Sunday, May 24, 2009

Finds in the Yard...the Good and Bad


I've been painting and taking the kitten to the vet and checking up on our CD (which is mature on Sunday) so I hadn't been touring the yard as usual. Last I checked this plant had a couple little zucchini starting and now look at them! Something has eaten ALL the leaves and there is not a nub of a zucchini in sight. Damn. Didn't eat the neighboring plants - basil, cucumber (I'm surprised) and aji dulce peppers.


I've got 2 eggplant and have to decide to pick them now or leave them until later. The risk is...they may be nibbled or be gone tomorrow morning. Thing is I don't have a meal planned for them yet so I hate to pick them.

The plants on the left are zocata. It supposedly is a long orange squash of some sort like a zucchini. Someone gave me seeds so I'm trying it out. The vine on the right shows up a couple times a year and my neighbor says you can eat the roots - maybe mameya or name or something.


Guineos - 500 or nothing!

The plant looks pretty terrible but this is a little cantaloupe. Will it make it to maturity? I hope so.

These are the seed pods on the achiote tree - the annato seeds are in the pods and are used for coloring rice so everything isn't white!

On the left is the Achiote tree. This tree grows super fast! I planted a couple seeds and now have a 6 foot tall and 4 foot wide tree in under 6 months.


Here's the days harvest. I discovered a couple platano trees bent over with clusters of plump plantanos. The wind dropped a couple coconuts. The achiote tree is covered with pods and I shook some out and put them in the bowl above the tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are a little tough right now but they are better than store bought. I dug a couple yucca. I'll leave the rest in the ground since I only got 2 from the plant (should get 5 or 6). When I first got here I thought yucca was wild poinsettia. Little did I know there was food underground! Our first full size carambola - pick it today or tomorrow it may have dropped and the bugs 'll get it. And a couple calabazas discovered in the tall (4 foot) grass. Now the trouble is what to do with all this?

1 comment:

Minerva said...

Try moussaka with the eggplants or "imam bayildi" ... if an immam fainted of appreciation eating this dish, you and Jeff might like it, too :-)