Amaranth
With leaves streaked through with shades of red and purple, Amaranth Greens are a gorgeous green full of protein. The species of amaranth, which is technically classified as a herb, is cultivated by many Asian cultures as a leaf vegetable. Across Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, and China and is most commonly paired with cumin, chile […]
Yellow and Green Cucumbers
There are three main varieties of cucumber: slicing, pickling and burpless and we grow 2 of the 3 here at Rancho Delicioso. The cucumber originated over 3,000 years ago in India but now grows on most Continents. With enclosed seed and their development from a flower, botanically speaking, cucumbers are classified as a fruit, though much like […]
Yuca
Yuca is a warm climate root vegetable also known as Cassava , it shares similarities in both appearance and nutritional content to potatoes. It is the tropical potato, bringing something different to the table! In Central and South America, where it is commonly grown, yucca is used as a carbohydrate side dish. Boiled and fried, […]
Mustard Greens
Also known as Brassica Juncea or Green Mustard Cabbage, this zingy green is about the sharpest green of the bunch, it never ceases to surprise me in a salad… especially when you don’t expect it! This can happen as it bears a close resemblance the kale we grow here on the farm, which both bare […]
Vetiver Grass in Costa Rica – Zacate Violeta
Vetiver Grass, known here as Zacate Violeta “Purple Grass” is one of the world’s most useful and essential plants, and an essential component of sustainable living. Originally from India, it many hundreds of years ago, it spread to other parts of Asia, where it was discovered to be very useful for erosion control. It’s now […]
Turmeric
Turmeric is one of the easiest plants to grow that we have in the farm. These orange roots, which look like ginger, can just be stuck into the ground just about anywhere and they’ll grow. It’s so easy in fact that one of the world’s largest herb companies, Gaia Herbs, has 2 hectares of organic […]
How to Make Soil for Growing Plants – Part 2
Part 2: Making the Dirt Continued from Part 1 – Ingredients The difficult part is finding and getting all the ingredients into one place. Once you have them, you can just mix them all together into a huge pile. The pile should not be more than 1.5 meters deep, so if you’re making a lot […]
How to Make Soil for Growing Plants – Part 1
Part 1: Soil Making Ingredients Many of the “farms” in our part of Costa Rica have had cattle on them for decades, and as a result, the soil is highly degraded. Years of heavy trampling and loosening of the topsoil during rainy season has made most of it wash down into the rivers and out […]
How to prepare a natural insecticide and fungicide
In Rancho Delicioso we are experimenting with several recipes in order to create organic products to treat plagues from various insect pests, or to prevent them. We believe that there are harmless ways to treat these frequent problems of the gardens, rather than using chemicals. We came across to this recipe to create a powerful […]
Rewarding results from the first activity with the children
A few days ago we were talking here about the start of a project with the school of the nearby community of Las Delicias. We are gladly surprised with the results of the first activity that we did with the children of the school. This activity was about the spinach and its properties, and we […]
