Farmland behind Pinal Villa

I dropped Lorena off at her moms after Kinder and the new field is next to their house. This is part of the area that has been too wet to plant for the last 6+ months. It's a double planting of Sandia (Watermelon) and Mangoes. They often double plant Mangoes because the trees won't get large for a few years.

When I got home I could hear a sprayer working fields on the other side.The Tomatillos are gone but another large field of Chili is behind them. I missed the spraying but took a few fotos of the Chilis. Across the road was another field of was was left of a Sandia crop. I'd heard that huge truck loads of Sandias had been leaving but never saw them. I was surprised kids had not been selling their illegal haul around the neighborhood.

New Sandia and Mango field

Lots of Chili

Jalapeño

The Chili sprayer

Remains of the Sandia crop

Chimole Picante

Thinking chimole would mean only one thing I looked it up with Google and it has many meanings. All the meanings are food but the only similarities are it's salsa like. Lorena says the literal meaning is chile molido but molido is usually dry ground to powder but not in this case.

There were about 20 ripe cherry tomatoes yesterday and Hugo said perfect for chimole so into the blender with a couple green chilies, garlic and a little water. Very good but very spicy and the sweetness of the tomatoes disappeared making me think any tomato would work. The chilies were from my garden too.

Cherries

Very good and very spicy

Made some duros for the kids to sell

Costalegre Rotary Chili Cookoff 2013

Wasn't sure I was going to go as I'd been a few times in the past but some new people were in town so decided to go with them. Glad I did as I met a few people for the first time and ran into a few I've not seen in awhile. It was pretty much stay out of the sun, drink beer, taste a chili or two, listen to the four musical groups and mucho Blah, Blah, Blah. It was fun.

I wasn't impressed much with the chili but with 30 entries how do you taste very many. Turns out I missed the winners so there might have been some decent bowls there. I was disappointed to see a woman parading around all day with "Vote for #19" which turned out to be Crazy Cactus ... and they won the amateur title. Oh well. Had dinner around the corner and I was home by dark.

Our group with only Tecate - no Estrella

Some of the chili booths

Normally useless Dryhouse being usefull

Grupo Exito with Raul and Hector

It's Chili season again

The area is full of migrant workers that are here to plant this season's crop. They plowed the field below for 3 weeks before creating the planting rows. A machine lays out the plastic and tucks both sides into the dirt. The last crop for that field was corn but it has also produced watermelon and papaya.  The mango season is all but over and while some mango work goes to migrants, most of it is done by locals.

The growing season lasts for about three months so I'm not sure what the workers will do in the meantime unless it's weeding.   The plants can be picked multiple times before completely mature.  At the end of the season when the chilies start turning red they are used for Chipotle (smoked Jalapeno).   Jalapenos get there name from Xalapa (Jalapa) in Veracruz.

This one just planted

Planted by hand

Workers planting in another field