THE GOOD WITH THE BAD

The last thing we want to share with anyone is our defeats, but I would be painting a false picture if I only sent home 'feel good' stories about my time here.  So I have to tell you guys that my first planting of red beans has ended in failure.  Soon after they sprouted they were swarmed by white fly--one of the worst crop pests in the world.  I didn't want to spray insecticide hoping they would move on but they didn't, until they left it in ruins.  I finally had relented and had them fumigated but it was too little too late.  I had primarily planted them so I could turn the plants into the ground to improve the soil.  Still I was hoping to be able to harvest some beans before I did that.  Now I will have to incorporate them into the soil while I still have something to work with.  Right next to them I planted a few yardlong beans and those vines are as healthy as can be.  For some reason the white flies didn't like them.  I will plant more of those in the future.  But will the kids like them?  This is the essence of agriculture, experimenting to find out what works on your farm.  However, I didn't come down here to run experiments.  I know there are tried and true vegetables that will succeed and we have all those planted now: local squash varieties-ayote, pipian; local sweet pepper-chiltoma; corn; yuca.  I also saw the entire crop of tomatoes planted by staff before I arrived get destroyed by the white fly while they had little effect on the chiltoma, which are still producing.   So I still expect to succeed. We now have planted in 19 beds onions, beets, cabbage, radish, carrots, cilantro, yuca, cucumber, garlic, lettuce, ayote, pipian, zucchini and flowers.  I also have tomato seedlings ready to be transplanted. I'm leery about the beets and lettuce though with this hot sun but we're giving them a try.  If they don't do well we will just try again in the cooler rainy season.  I've also thought of growing large quantities of crops that I'm told don't get bothered much by insects, such as yuca and taro root.  We could then sell most of it and buy the cooler growing crops that don't do as well here.
That was the bad news.  The good news is I found an organic pesticide made up of the seeds of the neem tree.  Insects ingest the liquid and their hormones get skewered.  They lose their appetite for food, as well their ability to reproduce.  I pray this will do the trick.
This early loss has shown me that this will not be a walk in the park.  I will be on the lookout for potential dangers and act before it is too late.