Wow…Munchkin is really balancing on the precipice of excitement with her innovative titles.  🙂

This is a red spinach called orach (Atriplex hortensis).  It has a mildly bitter taste which makes a good salad leaf.  When cooked, it still preserves its lovely red colour (compare with red okra that unfortunately turns green with heat).  According to Wiki, it has a “salty taste” which I don’t taste at all (warning: not everything that you read on the Internet is for real!!).   It is a member of the amaranth family so you can some resemblance to callaloo which is a well-known green leafy vegetable here in Belize.

This is called Wonderberry (Solanum retroflexum) and produces tiny purple berries (like a huckleberry).  The berries are good for making jam and preserves.  We have a whole bunch of these growing on our beds and we can’t get a single berry because the early bird gets them.  We are considering re-location of these plants to a more secluded area…not going to say where in case a little birdie is reading this!

The other day when we were walking together hand in hand through our messy, shrubby overgrown garden (aaarrrrghhh…need a brush-mower, a cow or sheep or somethin’), Gnome suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked upwards saying’ “…thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!!”  I thought that he was in the throes of rapture but then I looked up too and saw these flowers peaking out at us; our first kola nut (bizzy nut) flowers.  I have written about this tree here if interested in reading more.

This is lantana; it is a plant that comes up as a weed everywhere here.  It is a honey plant for butterflies.  We have decided that we rather like looking at butterflies and are leaving these flowers around our yard.

Have a good evening!!

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