First Sandia of our season

There was another large crop about a month ago but another is almost ready. A local neighbor kid brought this over and it's close but only sweet in the center. Like most fruit eaten here, it's with salt, lime and a little  Valentina salsa. 

A little white around the edges

Nahima the clown

Fully dressed with extras

Watermelon

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

It's the Garden again

The cherry tomatoes are coming out in bunches now and it's like an Easter Egg hunt for Nahima every day she comes over. Right now they are at her eye level but soon she'll be asking for help to reach them. With 6-7 plants I'm gonna need help eating them. The Roma tomatoes are still very small.

Four in a group

The second crop of chilies from seeds Hugo planted. I'm gonna have to make a decent bed for them and try again. This was the only plant healthy enough to produce.

The big Neem came down a few months ago but a 4 foot stump was just taking up room for other things. Hugo excavated around it and chopped it down to about a meter with a machete and then called Juan to come over with his chainsaw. First he's chopping off bark that was below ground and may have rocks embedded and then the saw. He even hauled all the pieces out to the street and wouldn't accept a peso.

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