Before moving to Costa Rica, we lived our lives in various provinces of Canada, ending up in southern coastal British Columbia which, compared to the rest of Canada, is nirvana in my opinion. Temperate climate, mild winters with rain instead of snow (although we would experience snow now and again), early springs (February), fantastic and really fresh seafood all year around, and a wonderful selection of fresh fruits and vegetables when in season. Still, a lot of produce was imported.
Here in Costa Rica, the selection of fresh fruits and vegetables is continuous. Everything has it's season, as in Canada, so some things are available only at certain times of the year. But I can always, always, all year, buy fat red tomatoes, enormous green onions, green beans, chubby spicy radishes, lettuce, cabbage, bananas, plantains, strawberries, cucumbers and on it goes and all grown in Costa Rica.
We have our own banana trees, an enormous mango tree, an orange tree, and also herbs, tomato and sweet peppers that I have planted just because I enjoy doing so. Right now, the mango tree is throwing off hundreds of beautiful mangoes. Our neighbor dried a dozen of our bananas for us, so I have a nice bag of banana chips to snack on. Once the bounty starts, it is difficult to use everything. We give a lot of it away. Our mango tree overhangs the road, so often Ticos driving a truck will stop underneath a big branch and take what they can reach .... they are more then welcome to it. It's a shame for anything to go to waste. Birds, and I also suspect other creatures we never see, also enjoy the fruit. Last year we had toucans in the mango tree.
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| Orange juice from our oranges |
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| Two kinds of basil |
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| Oregano |
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| Tarragon (with the yellow flowers) |
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