These are the ONLY books on tropical agriculture in lowland Belize! Rare editions of limited quantity - all now out of print! A Fourth and final edition is planned before the end of 2007. Then the emphasis will switch from soil based agriculture recording to hydroponics of which there are several operations in Belize that are successful.

Temperate zone vegetables can be grown in Belize. Mostly they need water and shading. Shaded vegetables are coming into vogue. There are minor problems according to season, but nothing unsurmountable. Planting can be done all year round.

In the six months this hydroponics nursery has so far run during 2007, the only problems we have had were the torrential rains during the month of January. It was then we wished; we had put 6 mil ultra violet plastic sheeting over our nursery before covering with sun shade screening. Next time we build some sort of shade, we would do that and recommend that plants be protected from heavy rains. We did have adequate drainage, but the surface of the soil in the pots built up algae and mushrooms would sprout daily around the vegetables. We were just getting too much water during January. We also had too much of our local black clay soil in the pots as a PH and food buffer and this clay type soil compacted from the rains into a greasy solid brick like mass and we had to re-pot on the third set of vegetables and shift to a 10% soil buffer mix with more construction sand and sawdust in the pots.

The next set of problems arose during the dry season, our summer of April and May. From mid April thru June, we were not able to get vegetable seeds to germinate at all. We continue germination experiments, but by end of June, sporadic rain showers and more clouds in the skies has returned what is our local Belizean summer, into SPRING weather again and soon we hope to get seeds germinating once again with cooler night time temperatures. What plants we are growing are being done mostly from cuttings. Soils in fields tend to dry from evaporation and big cracks in the soil run all over the place like a jig saw puzzle with cracks over three inches wide. April and May is hot both during the day and night. Too hot for most vegetable seeds. Plus the moisture evaporation in our location, which is in the foothill ridges and narrow valleys in the lee rain shadow side of the Belize Alps is excessive during April and May. We need to go in our hydroponics nursery to a fixed overhead fogger or mist type sprinkler, three times a day watering system.

Our hydroponics nursery as a first time experiment is of the very simplest type. Being, we water the plants and seed trays in the morning and evening from a garden hose and hand feed them from a plastic drinking water bottle, using our own plant mix we make from fertilizer and water. We now add wood ashes, and this week, will start our new compost pile and spray some compost tea also. For our 60 to 80 chlorax container pots, it is low cost and we substitute hand labor for expensive imported hydroponics equipment. We didn't know anything about growing vegetables when we started and the first four months were spent trying many different types of vegetables to see what would happen? Now we are re-potting and consolidating our vegetables, to several main types of plants to feed our household with salad materials twice a week. One big salad will last our family of three, up to two or three days, as a side dish to rice, French fries, spaghetti and other type sandwich meals.

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Our all purpose vehicle for freight and tourists.

Shuttle pickup with wood seats for six persons.

Neighbors visiting Falconview Tourist Hostel

This guy sells fresh vegetables by horseback to the door.