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Belize, Elixirs, Farming, Food, Our Products, Plants, Uncategorized

A New Year!

Happy New Year!

A Happy New Year to you all! Let’s make 2022 a good one!! We started off on the right foot this year by planting peanut on the last day of the year and we had a big rain yesterday which will hopefully ensure that the peanuts will sprout. The January rains are usually the last rains before dry season so we are trying to get things into the ground this month. I have a few left-over pictures from last year that I would like to share with you.

For Christmas, we decided to buy a local chicken from the village. These chickens are much prized and go for about $5/lb (compare to shop bought Mennonite (battery reared) chicken that goes for about $3/lb). Apparently the Chinese really like it too and drive around the villages buying up all the chickens to eat. When I received the chicken, it looked like a pheasant with very long bones. It wasn’t fat and plump so I decided it would not make a good roasting chicken. I thought that the best thing to do was to make it into a curry in order to tenderize the meat. So, we had an impromptu Christmas Curry this time! Look at the bones on this chicken…

Local Chicken made into a Curry.

I was a bit concerned about the texture of the chicken and was anticipating very chewy meat. However, the curry tenderized the meat very well. The meat was flavoursome, tender and had the perfect bite. It was a very nice surprise…I wanted to show you a close up picture of the meat…it looks like game…

Local Chicken.

See…it is not white like poultry meat. Anyway, it was delicious and we would definitely buy local chicken again. This is completely different from the super soft chicken that you buy in the supermarket. This has taste!! Here in Belize, the Mayans like to use this chicken to make Caldo; this is a soup made with annatto, culantro and other spices. I think the Chinese (in Belize) boil it into a medicinal soup with Chinese herbs.

It has been cold this winter (18C/64F) so we had the pleasure of mulled wine for Christmas. Of course, we made it Belizean style with herbs and spices that we gathered from the farm. This year, we used the following: sorrel (roselle), all-spice, cinnamon, cardamom and orange peel.

Christmas Mulled Wine.

We have had some winter harvests as the farm keeps on producing generously. Presently, we have long gourds growing on trellises. This one is a Sicilian gourd which can grow up to 5 to 6 feet. When it is completely mature, it hardens and looks like a very long baseball bat. This gourd is very tasty…I like it steamed or cooked in stir frys.

Sicilian Gourd.

The next picture shows a Python Bean. It can grow to about 6 feet long but has a curled look to it. The outside skin is striped. It tastes like a very large long bean. It has a nutty taste and I like it best raw in salads in order to preserve the crispiness of the texture. This is definitely another winner and we will be planting more.

Python Bean.

I will leave you with a picture of a passion fruit flower. We planted these from seed about a year ago and they are now producing. I am hoping to make Passion Fruit Elixir from this harvest. Our Elixirs are made from from a base of white rum, muscovado sugar or cane sugar and herbs and spices. In this case, it will be made from fresh passion fruit pulp!

Passionfruit Flower.
Passion Fruit Elixir.

Wishing you all a Lovely Day. Make it a good start to 2022!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants, Uncategorized

Big Rain!

Hello Again! We had a right old downpour last night and the frogs are calling for more rains this morning…wasn’t last night enough? Anyway, we have had a run of hot, muggy weather until this latest rain. Ha-Ha…are the flood flies coming out tonight?!

The days go back so quickly and it was only today that I realised that I hadn’t updated my blog posts for nearly 3 weeks! I do have some new pictures from the farm so let us start without further ado:

Godiva Pumpkin.

This year we planted a patch of Godiva pumpkins…these have seeds without hulls. The pumpkins are quite small at about 15 to 20 cm in length, the flesh is thin-walled but sweet. In each pumpkin, there is a hand-full of pumpkin seeds without hulls…these are very tasty and creamy. We planted a small patch as an experiment as we are interested the seed for cooking oil. We now have enough seed to start a larger growing area but we do realise that we probably need at least 50 plants to supply some cooking oil for our kitchen. Gosh…it is all such hard work…it really makes you realise how convenient it is to walk into a supermarket and buy a bottle of oil! Anyway, this is what we do for the sake of taste that money can’t buy!

Gnome has been preparing melon growing areas with shade…it has been very hot lately so he had to protect the seedlings:

Sunshade for Melons.

We like to plant unusual varieties of melons…this year we found two Italian varieties. One of them has is dark green with ribs and the other has a knobbly orangey-green appearance. I was going to include the names but I have thrown out the packets! I will take pictures once they have formed. Melons grow well in Belize as long as you watch out for the pesky caterpillars that burrow holes into them!

This is a new interesting harvest this year from our farm. We planted guanacaste seeds about 15 years ago which have grown into huge canopy trees. This year, they finally started flowering and we have seed. This seeds are very unusual looking…they are also called ‘elephant ear’ pods…

Guanacaste Pod.

Apparently, in Mexico, they eat they eat the seeds while they are green. When they are mature, you are supposed to be able to ‘pop’ them like popcorn. We haven’t tried experimenting with the seeds yet to test out the edibility. We will…of course…Munchkin likes to eat and will try anything!

Okay, that is for today. More pictures soon!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants, Uncategorized

On The Farm

Hi Everyone! Yes we are at home on the farm staying out of trouble and heeding the quarantine recommendations for the Coronavirus pandemic. Belize has closed all its borders and the International Airport has been shut down. We only go into Punta Gorda once a week anyway and within the space of one week, there was so much difference. A couple of weeks ago, it was “business as usual” and village buses into town were packed full. When we drove in last Friday, it was like a ghost town; there were one or two cars and no buses (so we actually found parking!). A handful of restaurants were open but only offering take-out and supermarkets and banks were only allowing five people in at a time. People were wearing masks. It was such a stark contrast to the usual hustle and bustle of the town, that it felt eerie and surreal like a science fiction movie.

Anyway, back on the farm, it is definitely not eerie and surreal. Lots of things are happening and we are pleased with the progress. It is probably because our attentions are not divided by other things…business has ground to a halt and we are not seeing many routine patients or people. The garden is coming along very well…we started this at the beginning of the year. This is a before and after picture:

Before
After

The “after” picture is still an old picture. Right now, we are harvesting lots of vegetables…I am very pleased with these green beans; they are really sweet and tender.

Green Beans

More vegetable harvests:

Mustard Greens
Tindali

We are eating a lot of food harvested from the farm which is great since this is the reason why we do this. The duckies are happy and laying eggs. This is a picture of our fine-feathered duckies… they are gregarious and friendly:

Happy Duckies!

Lovely Duckie Eggs:

Duckie Eggs

Oh and guess what we have started feeding our duckies!! Yes, we have been busy bees. We have been breeding soldier flies and feeding the pupae to the duckies. This is the container that Gnome came up with; kitchen scraps and leaf litter are dumped at one end to feed the larvae; the pupae then climb up the clean end and drop into a container filled with soil and sand.

Soldier Fly Container
Soldier Fly Container

That is all for now. Keep safe everyone!!