It has been pouring down lately. We are back to sloshing, sliding and slipping about in our wellies. It is amazing how the weather suddenly changes here. It seems like it is all or nothing! Anyway, this morning was a pleasant and sunny so we decided to go for a walk around the farm together. Funny….you would think that we would do this all the time…most of the time we are working on our farm chores and don’t have time to walk around the place in a relaxed manner. Hmmmm…there is something wrong here…Ha-Ha…Munchkin and Gnome should be enjoying the place and not so fixated on getting things done!

Since COVID-19, we have spent a lot more time on the farm. I am grateful that we are fortunate enough to have this place to be creative and grow food to eat and survive. Just as an aside, right now in Punta Gorda (the nearest town) , the numbers of COVID cases are on the increase. Somebody described it very aptly to me the other day: ‘Every man and his dog has COVID.’ In Belize, when someone is tested positive, they go into self-quarantine for two weeks. We have noticed that the pandemic and the quarantining has really impacted Punta Gorda lately; many restaurants are closed simply because they are short staffed, many shops are closed (with owner testing positive) and there are very few people on the streets. The town used to be a hustle and bustle of people on the streets with village buses honking horns and vendors shouting out their wares. Now, it’s so quiet…

Anyway, that was a tiny snap shot of life down here.

Back to the farm! I am sure that you have guessed that we are at home almost all the time with everything that is going on. That’s why things are getting done! Today, we started off looking at the banana area. It is producing really well. Gnome timed the planting of the bananas so that we can harvest one or two bunches a month.

We have kept the grass down around the bananas so that the plants are able to thrive without competition. The downside of this maintenance is that we are getting more wild life coming from the bush, scurrying through our cleared fields to steal our lovely ripe bananas! We have a resident skunk and a funny looking animal with a long nose (?ant eater or quosh). Gnome says that we can try sharing for now but they mustn’t eat us out of house and home! Hmmm…not sure if these animals were at the same meeting!

We have a number of garden areas. This area was originally for peanuts and melons but did not work out. It was too wet. This has turned into the tobacco garden with a handful of aubergines simply because we can’t get anything else to grow. It is still very nice to see these beautiful plants doing so well.

We have another garden space which is more suitable for peanut planting. We originally only planted taro, a purple coloured root vegetable that will be harvested in the dry season.

You can’t see the peanuts next the taro because they have just been planted. This place is high and dry and good for crops that don’t like wet feet.

Lastly, we have another garden section that we have devoted to climbing vegetables. After years of planting an array of different vegetables, we find that the climbers do better on our farm. It might be because they are off the ground they are less liable to rot and caterpillar infestation. Here, we have made arched trellises from rebar.

Looking Good!! We are pleased with our efforts and have plenty of vegetables to eat! This is a harvest of wing bean which is currently in season. I haven’t seen anyone in Belize grow this Asian vegetable but it does very well in this climate.

Thanks for reading my blog post and hope that you may be inspired into growing your own back-yard vegetables and herbs.

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