Romero brothers growing year round

What began as a hobby after retirement for Eddie Romero was a transition into the “retirement plan” — growing and selling a variety of fruits, vegetables and farm fresh eggs.

His brother Daniel will retire at the end of the year but has already prepared for a new season of growth by commercializing his orchards.

The Romero brothers, Daniel, 67, and Eddie, 72, are the remaining growers of the Romero clan who at one time farmed more than 5,000 acres of sugar cane in Iberia Parish. Their home acreage now produces homegrown vegetables and fruits for the family tables as well as friends and consumers interested in purchasing what they pick.

“Satsumas, pummelo and persimmons are all I’m picking at this time,” said Eddie Romero. “At the end of April is when blackberries, blueberries and peaches, all good fruits, start to come in.

“You can’t imagine the number of people coming for apples, but my apple season is in July,” he said.

Mark A. Boudreaux and his wife, Svitlana, went out on Tuesday to pick satsumas as travel snacks and gifts. A multi-year award-winning cook for the Cajun-Creole Cookbook Cook-off sponsored by The Daily Iberian and the Cajun Sugar Co-Op, Boudreaux said he has just turned his “hobby” into a new personal chef business, but that’s not why he was there.

“We come all the time,” Boudreaux said. “We love to pick fresh.”

The harvests available at the smaller orchard, 5119 N. Freetown Road in New Iberia, occur at different times throughout the year and include apples, lemons, mulberries, bitter melon, Asian pears, thornless blackberries, peaches, pecans, figs, navel oranges, mandarin oranges, wine grapes and seedless grapes — some recently turned to raisins. Persimmons, satsumas, kumquats and pomegranates are still on the trees. Japanese plums are just forming.

Enjoying the Process

The hobby part of his farming includes propagating from seed or broken roots like ginger bought at Albertsons. Romero also cut the crown off a pineapple and grew his own. He said to take a bite of it, you would have to be there when he cuts it, otherwise you miss it.

“I like to plant all my things in pots,” Eddie Romero said, which could be the reason his farm and orchard is smaller than his brother’s, but it holds a unique variety.

Eddie Romero said he plants, asparagus, carrots, sweet peas, mustard, cauliflower, broccoli, artichoke, ginger, garlic chives and cherry tomatoes for himself to enjoy. If there are left overs, others can buy, he said. The “pick and pay” orchard started, he said, when he had too much produce to eat.

Eddie Romero has turkeys, chickens, guineas, a few cattle, mallard and other ducks, about 500 fruit and pecan trees and 140 peach trees.

He even tells the story of a healing plant that took 50 years to find.

“Bitter melon comes from the old country. I use to eat them when I was small,” Eddie Romero said. “I finally found one in an old man’s backyard. This is a medicinal plant. Look it up on Google.”

He then proceeded to take one of the open ripe fruit from the vine and rub it on his arm over ant bites. By the next day he expected them to be gone. He said it works on poison ivy or other rashes and is proven beneficial to diabetes patients, but repeated, “Look it up.”

People who bought some of the fruit, he said, came back to get more. He told a story about how an old lady whose skin condition couldn’t be diagnosed or cured, found relief with the bitter melon. Unfortunately, he forgot to get the lady’s name and information to be able to document the cure, he said.

“The stories I tell are from the people who told me,” Eddie Romero said. “When they came from the old country — Spain, France or wherever — they brought their stuff with them. They didn’t have Walgreens or CVS, they had to have their plants with them.”

He said the orchard has entertained bus loads of agritourists from California and around the world. Even national horticulture groups have driven from New Orleans to experience the natural environment.

Innovation and Diversity

The abundance of produce in part is due to organic fertilizer. Eddie Romero’s secret ingredients are molasses and coffee grounds. The molasses feeds the worms that help keep the soil aerated, he said, and the coffee is full of nitrogen. Although he fertilizes organically, he said, this is South Louisiana, therefore, he sprays.

Eddie Romero’s early life was spent working the family farm which involved seven different commodities.

For several years he was president of the Louisiana Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association and is still on the board of directors. At one time he was also on the board of directors of Cajun Sugar Co-op.

He said after farming he was a number-cruncher figuring how to make molasses into fuel or ethanol. He would figure percentages, profit margins, even helped to build and tear down the ethanol plant.

Cajun ingenuity

Eddie and Daniel Romero are recyclers who turn old things, discarded things, into useful objects.

The roof of Eddie’s tractor barn is an old steel barge cover he salvaged along with 49 others he divvied out to friends and family. His recycled greenhouse was made from 20 years of collected windows and an abandoned above ground swimming pool. He said all it cost him was a couple of screws.

Daniel Romero built a “chicken mower” from old industrial signs, forklift parts, wire and wood. He moves it to different locations on the property every day so the chickens can keep his grass down. All the while, they have their mobile home for roosting and feeding.

His stationary chicken house is also of recycled plastic sign faces. Rolling tables and even the barn are from steel used in crating tractors and other industrial parts whose time has expired.

Both brothers use an interesting citrus fruit freeze-protection program. Before the first freeze, a steady flow of water is released on each tree so the water can freeze. According to each brother, the constant flow keeps a 32 degree temperature on the roots of the trees and will not kill the plant.

However, if the delicate process is aborted too soon and the ice that has formed drops below 20 degrees, the fruit trees will die, both Romeros said.

Although Daniel Romero has intentionally planted for the consumer, his property is every bit as much for his own enjoyment and provision. In the rear of the property he has a pond for bream and another for crawfish.

These areas are off limits to pickers, but he not only eats the bream, but freezes some for bating the crawfish pond.

Daniel Romero has a higher quantity of fruit trees and berry bushes, he also has some produce that only he will harvest and sell. Okra and corn are among the vegetables he offers that his brother does not, or reserves for his own use.

Strawberries have recently been planted and he is assembling the clear plastic tents that will protect them through the winter months until early spring harvest.

Blackberry and blueberries await spring and the friends who find the dual orchards tucked deep in the cane fields turned residential.

Daniel Romero is already envisioning the next generation of boys growing up on the farm. When his first grandsons arrive, twins expected in December, they’ll have a lot to do living next door to the orchards.

To confirm the harvest, contact Eddie at 380-0419 or Daniel at 380-3795.