Plant Life

Both St. Kitts and Nevis used to grow sugar cane, but this was done on a larger scale in St. Kitts, while cotton was grown on a larger scale in Nevis. The islands no longer grow these crops but are rich in other plant life especially fruits.  Some fruits grown in St. Kitts and Nevis are shown below.

Pomegranate	Paw-paw (Papaya)	Sour Sop	Golden Apple	Sea Grapes
Mangoes	Gooseberry	Breadfruit	Mammee apple	Five-Finger (Carambola)
Guinep	Guava	Sugar Apple	Tamarind	Sorrel

Market Day

Many residents also cultivate backyard gardens with fruit trees like bananas, limes, tangerines etc., ground provisions (root vegetables) like yams, sweet potatoes, cassava (yucca root) tania (taro root), carrots, and other vegetables like christophene (a type of squash), pumpkins, and various herbs and greens.  Others grow these foods on larger plots or “grounds”, usually located in the hills of the countryside.  They then sell the food at the Basseterre market on Friday and Saturday.


How Things Change

Today, while market day is still popular, most people also buy a lot of their food at supermarkets.

People also work hard to replant trees in areas where they have disappeared.  Learn about this in the Coconut Walk Estate Reforestation Project video.

Talk About:

• Did you understand why the coconut trees disappeared?
• What are the people doing about it?

• Have you tasted any of the fruits we learned about today before?  Which ones?
• Which fruit would you like to taste?  Draw it on a piece of paper.

• Do you like going to the supermarket?  Why or why not?
• Have you ever been to a farmer’s market like the Basseterre market?
  • If not, would you like to? Why or why not?
  • If yes, did you enjoy it?  Why or why not?

Image Credits

• Pomegranate – M.t.lifshits – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
• Sea grapes – Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0, Link
• Breadfruit – Ashay vb CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
• Mammee Apple – Fibonacci CC BY-SA 3.0 Link
• Guava – J Stephen Conn CC BY-NC 2.0
• Sorrell – Invertzoo – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
• Other images – author’s own