Small Caterpillar who eats our greens
What is this bug and what do we do about it? If you recognize it, and have an organic solution, please help us out. We’ve been spraying our plants with a powdered mix of chili peppers and garlic, but this bug seems to be pretty resistant to it. We don’t have a lot of […]
Watermelon (Sandia)
This huge watermelon was super sweet and tasty, and grew from a vine that we didn’t plant. The seed was leftover in the dirt from watermelons planted last season, and those were from a watermelon taken from a vine we found randomly growing on the farm. Whatever species it is, obviously it likes our soil, […]
Jalapeño
Jalapeños grow easily here since peppers are native to Central America. If we can grow enough of them, and garlic too, then we can eventually produce our own bug repellent by combining them, rather than buying it in powder form as we do now.
Wild Cilantro (Culantro Silvestre)
Culantro, as it’s called in Spanish grows wild here like a dandelion, but without the flower. Many people have it growing around their houses. The leaves are broad and serrated, a bit sharp even, and they’re much thicker than the cilantro we’re used to buying in the stores, but it tastes identical. Because it’s […]
Heirloom Eggplants
These beautiful eggplants are our first ones besides the long yellow ones. They are small now, around 2 1/2 inches, but growing quickly, and we’re excited to see how big they get, and how many each bush will produce. We started them in the shade house in medium-sized bags but have moved them outside into […]
Yellow Eggplant (Berenjena)
The yellow banana-like eggplants shown here grow very easily on meter-high bushes the continue to produce for many months. They have grown well in medium-quality soil with almost no care, out in the open. We have replanted the seeds with some success. Most of them will sprout but many die off. This eggplant is […]
Tropical Sweet Potato (Camote)
The Sweet Potato (not yams), called CAMOTE in Spanish, are native to Costa Rica and considered to be one of the healthiest of all vegetables. They grow in poor soil with little oversight or care, with their vines spreading out on top of the soil and their tasty tubers developing underground. The leaves are […]
Giant Grenadilla
We have a mature “Giant Grenadilla” plant growing on the farm, and a young one as well. This amazing, fast growing and huge vine is truly impressive. Right now as I write this there are over 100 of these huge fruits, growing up to 10 inches long, on a single vine, practically crushing the […]
Tat Soi – an Asian Leafy Green
Tat Soi is a leafy green vegetable from Asia. I had reasoned that vegetables that grow in the humid tropics of Asia would also grow well here in the similar Costa Rica climate, and so far that has been true with a few things. The plant is something like a cross between spinach and […]
Purslane – a Wild Superfood Weed
Purslane, known as verdulaga in spanish, is a weed and a superfood, and we found is growing here in a few spots. Known to have one of the highest levels of Omega-3 fatty acids in the plant kingdom, this superweed is a plant that humans can live on for many months in times of […]
