Category Archives: Farming

February Already!!

What Happened to January?

Hello, I keep on forgetting to write! January just passed by in a flash (I think I say this every year but it never ceases to amaze me) and now it is February already. The last time I wrote, I had a leg injury…I did have to sit with my leg up for 5 days to get better. It was gruesomely boring but I knew that I had to rest the leg to get a quick recovery. It was terrible because I couldn’t get up and down stairs and walk about on uneven ground on the farm…definitely not good if you live on a farm…made me realise that there is a certain level of fitness required in living this lifestyle. Gnome found me gruesomely annoying during this time!! Thanks for all your patience, Gnome!!

Let’s talk about calamondin since these are my last pictures left in my gallery. This is a citrus originally from the Philippines. It is a small round, orange citrus with a thin peel. The juice is sour and can be used in drinks or for marinating meat.

Calamondin.

We planted our calamondins about 7 years ago; we got our seed from a Filipino lady in Belize…there are a surprising high number of Filipino people living in Belize especially in the Stann Creek area. The thing I like about this particular citrus is that the peel comes off easily and does not have the bitter pith that comes normally with these types of fruit.

Calamondin Peel.

I use the peel in all kinds of food…I put it soups, stews and stir fry…you get a really nice orangey taste and aroma in your food.

Tripe and Calamondin.

Of course, you can use the peel in sweets too as you can see in the next picture; we rolled pastry out with our wonderful noodle maker and baked a calamondin roll:

Calamondin Roll.

Okay, I have to get out there and take more farm pictures for my blog posts!

Army Ants!!

The army ants came back yesterday!! They came up through the front veranda and then up through the back. Awwwhhh!!! They just came around on New Year’s Day and utterly destroyed a live wasp nest, removing it piece by piece. This was really amazing to watch …they dangled like a long piece of string from the nest…every wasp was attacked, over-powered and carried away. Look at this…how extraordinary!!

Army Ants vs Wasps

When the ants come around, it is truly an invasion. The best thing to do is to get out of the house and wait outside until they have scoured every inch of your house looking for insects, scorpions and spiders to carry off and devour. There is quite an extensive article on army ants in Wiki so I won’t re-hash all the information on my Blog. However, it is interesting to point out that their trails can get to 20 metres wide and 100 metres in length! They do not have permanent nests so they are constantly moving and foraging all the time. Since they are such aggressive foragers, they can also pick up small birds along their path…

Army Ant Invasion!

If you happen to get in the way, these ants do bite. This happened to me once, a long time ago; I reacted really badly to a single bite on my foot and had severe urticaria…Gnome actually had to take me to hospital because I was in such an awful state. Now I know better…as soon as I see them trooping in…I cover myself up entirely and run out of the house!!

Army Ants!! Aaarrrghhh!!

Because of the second visit, we had to take another day off. I didn’t complain about it because I did feel very tired and it was a welcome break!! Keep save every-one and don’t let the army ants bite or carry away any of your precious pets!!

Munchkin Update.

Gnome Magic!

Munchkin and Gnome have started the new year with hard work and lots and lots of hard work and there is still more work to be done!! The house is getting tidied up and we have a work schedule that has not been thwarted by the weather (only by a bunch of army ants on the 1st of January). Apart from that…the weather has been co-operating…that is a first!!

The only harvest that we have right now is tobacco; here is a picture of the leaves drying. This particular tobacco variety has a reddish colour.

Tobacco Leaves.

Another picture:

Cured tobacco leaves.

This stuff takes up a lot space so Gnome has been twisting them into tobacco rope:

Tobacco Twist.

Oh, before I forget…remember that Crazy Cat of ours (the feral one)? He is actually sitting now on our laps and likes to sit with Gnome when he is working with the tobacco. Have we tamed the wild cat??

Crazy Cat Lounging.

What else is happening? As I mentioned already, we don’t have much in terms of new vegetables. We are mostly eating moringa leaves for greens right now. We actually have this new vegetable…a bitter gourd (serosi)…an unusual white variety. This type is less bitter so I don’t like it as much…it is a matter of personal taste…

White Serosi.

Oh, yes…we are still make pasta/ noodles!! We are trying to work through a 50lb bag of flour. It might take a while. We have been experimenting with new colours and flavours…more about that soon!!

Chocolate Noodles.

Happy New Year!

Epic Adventure of Explosive Love.

Happy New Year Every-one!! We were all ready to start a massive clean up of the house today when the marching ants came marching into the house. Well, that thwarted the plans of Mice, Munchkin and Men. The marching ants are a massive army of ants (they virtually form a carpet as they move across every inch of floor and wall of your house) searching for debris like scorpions and insects. They carry all these things off to eat. This time they are taking ages to houseclean because we have a wasp nest that they are trying to take down and carry piece by piece.

Army ants carrying a scorpion.

Gnome says that this is a good omen for the new year since nature is helping us out with cleaning up the house. Besides, it is okay to take a day off and chill out!!

Chillin Out!!

Anyway, I will ,leave you with some pictures from the farm:

Moringa Leaves.
Sorrel Seeds.
Sorghum Sprigs.
Our Kittens!

Do you think the kittens are getting too fat? 😉

Wishing every-one a good start to the year. Let’s have a good one this year!

Something Festive.

Christmas Gnome Fairy.

Time to write something Festive since it is Christmas Eve!! We had our last day in town yesterday before the holidays.

Punta Gorda Town.

It was quieter than I imagined but there was the usual hustle and bustle of last minute shopping at the Chiney. This year, there were plenty of imported hams and turkey. Oh, and weirdly enough, there were so many imported berries…strawberries and blackberries and that kind of thing. That is quite a phenomenon here because berries are very uncommon. I was told last year that there was a shortage of flour during this season…this year, it was cream cheese…seems to be a big deal…what do people do with cream cheese??

Everyone that we met tried to evoke some Christmas cheer despite the new COVID-19 curfew for this season with no parties allowed and no mixed households for Christmas. There was the usual exchange of black cake (in our case, it was soap and oils).

No Parties Allowed This Year!

So, what’s happening for Christmas lunch…mmm…it’s gonna be goose this year with home-made wine. This is our Christmas plant this year…calamondin…look, they are like orange bobbles…who needs a Christmas tree on the farm?!

Calamondin Bobbles!

Just a Shortie!!

I am a Shortie!!

Hello and a Happy Wednesday Mornin’ to y’all!! Just a shortie to sneak in some pictures from the farm. By the way, it has been raining so we haven’t been able to clean up the farm once again. Awwwhhh…what can we do…we can laugh or cry about it. Some pictures for your enjoyment:

Very trendy coffee table picture of our cheese rolls:

Our Cheese Rolls!

Dried tobacco from the farm; Gnome has been twistin’

Tobacco Twist.

We are waiting for our sesame seed to seed…very nice looking plants, by the way:

Sesame Seed.

Oh and looky here (Gnome just commented on the fact that ‘I sound like somebody trying to be a Southerner but not really a Southerner’).

Look what we got!!

The next thrilling instalment of Munchkin and Gnome!! Yes!! Hand Noolde Machine!! Let the marathon begin!!

We Herd Geese!

Epic Adventure of Explosive Love.

This is a funny conversation that we had today. At least, it made me laugh and guffaw!! I was looking at recipes on the Internet because Gnome said that the chances of finding a chocolate eclair in Belize was very, very slim (almost impossible). I have cravings for chocolate eclairs and they consume my thoughts entirely sometimes!!

Anyway, that part wasn’t really the point of the story. I decided to look at recipes for choux pastry (I made it before a long time ago when I was a medical student…I went through a crazy phase of making profiteroles). I think that if I really want to satisfy my need for a chocolate eclair (and stop the day dreaming) then I have to make choux pastry and stuff them with cream and then put on the top chocolatey layer (mmmm….yum…yum!!).

That part still isn’t the point of the story!! To get the point, I found a very nice choux pastry recipe (it was explained very well with the scientific principles behind the reasons for the ingredients and manipulation of ingredients). When I scrolled down and read the profile of the writer, it was really cool…the description included working in organic farms around Italy ,etc, etc and the finally he mentioned that he once herded 200 sheep on a mountain top (for how long, I don’t know…but it sounded too cool, right!!). So, I got all sucked in about cool blog profiles so I told Gnome about it and mentioned:

‘Can you think of something cool to say about us?”

We Herd Geese??

Gnome’s response:

‘We herd geese!!’

Yes Indeed!! Picture Munchkin and Gnome herding geese around our farm in Belize!! So Cool…Ha-Ha!! Now, we have a blog profile to brag about!! 😉

One That didn’t Make It…

Hiya Folks…I have been tidying up the house like there is no tomorrow. I was forced to do so today because it was pouring down! Gnome was stuck indoors too experiencing the fun of an even bigger mess…somehow it seems like the beginnings of tidying up start off worse than before because you end up with a pile of things that are useful (that you don’t want to throw away) but there is no designated space for them. Right now, I have a ‘rubbish pile’ and a very big ‘don’t know what to do with but it could come in useful’ pile. Arrrghh…help…it is actually really difficult!!

Anyway, enough of the lament. Guess what I found…on one of my mystery forays into one of the corners of the room:

The one that didn’t make it…

Ahhh…brings back old memories from over a decade again. Once upon a time, when we thought that time was timeless, we engaged in mega brain-storming into how to convert everything(!) from the farm into products to sell. This was a Gnome idea since we used tongue scrapers and there was none to be found in the whole country of Belize at that time. Also, being Doctors, we viewed it as a great combo promotion of ecological and health (dental) awareness. We thought it was the best idea since sliced bread and it was an original thought…we didn’t have Internet or anything…at the time, we had no electricity, no computer, no phone and zero technology. To put the great brain fart into motion, Gnome cut down bamboo and painstakingly made long strips. Each single bamboo tongue scraper was made lovingly with our own hands in addition to all the blood, sweat and tears (Ha-Ha…going a bit overboard here but it was a laborious task).

Pile of Bamboo Tongue Scrapers.

You see…we even printed out a label…in those days, we would design and print our labels in the Internet shop in Punta Gorda and pay a $0.50 for each printed sheet. We tried out our new product at the first Cacao Fest in PG (2009, I think?) and we couldn’t sell any!! They started at $2 then we got desperate and slashed the price down to $0.50…still no takers. We explained the oral hygiene and that stuff but we didn’t get any interest…they couldn’t even see the novelty and excitement that we felt for them…we were heart-broken!! All that work and nobody could recognise it. We ended up taking a big bag of bamboo tongue scrapers back home unsold and there in the corner of the house they have sat dejected and unloved for all this time(awwwhh!!). That’s why I decided to write a post on our Bamboo Tongue Scrapers…to give them some acknowledgement and now that I have found them, we will have clean tongues for the rest of our lives!!

Let’s hear it for the Natural Bamboo Tongue Scraper. May it be remembered and I have given it a special place in this post.

Growing Black Pepper

We have had black pepper (Piper nigrum) plants for about ten years…even though I have written a few articles on this plant, it has not produced a consistent harvest until now. When we first started the farm, we thought that plants could be stuck anywhere and they would sort themselves out(!) The wonders of innocent and inexperienced youth!! And so we planted our black pepper plants beside palm trees hoping for a bountiful crop. This method proved quite haphazard as some years we would gather black pepper and other years, there was nothing at all.

Black Pepper Cuttings.

From my observation, the pepper plants did not grow well in these conditions because the palm frond shaded them out too much. And also, a lot of the blackbirds (and other birds) hung around the shaded palm areas to get the ripe pickings even before we noticed. When we did get harvests, it was great:

Black Pepper.

I even made white pepper which is pretty labour intensive:

White Peppercorn

Wonderful:

Harvested Green Peppercorn.

Anyway, the years passed by so quickly and it was only two years ago that we finally had the time to re-address the black pepper crop which we found meagre and inconsistent. This time we decided to erect posts and plant cuttings beside them; this is a picture taken in 2018.

Growing Pepper.

As you can see the black pepper has been planted in full sun on the south-side. They have been planted in tyres to give them some protection from heavy rains. This was a success and the plants grew up the posts very quickly and started producing within about a year. Presently, we are in year 2 and the vines are producing all year round! I am so pleased because I can use fresh black pepper everyday…what a lovely luxury!!

Black Pepper Plant Year 2

We have six plants that provide all the black pepper that we need for the kitchen. Everyone should have a couple of these in their backyard…they don’t take up much space and produce continuously! See the second picture below…they don’t need to be planted so far apart…we had put chicken wire in-between the posts thinking that the vine would preferentially spread out. However, they seem to be quite happy just growing up wooden posts like this:

Black Pepper Plants

Okay, have a nice Friday night!!

Can’t Think of a Catchy Title!

Brand New Picture!

I can’t think of a Catchy Title and I can’t think of a Catchy first sentence to you reel you into my new post…Ha-Ha!! Anyway, I wanted to show you some pictures of plants and vegetables around the farm…oops, that’s not going to get you going, is it?? This week, we are cleaning up the farm again and re-planting. With all the rains from the hurricanes, we lost most of our crops which included the pumpkins, melons and corn. That is life but it sucks sometimes!!

Gnome, we have lost our melon and corn crop!!

These are pictures of plants that made it through the terrible rains…well done, my little (or big) plants!!

These are the beans that are growing up the side of our house and now over our roof. This is the Gnome and The Giant Beanstalk story.

Winged Bean.

These are winged beans (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus), a long variety that grows to about 1 to 2 feet long. Although it grows very well in this climate, it is not commonly known about or grown in Belize. I have seen a few people growing it and they are usually Asian people. This is a plant originally from Papua New Guinea (according to good old Wiki) and is grown mostly in South East Asia as a vegetable crop. The thing that I like about this plant is that all parts are edible including the leaves, beans, shoots (like tiny asparagus),flowers and roots. We eat the green pods either uncooked in salads or cooked in stir fry or stews. The mature beans are supposed to be like soya beans…but we haven’t tried eating it that way yet. We also haven’t tried the roots either…maybe that can be a later post when we experiment more with this vegetable. This plant is annual hence the reason why we are allowing it to cover our house (!)…the plant will die in mid March and that is when we will harvest seed to sow for the following year.

The next survivor is a flattish looking sweet habanero:

Sweet Habanero

They have that familiar habanero taste but they are sweet rather than hot. They add a mild pepper taste to salads and stews. Very easy to grow in 5 gallon pig tail buckets and withstands bad, tropical storms!

Gnome is pleased that the tobacco made it. They were grown on raised beds (but still, a lot of other crops didn’t even make it despite being planted in a similar manner). We are growing a different variety each time; this one is called ‘Mammoth’…I am not sure why…they are the same size as our usual tobacco plants. Anyway, they are a nice plant to grow…if you don’t use the leaf to make cigars, you can also use them as an organic insecticide (more about that in a later post).

Tobacco Crop

The flowers are beautiful and its essence can be distilled into a perfume:

Tobacco Flowers

Okay, let’s have one more:

Rosemary Plants

For once, the rosemary plants are actually doing very well. They usually grow to a small plant and then all of a sudden, they just die. This year, someone gave us cuttings of a rosemary known to grow well in Belize…look at them…they look great!! We used to grow our rosemary from seed packets bought from the States or Italy…I think perhaps those varieties were not acclimatized to the Tropics and that was why we failed to grow this herb successfully in the past.

I have more pictures but I will save them for another post. Here is a random picture of a nice spider web because I don’t know what to do with it and I wanted to show it to you anyway!

Spider Web on Lamp