This evening's pickings...

Sweet & succulent homegrown tomatoes… I like eating them right off the vine.  It's been a long, cool growing season since we planted vegetables last November and nary a bug or drop of rain. There are different challenges growing organically in the tropics.  Each year we refine what vegetable varieties will work and what is too fussy.  Okra and jamaica and hibiscus are in the same family of plants.  They thrive in the semi-tropics with little care.  The lettuces are going to seed as the weather warms up, but what was planted last is growing in the shade and we'll have another two or three weeks of salads.  After that we'll be getting our greens from sprouts and from our third crop of green beans. As it gets hotter we eat more fruits. Our first mangoes of the year should be ripe in a week. 

That's not all we harvested today.  Wally picked 3 large Jack Fruit and a ream of blue bananas.  You won't find blue bananas in your grocery store.  They are our favorites.  The flesh is nearly white and they have a creamy texture and tangy-sweet flavor.  They are blue-green before they ripen to yellow.

And each day as I wander around the place I can't resist picking a flower or a leaf, a bud or seedpod.  I bring them in where we can enjoy their art-fullness.  I made a shallow elongated vase for holding my little pickings.  It's place on the counter makes us pause, look closer and take in the pleasure of being here.