Category Archives: Plants

Back To Work!

February 7, 2019 Munchkin 2 Comments

Gnome has had his seven days off to recover from his neck injury and we went back to working on the farm today. He is a lot better and he was hauling heavy stuff, digging holes in the earth and moving wheel-barrows around without any problems. This is what he said to me this morning:

“…hang on a minute…why did you end up taking a week off too??”

I sort of shifted uncomfortably from side to side and stared down at my feet and replied:

“…well…I was looking after you…and it was Chinese New Year…and I wanted a week off too!”

(I thought to myself… that was plenty of reasons to take seven days off !!)

He shook his head and laughed at me.

Anyway, it started off as a grey and rainy type of day so we decided to plant our last lot of plants outside. The malibar chestnut and jackfruit have been planted in the area behind the pond.

Tomorrow we will be planting a row of peach palms in the coconut area:

These palms produce fruit that the geese love. This is another tree that they camp around hoping for fruits to fall from the sky.

We have other plants that are not quite big enough to plant outside so they will have to be cared for over the dry season. Luckily, I had the foresight to remember not to fill up the nursery over dry season this year so we only have akee, pomegranate, giant molly apple and rambutan plants. This is the Sardinian pomegranate; we have 10 ready for planting in July; Gnome’s Mother will be pleased to see these!

We have been harvesting taro which means we are eating this everyday right now; we probably have a whole sack full. This year we managed to surreptitiously plant them in places where the geese did not notice…in-between tyres and underneath trees. Beware…they have a keen eye for every edible plant!

Cleaned up and peeled, they look like this:

We had a lovely day working together and will continue to do so as it keep us fit and out of trouble!! 😉

Belize, Farming, Plants

Delightful Day!

February 4, 2019 Munchkin

The title of this Blog post is a bit tongue-in-cheek because Gnome looked up the weather forecast for today and it stated “Delightful Day.” What does that mean exactly? Anyway, as soon as the alarm clock went off at 6am this morning, the clouds were right on cue to let loose a down-pour. Ha-Ha!! Did they mean Delightful (Rainy) Day? We had a chuckle and promptly went back to sleep. We can’t do anything on a farm in rain and besides, we are giving Gnome the full week to recover from the neck injury. He is getting better by the way but this morning he over-stretched his neck muscles again in the nursery…he just moved a tiny plant pot! Anyway, Gnome is in charge of germinating nursery seeds so he’s got the aubergines, sage, rosemary, mint and other things started. Here is a picture of some basil seedlings that are ready for transplanting…

We are both resting and staying out of trouble so I am catching up with some recent photos from the farm. This is the view from the west side of the back veranda which used to be obscured by akee trees. Gnome has cut them all down so that we can spy on the geese looking for nesting sites: right now they look like they are exploring for possible places but there is still no sign of egg laying.

This is a picture taken about two weeks ago; we had another fun ride through coconut palms and orchard trees to move cut wood from the pond area to our charcoal making site. We even got right next to the charcoal bin…only squashed one porcupine plant on the way!! Backing out was a bit of a palaver but it was still manageable. It beats using the wheel-barrow!!

This is a the Peruvian Corn planted on Christmas Eve. They are getting taller and we have planted adzuki beans in-between the rows to add nitrogen to the soil. They are looking good:

I will keep on writing for as long as we are stuck indoors…

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Catching Up With Pictures

January 16, 2019 Munchkin

It’s another grey and miserable day and we are feeling it…where is the sun? Wahhhhh!!

I opened the front door this morning and from the veranda view, I spied my eggplant (aubergine) jiggling up and down on a raised bed. Plants don’t jiggle! There was a piece of zinc blocking my view so I stepped outside to see what was happening and it was My Goosie on my vegetable bed munching away! “My Goosie” was the very first baby goosie that I looked after last year; she came from a single egg that we found plop in the middle of the yard on New Year’s Day. While she was growing up, she would follow me around as I harvested vegetables from the raised beds. Learning from imitation, she got into the habit of nibbling on unusual things like aubergine leaves, rocket and mustard.

Well, My Goosie has had a sudden re-collection of childhood days and is eating all our vegetable plants. I have also lost my dandelions to her; fortunately she has not pulled up the roots so I will transplant them to a safer place today. I have tried talking to her but she refuses to listen…must be that adolescent time! 😉

Anyway, goosie antics aside I wanted to catch up with farm news with a few pictures. By the way, talking of aubergines, this is the variety I am harvesting right now; they from Thailand. They are about an inch in size and are really nice cooked slowly in olive oil.

Gnome did a Christmas Eve planting of special Peruvian corn:

The ducks and geese like to walk round and round this enclosure hoping to find an entrance to these sweet tit-bits! This is the corn about 3 weeks later; doing very well and faring nicely in this rainy weather:

Oh and pigeon pea is in season again; I will write more about it soon since we are harvesting and eating this everyday:

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

A Few More Pictures…

December 24, 2018 Munchkin

I thought that I would sneak in a few more pictures from the farm just before Christmas Day. Here are pictures of our peanut; look at the size of the leaves on the black peanut. These will be ready to harvest in February.

These are ripe fruit of the peanut butter plant. When left to ripen on the tree, the birdies usually get them. You can actually pick the fruit at an orange stage and then allow them to soften by themselves. They have the consistency of lotus paste (if you know what I mean).

Peanut Butter Fruit on tree:

Oh, and sorry I don’t have the pictures in sequence but this a picture of the leaves of jumbo peanut…still not as big as the black peanut!

I have started the last lot of seedlings before dry season: Gnome’s Mum will be pleased to see that the pomegranate seeds are still viable after a year; pomegranates in the middle, tobacco to the front and water cress to the back:

The water cress are ready to be planted out in our new grey water pond. We are planting them in a shaded area where the water flows from the veranda to the pond. Water cress likes constantly moving water:

The black peppers transplanted well; here is one showing new growth:

I will leave you with a festive picture. It is sorrel time again:

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Farm Plants.

November 27, 2018 Munchkin

Hello! Still here on the farm and still hauling water up into the house. It’s not a huge deal (with Munchkin’s well trained strong arms!); it is only an issue when we are trying to do a washing machine load. The washing machine takes 40 gallons in total (=8 pigtail buckets) with the wash and rinse cycle so that’s the real pain. But, of course we still have to do it and the clothes need to get washed! Right now, we are still in the midst of the grey water drainage project #135 so the water tower preparations are not in the forefront yet. The last few days, Gnome has been digging (I believe that’s what Gnomes do amongst many, many other things) our first drainage ditch which takes all the washing-up, clothes washing and bathing water out of the house area.

The pond is actually bigger than this now and the final size will be 3 feet (90cm) by 30 feet (9metres). We will be planting edible plants (taro, lotus, etc) in this first pond. The overall plan is to have several of these connected ponds draining from one to another until they reach their final destination which is a great big banana and plantain grove. That way, all the nutrients from our grey water can be used to water a whole bunch of food plants as it wends its way from food pond to food pond. What a great way to water your own food!

Anyway, food is always in abundance on the farm and I am so pleased with our harvests. This is the lifestyle for beings (like Munchkin and Gnome) who like to eat and cook good food.

Just got a sweet potato harvest today:

Barbados Gooseberry is producing…

Oh and look at the flowers of the Barbados Gooseberry…

And yes we are eating dandelion salad right now…

Some hot peppers; this is a funny story. For quite some time, we have been trying to procure durian (Asian smelly fruit that all Asians adore and adulate). We tried to buy from Ebay several times: “fresh seeds from China.” If anyone knows about Durian, the seeds are the size of chestnuts but each time we received our seeds they would be pepper seeds!! These Chinese…they really are something trying to pass off pepper seeds for durian seeds!! So, these are our “Chinese Rip You Off Not-Durian Ha-Ha Pepper Seeds.” I guess it is still something…

Oh this is a pretty edible: celosia; kinda like a spinach:

Okay, guys have a good night!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Farm Food…

September 19, 2018 Munchkin

Hello! We have had about 10 days straight of dry, sunny weather and we have been working our little butts off! Today, we are sooo tired that we have decided to take the day off. This is how we look at the end of the day: Oh, so knackered, just want to sleep…

Please note that the Cat has not been physically working and looks like this all the time!!

Anyway, I have managed to wrestle back control over the trees in the yard and the pond area. They have been cleaned up, mulched and fertilised and now on a maintenance schedule. The next battle is the orchard at the back which was overgrown for two years because of machinery failure. Now that Gnome has brought the grass/bush back down, I have been piling up all the debris and branches. A big thank-you to Panda for helping out with this bit! This was the orchard…very bushy. Now, it has really opened up. The orchard mostly consisted of sapodilla trees but from cleaning up, it looks like we may have lost about 6 out of 20 of the trees. We will probably replace with a variety of fruit trees including golden plum, mango and rambutan. This is a picture of “before”…don’t have “after” yet…

Meanwhile, Gnome has been preparing the veranda for electricity and plumbing. We are moving the sink out of the house (not enough space) with a view to moving the kitchen out too (not enough space!). To add to all these plans within plans, we have decided (work in process and will take a couple of years to establish) to have two cooking areas. We will have a cooking area on the veranda with dedicated charcoal stoves…mostly set up for Gnome for Italian slow-cooking, wine-making and whatever he feels like cooking up. At some stage, I will have an outside Munchkin kitchen with a fire/coal pit so I will do most of the cooking over coals. There will be a dedicated sheltered sitting area outside for this and a little kitchen-bunker made from used tyres. 🙂 That’s the plan…

Anyway, the farm keeps on producing and each season brings something different to the kitchen table. We have a blackberry bearing right now; very difficult to harvest because the tree is so tall so I have to wait for the berries to fall to the ground. I tried thrashing the branches about with a big stick but I got too tired. If I can collect enough, I will get Gnome to make some wine:

It is also the season for peach-palm. The geese love these and actually wait underneath the palms for the fruit to fall and when this happens, this sets off a rugby-type game that they play. It’s fun to watch amidst the goosie shrieks and carrying-on. Run Goosie Run!!

We are eating them too. I cut them in half, remove the centre seed and boil them for about 45 minutes. Since, I do this in large batches, the cooked fruit is stored in the freezer ready for stews and soups.

Oh and the malabar spinach looks very healthy and has taken over a whole bed:

Aubergines (eggplants) are starting to produce; Pantry Cat is also looking after the vegetables…he keeps the iguanas away during the day…good boy, remember to wake up if you hear any stealthy crunch-crunch noises!!

Belize, Farming, Plants

Some More Farm Pictures.

September 3, 2018 Munchkin

I have been starting to look a bit more into my Chinese heritage since my father passed away recently. To be honest, I never really thought that much about it and usually, if anyone asked, I would say I was Cantonese for easiness sake. Actually, I am not Cantonese and I don’t even speak Cantonese. I am Hakka….well, you are probably thinking that you are none the wiser being told this information…anyway, it is significant because Hakka people were traditionally farmers and within their social structure, it was the women that worked the fields (subsistence farming) whilst the men worked in the urban areas (for money). Interesting that the Hakka were the only Chinese that did not practice foot binding…probably because the women had to work outside.

Anyway…my convoluted introduction was just to add another layer of interest…maybe Munchkin is going full circle and getting in touch with her ancestral roots?!! 😉

Okay, more pictures:

Gnome has been pruning trees (probably about 3 to 4 times a week) and gathering the wood to make charcoal. The previous charcoal container was over-flowing so he had to make it larger and sloping to allow better access.

The tyre garden is working out well especially when the ground is so boggy right now. We are stashing taro in between the tyres in the hope that the geese overlook them…so far, so good. The geese have a very healthy appetite when it comes to roots like taro and we are careful to hide them from their plain sight.

We are also developing a grove of pitahaya (dragon fruit) on tyres. The cactus is trained to grow up the posts and once they reach the top and start dangling…which usually takes about 9 months…will produce fruit. So far, we have about twelve of these and I am aiming for about 20 or more plants.

The tyres are filled with seaweed (courtesy of Panda…thanks!). Right now, with full on rainy season, it takes about a week for the salt to wash out of the seaweed…once washed out, the cactus is planted and attached to the post with bindweed vine.

Belize, Farming, Plants

Progress on the Farm.

September 1, 2018 Munchkin

Yeah! We have managed to keep the grass down this year which is definitely progress for us! This helps because we can actually look around to make plans for the farm. Despite the weather being on/off or sunny/rainy ie. can’t make up its mind, we are in good spirits because everything is proceeding at a reasonable pace. We have had a whole week cooped up inside the teeny house because of wet, boggy ground and coalescing ponds and I finally managed to get out today to take a few pictures.

Here is a giant toad that resides in the duck coop; seems to be quite happy to jump around with the ducks and sit in the dinner bowl.

We had a good harvest of Malabar Chestnut…the cultivated Chinese variety which tastes like chestnuts. Don’t get this one confused with the wild variety here in Belize, also known as provision fruit, that gives “edible” seeds; yes, edible in that it isn’t poisonous but inedible because it tastes like cardboard. Believe me, I’ve tried and I would definitely categorise the wild chestnuts as survival food! Anyway, I digress…I wanted to show you pictures of our harvest:

I think that you may only recognise these if you are Asian and you are used to buying packets of Chinese soup ingredients that only have Chinese writing on them. I am used to seeing these seeds in the dried form; the fresh form is very nutty and succulent. We like them so much that we have decided to plant another forty trees; they are especially good for growing in wet, swampy areas so they are perfect for many areas of our farm.

Oh and look! The peanuts are still going. This is Day 93; another 27 days to go. We have had a few occasions when we thought that the whole field would get flooded or washed away with the rains but it has managed to battle through. We are very pleased with the peanuts; the straw like stuff in between the rows are cut vetivir.

Last but not least, it is bamboo shoot time. I did not harvest last year because we were too busy. I said to Gnome this year that I was happy to harvest about five of them; that will make about 5 gallons which will last the whole year. For the first time, we are proceeding at a pace that allows us to catch the cycles on the farm. Usually, we are behind schedule and trying to catch up. Phew, it has taken 14 years to get to this stage…Ha-Ha!!

Another picture:

Looks like more rains are coming!!

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

It’s Horrible Outside!

August 28, 2018 Munchkin

It is full on rainy season and it is absolutely pouring down. Every morning we have been waking up to thunderstorms and torrential rain. Water is flowing in tiny little streams on our farm and we haven’t been able to get out to work for a full week. This morning, Gnome said, “…oh that’s interesting…the weather report said it was going to be bright and sunny with a 1% chance of rain.” Well, looks like we got the 1% or the weather report is totally, wildly inaccurate…I suspect the second. 😉

Anyway, this is the best time for pumpkins, gourds and all manner of curcubits. The water allows the them to swell up into humongous fruit…and, I think this is the best part…those beetles that like to drill holes into all my tasty, delectable vegetables can’t get out to burrow holes because of the rains! Ahhh, of course that is the silver-lining cloudy thing that Hallmark people like to point out to me. 😉

These are some bottle gourds harvested from our farm. We eat most of them young but I have left three of them to mature to use as vessels to store some of our home-made wine.

We had our first breadfruit harvest this year; it has taken three years for the trees to start baring. We probably have harvested about 100 from three young trees.

We are eating the fruit as a potato substitute; of course, as all Belizeans will testify, breadfruit is best fried in oil:

We like to cut them into “chip” shapes (easier to eat with chopsticks!) but most people around here have them as half or quarter wedges.

Gnome cooked a breadfruit stew with his usual home-made wine, tomato sauce Italian thing. It was very good:

Oh, and Gnome has been sticking coke bottles around coconut trees…what is he up to?

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food, Mushrooms, Plants

It’s About Time…

August 25, 2018 Munchkin

It’s about time to write again. The goosies are calling me through space and time…they’ve been squeaking and squawking at me in their usual relentless way. Oh, and the grass keeps on growing! So I must keep on writing my exciting posts about geese and grass! Lately, we have had massive rains punctuated by one or two days of sun; we are still running around the farm doing whatever is possible in this wet weather when the opportunity presents itself.

We have been very fortunate with farm harvests during this rainy season and we are very thankful for them. Plenty of akee:

We really enjoy the texture and taste of akee; it has a unique fatty, buttery taste. I would even venture to say that I prefer them to avocadoes. We also had the fortune of wild paddy straw mushrooms coming up on one of our vegetable beds.

Here is a dish of paddy straw mushrooms cooked in olive oil, Gnome pasta stuff (yay! he is still cooking) and akee. Yes, we are still eating really well off the farm:

Oh and look at this…in between this huge abundance of food, Gnome still dug up beetle larvae, brought it into the house and asked me rather politely if I would like to share some food with him,

“…eh, Munchkin….would you be willing to eat some grubs…”

He wasn’t joking. This comes from his old bush tucker days in the Northern Territory, Australia when he used to forage around and eat witchity grubs and berries (as Gnomes do). I was a bit scared about eating these wiggly things live so I said that I could coat them in egg and breadcrumbs and fry them in oil. At this point, I started looking very closely at the writhing grubs and felt (would you believe it!) sorry for them. I exclaimed,

“…it’s a bit cruel to chuck these poor things in boiling hot oil, though!”

Next thing I know, Gnome is having a conversation with me about how to practically approach this apparent mental stumbling block:

“…well, I suppose you could parboil them first…or, you could chop their heads off first…”

I bailed out at this point and said,

“…look Gnome, I would eat these in a survival situation but the truth of the matter is that we have plenty of food on the farm right now. Why don’t I give them to Duckie? “

He didn’t really have a choice because I was out of the house before he could say anything. Sure enough, Duckie had a real gourmet treat of beetle larvae…she gobbled them up like there was no tomorrow.

Casa Mascia Apothecary

Category Archives: Plants

Back To Work!

Delightful Day!

Catching Up With Pictures

A Few More Pictures…

Farm Plants.

Farm Food…

Some More Farm Pictures.

Progress on the Farm.

It’s Horrible Outside!

It’s About Time…

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