The rain keeps going, the crops growing, seeds flowing!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

These past few weeks have been busy and the weather has been excellent, wet enough for the crops but sunny enough to work, we have been planting some but as we are in the midst of what we call the 'mini summer' from the middle of July to the middle of August we have been taking it slow. Fortunately the rains have been better than average during this normally dry perios and as one can see in the left hand foto our rotating annual system of the traditional local crops: corn, beans, squash, and rice are THRIVING!!. Thanks to the hard work of Nevis, Aleida, Roger, and Norbert. We are already havesting pumpkins and our beans are looking good, corn is coming up and folks have now moved to the interplant stage where we are experimenting with species of intercrop legumes (hyacinth bean, black eyed peas, red beans, mung beans, and Mucuna). So far so good. As for the othert two fotos I am featuring a shot of an immature fruit from the Mangosteen tree, why you may ask?? Well because each time I come to Costa Rica to collect seeds for our nursery and Agro-biodiversity program the little feller is almost never ripe. Pretty though. Mangosteen is known as the 'queen of fruits' and is extremely popular in SE Asia, if you are from Canada and reading this sometimes you can find it in the large Chinatown areas of major Canadian cities. Go for it!! The last foto is of course a gratuitous shot of our cute doggies frolicking on the coolth of the day before it all heats up. This coming week we are looking forward to beginnig to resume plantings with layout for some native tree plantings as well as welcome some new volunteers.

Thanks evryone for your readership and suppport,

Chris Shanks