In Los Tornos – a small town just 8 kms (5 miles) northwest of our Monteverde boutique hotel – the air feels a little softer. There’s still a slight chill in the August air, as morning drifts low across the hills, settling briefly before giving way to sun and shadow. It’s here that this small plot of land hums with quiet purpose: Karen’s vegetable garden, which partially supplies the kitchen at Nectandra Restaurant.
This is a loved and carefully tended space where basil, arugula, chard, and parsley grow side by side, coaxed into life by hands that know the rhythms of the soil. For Karen, the owner of Ocotea Boutique Hotel, the garden is both personal and profound: a reminder of where our food truly begins and a way of staying rooted in Monteverde’s land, traditions, and community.
Juan Manuel Lopez, the talented gardener who tends this space, is soft-spoken but sure. He’s worked with the Ocotea family since 2020, and found his way into the garden. What began as circumstance has become something more: a calling, a quiet devotion, and his life’s work.
“When you walk into the garden, the first thing you notice is the variety,” he says, pointing across the beds. “Basil, lettuce, chard, parsley, peppers, arugula… each plant has its own rhythm, its own needs.” He doesn’t say it with pride, exactly – more with affection, as if he were introducing old friends. And that, they are.
Like many good stories, this one began unexpectedly. During the pandemic, work across Monteverde slowed. Restaurants closed their doors, businesses cut back, and life took a different shape.
At Ocotea Boutique Hotel, we did all we could for both our community and our workers, forging new and innovative ways to keep Monteverde employed. For Don Juan – don is a Spanish-language honorific, added before someone’s first name to show respect – that meant pivoting to new work and what would eventually become a new opportunity.
“I picked up some hours,” he recalls. “And little by little, my position became permanent. When the chance came to work in the garden, I stayed here too.”
Don Juan’s background is rooted partly in hydroponics, a method of growing plants in water, sand, or rice husks rather than soil. That work taught him precision, consistency, and the value of tending to details that are invisible to most. Here in Los Tornos, though, the system is simpler: soil, sun, and lots and lots of care.
“The challenge for me was moving from hydroponics to this,” he explains. “But I like it. I feel tranquilo – no pressure, working at my natural rhythm.”
If you ask Don Juan to describe the garden in a single phrase, he calls it “a good project.” It is and yet, it’s more than that. For Karen, it represents the seed of something larger – sustainability, hospitality, community – all sprouting in the soil of Los Tornos.
This is also a space of meaning, of purpose. Because a garden is never just a garden, but also labor, culture, and memory. It’s what connects us to the food on our table, to the hands that grew it, and to the traditions that still shape us.
Here, connection is grown with every sprig of mint, every crisp leaf of lettuce, every tender vegetable that makes its way from soil to kitchen, from kitchen to Ocotea Boutique Hotel guest. “What makes the difference is that we tend it with love. Karen, me, all of us – we all pour our care into it. You can see that in the plants,” don Juan reflects.
That care extends beyond Los Tornos. Some of the herbs, veggies, and leafy greens you’ll find on your plate at Nectandra Restaurant were pulled from this soil just hours before, then carefully folded into your meal. Tomatoes, peppers, and seasonal fruits make their way into the kitchen too, adding a fresh pop of flavor and a quiet authenticity you can taste. This is Monteverde soul, on your plate.
When you ask Don Juan how he knows so much about the land, he doesn’t talk about tools or measurements. He talks about the plants themselves.
“The signs of change, you see them in the leaves, not in the soil,” he says. “When something is wrong – too cold, too much rain – the plant will tell you.” There’s an earned intimacy in the way he talks about it: Gardening here is less about controlling the land and more about listening to it, paying attention to what each plant has to say.
It’s a patience that Costa Ricans have passed down through generations. “My parents and grandparents always said: some days are good, some are hard. The plants won’t always be beautiful, but you keep going, keep trying. You measure success over time.”
That sense of rhythm – trial and error, trust in nature’s cycles, adaptation to Monteverde’s whims – is now woven into every row of lettuce and parsley.
There’s no single routine in Los Tornos. Each day looks a little different: maintenance, cleaning, collecting debris, watching for signs of pests. Some mornings don Juan waters quietly, checking the leaves one by one. Other days he harvests and prepares vegetables for the restaurant or for Karen’s kitchen.
“I like everything I do here,” he says simply. “I like planting, harvesting, cutting, preparing… all of it.” That joy shows. The plants are vibrant, the leaves a deeper green, and the flavors crisper than you’ll find in supermarkets. “Our harvests also last longer,” he explains. “They’re more tender, fresher. In supermarkets, lettuce wilts in a day. Ours stay good.”
Part of that difference comes from what we don’t use. While the garden isn’t completely organic, treatments are rare and carefully chosen. Don Juan works with an agronomy technician in San Ramón, who helps find natural alternatives whenever possible. Fertilizers are lighter, more leaf-friendly, and when chemicals are needed, they’re used sparingly.
“Right now, it’s been over a month since we’ve used anything,” he says. “We keep it clean, we water, we watch. That’s real care.”
At Ocotea Boutique Hotel, Karen’s garden is a backdrop and a living, breathing part of your story – the herbs that garnish your plate, the vegetables that fuel your travels, and a reminder that the land itself is our greatest gift. When you dine at Nectandra Restaurant, you may find yourself tasting the fruits of this work: a sprig of basil, a crisp lettuce leaf, a plate anchored by produce grown with care just up the road.
Because here, food is never only food. It is connection – to the land, to tradition, to the people who wake each morning to nurture something green and alive. And both in Los Tornos and our Monteverde boutique hotel, that connection runs deep, through living roots and the hands that tend them.