Winter is harvest time

In spite of the unseasonably warm and wet weather, the beans are ripening beautifully and we have bucket loads of beans to grade and cure.

Just when the tips of the green pods start to turn yellow is when they are ready to pick. Then into scalding hot water for a few minutes and into the hot box for a few days to turn brown and start the long slow curing process that develops into high quality vanilla.

Visitors love it when they hop out of their car into a haze of vanilla as it warms in the sun each day. At night the little baby pods are wrapped up tightly and popped back into their hot box with hot water bottles to keep the heat up 24 hours a day.

Soon they are ready to enter the resting period in the shed for a few months. And then into our beautiful products like vanilla extract.