These are harvested ripe vanilla beans. note the yellow tips on most.

vanilla paste.

Jeff and I often just sit in the shade houses as the beans, fish and vines talk to us.

fish pond.

fish ponds located in the Vanilla green houses add humidity and moisture. Plus we think the vanilla really love them.

Our vines are in pots rather than in trenches as elsewhere. Pots rather than trenches provide better access & removal if needed.

a few years ago at the local market.

Bromiliads like to hang out around the shade houses.

This bud head is in the process of being pollinated...one flower per day. these beans are only a few days old.

Point of interest... note the double sets of shade cloth above the vanilla vines. We remove one or both cloths during the fall to allow more sunlight in to the vines. The leaf axles most be exposed to more sun in order to produce a bud in the spring.

check out the gecko

OUR ORGANIC PEST CONTROL METHOD. He eats the insects then eats his family. mean bugger!

2006 Terry in an Antique car in the outback of Australia.