All in a days work

Despite the heat today I got a lot done. Finished the last remaining section of the roof with sealer and reduced my lime trees by almost half in height. All the tree energy was going to suckers shooting straight up and not enough to the fruit. One tree had very little fruit this year and the other was slowing way down.

The Hoja Santa was not doing very well and I can only assume they don't like lots to sun. It's now on the shady side of the bed. The Albahaca which I want to call Albaca (Basil) is coming along best. The chard, peas, onions and tomatoes are really slow.

I ran out of brown rice last week so time to buy some more. Only problem is Parisani no longer has their prepackaged brand, Herradura may never carry it, even Super Hawaii had none. Yesterday the last option was Chely's and they had it in bulk in about 1/2 kilo bags. They also had "Saran Wrap" which I wasn't finding elsewhere. The plastic wrap was to cover a bowl of rising bread dough sitting for 12+ hours.

The bread dough I may get started this afternoon but I wanted Curried Fried Rice with Shrimp so I headed off to the local store to see what they had I could add. For sure the cilantro, celery, tomatoes and maybe an egg. I have broccoli and onions in the fridge. The cucumbers (pepinos) are for snacks later with lime and salt. Nahima's favorite.

Hoja Santa

Albahaca 

Rice is ready to fry

You can buy stalks of celery (Apio)

Total 22 pesos or $1.50US

The garden is producing

I'll start with the papaya since, except for the limones, is the most prolific. It's another volunteer like many things in the garden. The first foto is now and the other two are from a few weeks ago. The one delicious one had a bad spot that Hugo said was caused by a bug of unknown type. I cut out that section and all else inside was well. Seeds went to the compost pile for maybe another volunteer.

My Carambola has it's first fruit if a little odd shaped and more flowers for fruit to come. The Chico Zapote has a bunch of flowers and I'm still uncertain what this fruit will turn out to be. At least the Zapote is only head high while the Carambola is 3 meters. I topped both of them awhile back because they wanted to be tall and skinny. The Albahaca or Basil that was in a planter next to the house left tons of seeds behind but they are coming up in the gravel. I let them grow a bit to make sure they were not just weeds. Little tiny plants will be very hard to transplant but I have a large bag of seeds for when I find a better place.

Papaya today

The delicious one

Ready to eat

Albahaca or Basil that outgrew itself

Albahaca

This is my Albahaca or Basil that has produced the best results of anything I've planted by seed with the Cherry tomatoes coming in second. It's really a beautiful plant and great for cooking Italian or anything else. Both I and my neighbors grab leaves as we walk by and eat them raw. Plant smells great too. The flowers are beautiful but that means the plant is going to seed and I read if you cut the flowers off you prolong plant growth. Currently it's about 5 months old

I ran across the web page of Dr. Leslie Korn with a link below who writes a lot about herbs and traditional medicine, much of which is in Western Mexico.

In Western Mexico, particularly in the Bahia de Banderas indigenous peoples use basil as a topical anti-inflammatory, combined either with fresh manteca (lard) or with olive oil. The Basil leaves are mixed in a molcajete with the lard or oil and then applied to inflamed joints such as the knees. Manteca is especially rich in Omega 3's and also has anti-inflammatory properties. This mixture will stay potent for several days when kept cool.

Dr. Leslie Korn - Albahaca / Ocimum basilicum / Basil