Vanilla comes from the string-shaped bean pod of a climbing orchid, which flowers a greenish-white bloom for only one day. Since the bloom is brief, vanilla must be hand-pollinated.

Growing vanilla requires patience. Once the plants flower, each plant must be hand pollinated. Successfully pollinated flowers will produce a bean which takes around 9 months to mature.

Curing vanilla beans occurs as soon as the beans develop an aroma and they reach the correct moisture level. The drying process lasts for around 3-4 weeks.

Vanilla is grown in tropical locations such as Nevis. But vanilla farms are found in Madagascar, Mexico, India, Tahiti, Hawaii and Indonesia.

Vanilla can be grown from seed but this is rarely done as propagation by cuttings is much easier. This adds to the difficulties in growing vanilla since before starting to grow vanilla, you must find a healthy plant.

Vanilla plants grow from tree bark and will rot if planted in regular soil. Common growing mediums include pine bark, coconut coir or lava rocks.

Yes, the vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia) is the only orchid in the world that produces edible fruit.

After 9 months, the beans turn yellow and you can pick them.

Once a year in spring (end of dry season).

All the seeds are scraped from the inside of the pod and used for cooking, but the pod also has fragrance and vanillin in it so good for vanilla extract, vanilla sugar, vanilla salt, vanilla honey, vanilla rum and vanilla extract.

A good pod is 17cm. But can go up to 24cm. Smaller pods don’t have less vanillin per weight so can be a good buy.

Not very big – size of thumb to first joint – hence difficulty in pollinating too. They are not flashy flowers like some other orchids but discrete yellow/green.

The vines themselves grow quite quickly but need to be 5mm diameter stem to be ready to produce flowers – and not before 18 months old. The vines can be 200ft long.

No, they are odorless and can’t be eaten.

Yes, and the question is how they got to Nevis – from Mexico with the Spanish conquistadors, Henri Cortez.

Multiple uses – of course cooking, cakes, and ice cream- vanilla ice cream is the most popular flavour in the world – and men like it more than women! and drinks – Coca cola – vanilla is an essential ingredient of Coca Cola. then it is a flavour enhancer so can use in almost all cooking, sweet or savoury. Then in fragrances -perfumes, air fresheners, soaps etc.

Very manually intensive – and need to be trained – a lot of work in pollination and harvest time and maintenance in between. The flowers MUST be pollinated on the day the open, and they open for only 12hrs so must check each morning.

Main issue is rot if too much water – fusarium. The plants checked and sampled on Nevis are perfectly healthy. Then some damage by slugs, snails – but not dangerous. The big question is monkeys – and don’t want to take the risk!

Stop the maturation with hot water and then sweat the pods until they have lost about 80% of moisture but still supple – takes about 2-3 weeks – sweat in the sun and then cover in blankets the night, then 2-3 months in shade and slightly aerated environment – then ready to sell?

The natural pollinator, a minute bee native to Mexico is supposedly extinct - and pollination was the big dilemma for the Europeans who took the plant back to Europe – finally in Bourbon Island (la Reunion) in 1843 a young slave boy, Edmond Albius imitated pollination with a small twig – and it worked. Since then, all vanilla is hand pollinated all over the world.

Flowers come from a “rame” where there are between 10-20 flowers and there can be several rame on a plant but best not to stress the plant so some 40 beans per plant.

It is the complex compound, C8H8o3 – but has something like 205 compounds in it. It is released when the maturation is stopped – and take time to develop. 99% of vanilla used in world is synthetic and considered simple compared the real thing!

Is a process as I can multiply my plants from my stock – so from a kilo this year (unexpected to even have a crop so early) hoping to get to 400 kilos in year 3-4.

For visiting and getting an understanding of what vanilla is and how it grows +/- now and more next year as I will have larger shade houses and be able to spread over 2 acres.

World prices fluctuate as depends on crop production – between $400-600 per kilo of dried pods.

In year 3 or 4.