you mentioned, tomatoes, peppers, peppers. Watermelon's another one. A lot of these annual, vegetables and annual fruits, the seeds have been altered, sort of genetically modified or sort of maybe to improve productivity or I don't know, for whatever reason, some companies alter the seeds, which these altered seeds then lose their, ability to reproduce. So, basically if you were to go find, that's sort of one of these benefits of, I assume farmers markets where you would oftentimes find sort of the heirloom varieties, these heirloom varieties. And you can also find seeds online that are heirloom seeds. and these seeds are the type of seeds that haven't been modified by a company or anyone. And, they, you can, you know, eat your pepper, save the seeds, plant it again next year. those are sort of these, the natural. Varieties that haven't been altered. Okay. I remember the first thing I planted, I think ever was my first trip to visit you and we were eating papaya. You always had the most amazing fruit. We saved the seeds. And then I planted some of those papaya seeds, you know, out in your, your house. do you remember? And it was just, it was really fun. And then I saw it the next time I visited and it was, you know, already, really big. Cool. Big, bigger plant. Do you remember the first thing you planted in Ecuador? Yeah. So. At first, we didn't have water on, on our piece of land. So we were living in town and when we would go visit the piece of land, we would carry like five gallon buckets with us to be able to plant something, to be able to add water. I think the first, this is up a hill. This is pre car. This was walking. This is walking water. this is just our over excited. We couldn't wait to get water up there. so not, I mean, we did. It wasn't a daily thing, but it was sort of. More often than most people, I think, would be comfortable doing. So Allie isn't badass, Allie is so hardcore, if you haven't realized that already. There we go. but I first, I think the first couple things, I mean, bananas and papayas here are Very common. They grow really well. They just are a good fit for our climate. like you said, papayas, you just toss the seeds in the ground and you'll get some papaya trees. so I think bananas, papayas and hibiscus actually like the flour. Um mm-hmm. were the first couple things that we planted. Hibiscus also, there's varieties here that grow really well. and, the hummingbirds love them. So we, like that flower a lot. Oh, that's that was actually one of my other questions. What flowers do you have on your farm? And what's your favorite? And you have any also plans to add flowers to your repertoire just for you know, your own? Yeah, like the beauty of them, the bees. So we don't have any planted. So on the farm, we don't have, we haven't planted like any specific anything just for the flower. But I mean, all these fruits have amazing flowers. So I don't know if you've ever seen a passion fruit flower, but it is an absolutely incredible flower. You should look it up, a passion fruit. So all of these fruits have really beautiful flower. I mean, even just like a lot of the beans, pigeon pea is a plant that we grow. it grows in kind of degraded soils and it. It's something we can feed to the goats. It's a bean for us as well to eat. It also just has a beautiful beans, have really beautiful, almost orchid like flowers. so a lot of these edible plants have really nice flowers as well. So they're not planted for the flower only, but kind of the dual dual purpose. We hope to, at some point, start to do some bee, have maybe some a time when we're interested in flowers just for the sake of, a flower, not necessarily for the fruit as well, because I think You can kind of, I think with bees, I've heard that you want to have flowers as much of the year as possible so they have food as much of the year as they can. So it might be an interesting time to learn about late flowering or early flowering sort of to extend their food supply as well. You'll have to listen to the podcast because we're going to have another flower farmer from Ecuador on and At some point soon. So yeah, she'll be able to help you with some of that. But yeah, I mean, I'm already planning to come and live with you on summer and just. Cut all your flowers and sell them. After the bees have enjoyed them a little bit. Okay, I guess, Allie, do we have time for one more question? Yes, definitely. Okay. The baby is still sleeping. Oh, okay. This one is my favorite one. So, you now have a son. We're just talking about him. And he, you know, has grown up in Ecuador. Was born in Ecuador. He is out there on the farm with you guys every day. How has farming and this lifestyle that you guys have helped you grow as a family, both you and your husband and also now with your firstborn? How is this activity of being outside and in the garden, you know, planting things brought you closer as a family? Yeah, I mean, I think since we have a two year old, and so every day he's getting more and more, interested in getting more and more involved, with planting, with the goats, with, I mean, clearing things, planting things, just all aspects of the farm, and since him, I mean, I think our interest in farming has just exploded since seeing him, just, yeah. Seeing him. So he is two years old and he can point out a coconut tree, a banana tree, oh my gosh, a lime tree. I mean, I, I think we have, there's just something kind of awesome about the fact that some of his first words are not only knowing what a coconut is, but he can identify, different plants and stuff. And that just kind of has taken on a whole nother, depth of appreciation for. For these plants. and then just seeing him be barefoot over half of the day. He's barefoot and, he is just so connected to the land and the animals here. And, I feel like he's thriving and I feel like it's only making us thrive more. I don't I mean, as a family, basically, we do try to create projects, you know, whatever our project as a family or as a farm, we're trying to prioritize ones that he can get involved in. As we're planning our next farm project, we try to incorporate, you know, what would, what can he be more involved in? Yeah, I mean, he's just, he just loves it. You can tell he loves it and it just makes us love it even more. I mean, cause you're, you're, as you're out there with him, you're teaching him all of those things. Yeah. Yeah. He's recognizing a plant before it even becomes a fruit. Like he knows that that's a coffee plant or that's a lime. Yeah. I remember now that you say this, a video that he was doing that. That is so cool. He knows more than me. He can be on my podcast. Once he's talking in full sentences. Yeah. There's something special about getting your hands or your feet in the soil and. watching stuff grow and watching stuff die, watch stuff grow, watch stuff, you know, watch and being able to interact with plants. I feel like I've loved learning it and he's totally loving it. and I mean, all over the world, that's the same, it's the same feeling you get, you know? True. I've got to get my kids out there a little bit more. Even Brady. I've got to be like, Brady, come on, start digging in there. Totally. Totally. Yeah. At least thanks for having me. All right. Love you. Love you. Bye. Bye.