Win some and loose some... To take a risk can be a privilege.

Rhubarb on left starting to wilt (rot) July 11

Thunderstorms occur almost every night either in the distance or crashing overhead, sending us scurrying to unplug computers, internet and other electronics.

Most days bring bright hot sunshine needed for the plants and trees to grow.

The soil's lack of phosphorus keeps Cory doling out his precious bag of fertilizer bit by bit (not knowing when we can buy another bag) and me pulling the weeds that also benefit.

We're enjoying zucchini, bok choy, turnips, grape tomatoes, mulberries, strawberries, chayote and other vegetables that Cory shared about last week.

One of the reasons we live at Délice is to experiment with many different vegetables, trees and crops to learn what works best.

Bean harvest

This is a privilege that many locals cannot afford, when one has very limited resources, the risk of trying something unknown and potentially failing is just too great.

Examples: our green beans only yealed a couple handfuls of beans before the plants died,  we are down to one rhubarb plant and the popcorn leaves are diseased. 

Bean yield doesn't look very impressive

Most of the trees are doing well but many of the apples have been slow to break dormancy. 

One problem is that the local bushes are very good at seeking out nutrients and rapidly depleting them as they start to grow faster than usual. 

A couple weeks ago we cut the closest bushes and we may need to do more.

Yesterday the guys harvested the beans in our small local style corn with beans garden.

A small harvest of beans requires hours of work-preparing the soil by hand, turning over the heavy clumps of weeds/dirt before hand planting the seeds. 

Final drying before threshing

Weeding the plot during harvest to benefit the corn, and now sun drying the plants before threshing with sticks or shelling by hand.

Cory harvested a 4x4 foot part of the garden which had 6.3oz of beans to get an idea of yield. 

Unless there is an error, it looks like yield was close to 1,300 pounds per acre which is good and quality is very good but may not be super accurate.

 Some will risk a second planting knowing that just one hail storm or hurricane could turn all the hard work into nothing.

Not an easy life.

Some tomatoes do great, others not much. 

Seeing if the last rhubarb does better with some shade

Huge bok choy

Green beans do lousy and this is closely related to the
main local crop which doesn't grow a whole lot better
Need to get seed of "Contender" green beans which did
well at ECHO in south Florida.
Fava, scarlet runner and cowpea also do poorly here.

Small bok choy not growing well

Popcorn looked great but is getting leaf disease early

My grandpa said oats are like a weed. That is how they grow here.
Since they are high protein and cost almost as much as beans
the hulless variety has potential.

When I bound zucchini blooms to do controlled pollination for
seed production a slug ate through the flower and chewed
off the pistil. Try again tomorrow.