Though fruits and vegetables can be grown in Guam year-round, there is very little local farming on the island.  The grocery stores are always pathetically under stocked, and the produce they do carry is often rotten and always overpriced.

We decided to take matters into our own hands and grow a variety of fruits and vegetables in our yard.  Since moving into our new home in August, we’ve planted an avocado tree, a mulberry tree, a pomegranate tree, and passion fruit.  There was already a calamansi tree in the yard when we moved in, and we brought our other two potted calamansi trees with us.  (For those of you who don’t know what calamansi is, it’s a citrus that grows in this region of the world. It looks like a tiny lime, but it’s orange on the inside. It tastes like a blend between lemon and tangerine, and I’ve become absolutely addicted to squeezing calamansi juice on everything.). We also brought our potted pineapple plants.

We’re discovering new things in the yard as they begin to fruit.  We picked our first two soursop, and we have a huge bunch of bananas that will soon be ready to pick.  We tried frying up the large banana flower that appears on the bottom of a stalk when we first moved to Guam, but we weren’t crazy about the starchy flower, so we’ll probably just harvest the bananas on our current trees.

I also planted some herbs in a planter, and I’ll probably do lettuce and tomatoes as well.  I’d like to plant a mango tree, but I want the little yellow Philippine mangoes, and I haven’t been able to find one of those trees.  I might have to try doing it from seed the next time I find some of those mangoes to buy.