Tag Archives: seedlings

Belize, Farming, Food

Where Does The Time Go?

We are soooo busy we haven’t had time to write.  I am either doing something (so can’t be at the computer) or doing nothing (so can’t be bothered because I’m too tired).  It’s either 1 or 0 at the moment!  Gnome is getting better from his shoulder injury so I’ve got him on “light duties” right now.  This still entails moving wheel-barrows of dirt and filling up new vegetable beds.  We are dismantling the current piggie beds which are full of wonderful mulch and building new temporary homes for them.  It in other words, we have rotational concrete “pastures” for the piggies;  the piggies are fed grass and all things nice, they  poop and do their thing for 3 months, we then move them along to another home and grow vegetables in the old home.  So on and so forth….the piggies are doing their job on the farm!  Piggie  mulch is fantastic; the earth is black, black, black and there are fat worms wiggling about everywhere!

Piggie Rotational Homes.

My lovely Piggies:

So, I’ve got a whole load of seedlings ready including tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, kale, endives and fennel.

Tomato Seedlings.
Pepper Seedlings.

I’ll try and write more this week!!

Belize, Farming, Food, Plants

Gnome Says That I Should Write Something…

1 Comment

Hello Everyone.  Just is to give you an update on what’s happening.  First of all, it has been raining for about two weeks now so our “let’s get crepuscular” thing fell flat on its face.  There are heavy clouds looming over our farm so it looks like it is going to rain this weekend.  Having said that, we are glad for the rains because everything was getting quite dry.  And, Panda is very, very glad because his 660 gallon tank is nearly full so he is all set for the dry season.

We’ve been starting up seedlings for our nursery:

Tobacco: these are actually a lot bigger now than these teeny-weeny pictures.

Tobacco Seedlings.

All sorts of peppers including habaneros, jalapeños and cayenne peppers.

Pepper Seedlings.

Oh, the tomatoes are looking very good.  These are Gnome’s pride and joy.  Growing tomatoes is a very difficult endeavour down here in Toledo because the plants are susceptible to all manner of diseases including mildews and molds.  Plus the heavy rains cause stems to rot easily.  We tried growing tomatoes years ago but gave up after a long struggle with disease and water-logging.  We have decided to re-visit the tomato growing because we actually do like to eat them and the tomatoes that you buy here are truly tasteless.

Tomato Flower.

We are growing them in buckets this time.  And, Gnome is observing them every hour…he really loves his plants!!

Tomatoes.
Growing Tomatoes.

Right now, our tray of parsley is quite a treat.  Great with mashed potatoes:

Parsley.

You can grow herbs down here but they have to be in trays and buckets.  In the rainy season, they can get damaged so you need some sort of cover.  We’ve started rosemary and sage seeds too…these grow down here but also need a bit of care and attention.