Jungle Jouissance

making a home in the Guatemalan rainforest

   Apr 09

Garden

I came to Guatemala as a non-gardener who thought that it should be simple to grow things in a land where the sun shines hot about 12 hours every day of the year.  I began gardening years ago when I discovered that pickles were an unheard of commodity here in the jungle, so I decided to grow dill so I could start making my own dill pickles.  My Mom sent me some dill seeds, and I threw some in a container of earth right beside my water barrel / washing station (this was before the days of water in pipes and taps).  The dill plant received all the used washing water, and it flourished and supplied me with lots of bottles of dill pickles.

However, times change and we now have more gardens than we can water with the washing water (which all goes to the banana palms, who thrive on it) and growing vegetables is definitely not as easy as i thought it would be.

I have now lived here for over 18 years, and am experimenting with local plants in combination with various “imported” vegetables to see what is possible to grow in the jungle without too much intervention.  And how to do it.

Here you will find posts about my experiences with gardening and the various plants on my property.

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