So, like everyone else here in rural Costa Rica we begin to grow more food for our own plates, and surplus to sell at the market. There’s a covered nursery for the seedlings: sweet peppers (chile) celery (apio) green beans (vinicas) lettuce (lechuga) and cilantro amongst others. One minute they are seeds, the next they sprout at a tremendous rate! It’s true! Stick almost anything in the soil here and it blossoms. The abundance is gratifying and truly amazing. We are overrun with cilantro and eat two lettuces at each sitting!

We break out two new vegetable gardens (not called gardens – jardines – here, those are strictly for flowers). The hard stony soil is broken up with shear force and sweat. Under the boiling sun it’s hot even to assist with raking and weeding. Once the raised beds are formed we alternately sow green beans and more cilantro. This is going to be for the market – the feria, in San Isidro on Thursdays and Fridays. The other garden is planted out with mature seedlings: celery, peppers, green beans and some herbs I covet (basil, oregano and romero). Uphill we plant rows and rows of onions and beans. New plantain and bananas are transplanted and we dream of more avocado trees and possibly tomatoes.

At the end of the coffee season we kept some back for ourselves – to support our own coffee habit with café puro and save as well. There isn’t much this year, maybe next – what I have in abundance is bananas! What to do with them all? They mature very fast and I can’t spend every day making banana bread so the birds share. We hang them outside the window and every morning while I shower I can watch scarlet tanagers, emerald toucan and blue, yellow and green birds as yet unknown to me, take their turns and gorge on banana. It’s way better than TV!