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?

Mas Guineos ( and more in the pipeline)

We have been watching this really large raceme of guineos for a while. It takes guineos a long time to ripen, and there are so many it is best to swipe some while they are green. Finally we got a little rain and some wind and the banana came crashing down. Jeff is very pleased with himself here - he can't wait to go hang them off the Maria Tree!

"So take the picture already, these are heavy," he says. I point out that he can rest the group on the driveway and not strain himself. He turns into a regular tarzan when it comes to guineos and catching lobster!


Here they are in the wheel barrow.

They are easier to move up to the hanging spot this way. What are we supposed to do with this many? Amparo will get some but she will bring them back to us as food probably. Iwilda will get some. Angel if he is home and let's see, that leaves around 80 bananas for us? All the recipes I've got involve only 2 or 3 bananas. Smoothies will use some more but hey, I've still got another 5 pounds of calabaza to deal with. And did I mention that I dug up all the yucca? Two big ziplocks in the freezer... And quenepas - LOVE them, munch them all day when I'm in the yard but we can't make a dent in what is on that tree. Processing and picking food is exhausting...