GREEN FINGERS Garden Entertainment at Night with Helen Knighton Extr...

The breadfruit

prosciutto on breadfruit pancake with spinach and cheese and pickled breadfruit garnish

pan fried snapper on a bed of pickled breadfruit  garnished with a carrot and okra mélange this was deeelicious!

Breadfruit ice cream with breadfruit pudding garnished with caramelized sorrel ( hibiscus sabadariffa). Paula used a ripe breadfruit for this dessert. This was the creme de la creme of desserts!

Earlier this year my friend Paula whom I met a few years ago visiting Barbados. She is an avid gardener in the UK and told me she followed my blog. Her roots are Guyanese and she attended university here in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. She is a true Caribbean woman! Well we would meet up whenever she is in Barbados. So she invited me to lunch and let me tell you, this was one of the finest meals I have ever had! I cleaned the plate! The meal was centered around the breadfruit. Now Paula mentioned  that she ate it fried or boiled in Guyana, and had never prepared breadfruit like this before. So she scoured the internet and came up with a few recipes and made them her own. Not only is she an excellent cook but an adventurous one as well!

The breadfruit or ulu was brought to the Caribbean by Captain William Bligh who sailed the Pacific in the 1700's. It was first brought to the island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1793 from Tahiti and has become a staple in most tropical countries. It is being sought as an alternative to wheat flour for those who are gluten sensitive.

The tree is massive and can provide food for many years to families.

There are dwarf ma'afala varieties that are now becoming available and are quickly snapped up by home gardeners.

More about the breadfruit click on the link below

https://www.tourmaui.com/breadfruit/

The recovery

This loquat didn't make it, they do not like wet feet!

Suriname Cherry re sprouting after being underwater for several days.

Dunks tree aka Indian jube jube miraculously re sprouted  after the planting bed was under water.

Breadfruit tree didn't survive.

Plumeria aka Frangipani survived even though some parts rotted. Will prune severely.

My orange bromeliads in this bed died. Luckily I have  some in pots and will replant .

This poor dwarf coconut did not survive.

I was rather surprised that this Cannistel I thought had given up the ghost had started to sprout.

Another one bites the dust!

Mamey sapote didn't survive.

Lemon tree which was water logged seems to weathered the storm well!

The natural suck in the rock that takes the water away, only this time it was too much and will have to be cleared.

Nutmeg tree was covered with water for several days and did not survive.

I have removed many of the dead trees and have replanted new ones. The grass has not grown back where the water settled only time will tell. I may have to re grass those areas. Luckily we have been getting some showers so I expect to see more greenery appearing.  Take care and happy gardening!

The great flood part 2

The water remained high in the garden for just over 5 days and my husband was getting worried. As a matter of fact I was terrified that many of my fruit trees and plants would not survive.

 So on November 12th a call was made to our parliamentary representative and explained our dilemma.  Someone from the drainage unit came the next day to assess the situation. The following day November 15th they arrived with their equipment.

 The drainage unit pumped thousands of gallons of water for about 5 hours. There was still quite a lot of water remaining. The supervisor told me that if the water does not recede in a few days time call him and they will return with a smaller pump. Luckily the water receded and the garden started drying out.  I would like to thank Mr Peter Phillips the Parliamentary Representative for St. Lucy for his assistance and the team from the drainage unit.

To be continued.........

The great flood part 1

 Last month on November 08th the rain fell for the whole day in the north of Barbados. The lower areas of my garden had over 5 ft of water. I had only seen this happen once before in April 2011 https://benthamshouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/oh-what-night.html. Traditionally, November is a rainy month, however this amount of rain was not anticipated.

 Water came up to my shade house

 The bird feeder was under water

 My pots of dragon fruit were under water

There is a natural suck that takes the water away however this volume of water was too much so it drained very slowly. Too slow that after a week I had to call in the big guns for help.

 To be continued........

Fire Fire

Hello friends I haven't been blogging for a while and so much has happened at the homestead. Earlier this year around March during a very dry spell, there was a huge bush fire on some land nearby and the fire service was called to put it out. There is a petrol station nearby so the fire service made sure it was extinguished before it got too close.  I was outside observing the path it was taking and was surprised that the fire service left saying that the remaining fire will burn itself out and pose no danger. 

I had some compost heaps along the border and had seen the fire creeping towards my property. I got my hose out and started wetting down the border line. The fire came closer and closer catching any dried grass in its path. I shouted to my husband to call the Fire Service.  I kept wetting along the border where the compost heaps were. The fire got really close and the heat intensified. Finally the Fire Service arrived and one of the officers took over my hose and started trying extinguish the fire. Meanwhile further down the fire reignited and had spread, the fire truck was trying to put out the fire that was heading to the largest compost heap between some mahogany trees near the gas station. It caught the compost heap there so they allowed it to burn itself out and turned their attention to the other compost heap; this heap was further away. 

 Some of the trees in the walled garden were damaged and I decided to cut them down.

When I saw that the flames were going for the heap I told them to let it burn. I had  some very tall coconut trees along the border and was afraid of them catching but they did. 

 So I had the coconut trees cut down and planted dragon fruit.