Growing Roots

One thing Mike and I have always enjoyed is growing things...for our married life in the States we always had a garden - and a HUGE garden...things here have been a little more difficult as we figure out what can survive the torrential down-pours, what can survive the BLAZING heat of the Honduras sun...in all that we have found a few things.

Mike was driving home from the airport one day (about 3 years ago) and purchased some lechees - you know...the funky red spikey fruit, with deliciousness inside...he ate them, and handed me a seed and told me, "go plant this...see what happens..." so I did.  In a pot at first, then in the ground.  It has THRIVED...my one sadness is we will leave before we get the first fruit from it...but someone in the future will enjoy what we planted.

Then I decided I wanted some of my own bananas, plantaines, etc. so I got a few "pups" (yes, that is what they are called) from our property in Armenia - they were about 1 foot tall...and now I have this...

Then...I purchased a papaya off of a street side vendor and planted a few seeds...and this is what I have...

and when I cut open my first papaya, I have a small compost in my back corner, and threw the left overs there - and this is what I have now...

some baby papayas that will be big tall trees one day...

And finally...a coconut fell from our amazing coconut tree in our front yard, and I took one of those coconuts, and dug a small hole in the ground, and placed the coconut there...and this is what I have...

And one day while cleaning out the gutters Mike foud this tree...against all odds...GROWING in our gutter - he handed it to me and said, "plant this...see what happens..." - a few short years later we have an over 18 FOOT tree growing on our side yard...

I am SO hoping that Africa will allow me the same "need" to grow things.  I talked to our property manager, when we were there on a vision trip, and told him how important "growing things" was for me, and asked him if it was okay to grow some stuff on the property...he seemed pretty keen on the idea.  So, I'm going to Africa with lots of seeds, some sprouting pots, and will see what I come up with.