Making it Paradise...bits of Bajan life

 I always seem to find the gardeners in any neighbourhood I move into. Maybe I can smell the dirt under their skins as well! My neighbour Ken (I mean he lives in my neighbourhood, not next door...lol) is one such person. Ken has the garden of my dreams!   Ken has a huge 600 ft garden and what's especially impressive about that is the fact that it's smack dab in the middle of urban Barbados AND Kens works a full time job. Ken practices crop rotation and unless he is resting his soil, his garden is always such a beauty to look forward to in passing. He sells his produce in and around the neighbourhood old school style walking door to door with a tray on Sunday mornings. It always takes me back to my childhood days in the country where a constant feature of our Sunday mornings was someone passing by selling home grown lettuce fresh for the day's lunch salad. He also retails juices made from the herbs and fruits in the garden and I must tell you, his passion fruit juice is a...

So, while I was gone I attended a  great organic gardening workshop. It was a gift and the perfect gift it was! It was conducted by Bajan-Brit Sharon Cooke who is owner of Garden Wall Designs.  I consider myself quite knowledgeable in the area of gardening, or maybe the helpless gardeners in my midst have made me the one eyed king in the land of the blind :)!   I was so very impressed with the many new things I learnt, not only from Sharon, but also fellow gardening students. I gleaned a wealth of information regarding plant names, indigenous species and their uses and pest control tips from two elderly ladies who were a comical riot.  The class was  conducted on a spacious verandah and one of the first things we did was to conduct soil tests on samples brought from our own gardens. This was super easy to perform, requiring only vinegar, and since good soil is key to healthy crops and beautiful blooms, it is something I plan to incorporate in my garden c...

Seems all last week my life revolved around bush. On Saturday, I received a call from a friend asking about pure water. I shared information then he got around to why he needed it. He had bought a cassia wood cup from a Rastafarian brethren living in the hills,a Ras Ils, and was advised to only use pure water from the cup. Well anyone who knows me know my interest was severely piqued and I had to request a visit to the Ras. Early Sunday morning, we headed out to St. John for what was to be a most informative trip. Ras Ils lives in the hills as we Bajans call it, meaning he lives off-the-grid . I have much admiration for persons like Ras Ils who have created liveable alternatives to wage slavery. He is indeed master of his own destiny. I consider this to be real wealth. He was fortunate enough to have land from his family to access but what he has made of it is so very impressive. Please look out for tomorrow's post on Ras Ils bush collection. It will blow your mind...I kn...