Welcome back to our gardening and health blog series where we’ve been taking you on a personal journey as we explore the health and wellbeing benefits of gardening for ourselves.

Today, Abi Begho is back and this time she’s sharing her experience of growing tomatoes. She discusses the ups and downs, the need for patience and the joy of harvesting your first fruits.

We absolutely love tomatoes in my house. We eat them almost every day – in salads, we make Nigerian stew with them, we use them in omelettes, stir fries, sandwiches and much more. You name the dish and we’ll put a tomato in it!

When it came to deciding what to grow in our vegetable garden, tomatoes were first on our list and the first thing we tried.

When I started looking into tomatoes, I must be honest, I soon realised I really didn’t know a thing about them even though I eat them every day.

I was shocked at the variety of tomatoes out there, I was just aware of cherry, plum and what I call “normal” tomatoes, but this is just the tip of the ice berg. I was shocked to learn that there are over 700 varieties of tomatoes, they come in quite a few colours, not just red – yellow, orange, pink,  purple and black, and they have some very interesting names  – Beefsteak, Big Boy, Pink Brandywine, Pink Girl, Lemon Boy, Golden Jubliee and  Better Boy.

Deciding what variety to grow

When it came to deciding which tomato variety to grow, because there were so many to choose from, I decided the best thing to do would be to extract the seeds from a local variety that we buy in our super market all the time. This means that I have no idea what variety it is (as it’s not listed on the package), but I knew it tasted nice and as it’s grown locally then that suggested to me that it would grow well in our garden (I hoped!).

Although this is how I selected which tomato variety to grow, the advice from experts is to base your decision on more scientific factors – how disease resistant a variety is, how it grows (is it determinate or indeterminate) and the time it takes to mature.

From Seed to Fruit

Once I had decided on what tomatoes to grow, then it was planting time.

In my last blog I explained that I simply sliced up a tomato making sure each of the slices had seeds in them, buried the slices in soil and watered them and in less than a week my seeds had germinated and I had about ten seedlings growing happily in my container. I was so excited and just couldn’t wait to see the seedlings develop.

I kept an eye on the seedlings and watered them regularly and one week later their true leaves (second set of leaves) had developed, a sign that the seedlings were developing well. At this point I pretty much left them alone, under a tree that got a lot of sunlight (but protected them from the intense afternoon sun here in St Kitts) and watered them regularly.

When they had outgrown the container, I put some of the young tomato plants in a large pot and the others I planted into my newly created vegetable bed. Then came the test of patience.  One thing gardening teaches you is patience.  Every morning I would go out into the garden and will them to grow, I was so excited every time I saw them develop just a little bit more, it was fascinating.

Two months after planting my tomato seeds I noticed flower buds developing (the very first sign that tomatoes are coming soon) and a few days after that a lovely yellow tomato flower had developed. I thought: ‘yes!  I’ll have tomatoes in a couple of weeks.’ What did I say about patience?  There was more waiting. It took another 6 weeks to get my first ripe tomato and as I type I have 51 green tomatoes growing nicely and waiting to ripen ( ah-mazing!)

Check out the video below to see me picking my second ripe tomato.

Another important thing to mention is that I had to create a support system for my tomato plants. Due to the weight of tomatoes most plants need some form of support to prevent the fruit from weighing them down. There are many options out there and I chose to create a tomato trellis (see picture on the right), I created this using stakes and string. As the plants grew I would tie the main stem loosely to the trellis and weave the leaves horizontally along the string. This, so far (it is still early days), has given the plants some support and training them to grow along the trellis, as well as pruning the plants, has kept them neat and contained.

Challenges

The four main challenges I have encountered thus far are:

Insects – Living in the Caribbean means there are a lot of bugs and insects to contend with and they all seem to love tomatoes as much as I do!  To date, they haven’t caused any major problems, but I did lose two tomatoes to caterpillars who ate them for lunch one day.  I was so sad, it felt like all my hard work had gone to waste, at least it was only two tomatoes . I’ve been keeping an eye out for tomato-eating insects and have flicked a few caterpillars off the plants before they made a meal of the tomatoes.

Blossom End Rot – I woke up one morning shocked to see two of my tomatoes with dark patches on their bottoms, like they were rotting. I promptly discarded them hoping that they wouldn’t affect the tomatoes next to them.  Then, a few days later, the same thing happened to two more tomatoes on the same plant but in a different location. I was dejected, first insects now some horrible looking disease. After a Google search I learnt that is was blossom end rot and not as bad as it looked.

Blossom end rot occurs due to a calcium deficiency where the plant, for various reasons, is unable to absorb enough calcium for its development. The advice from Gardening Know How is not to worry, it usually clears up on its own, just pick off the affected tomatoes and discard them and make sure the plants get adequate water (not too much though). So, for the moment I am going to just wait it out and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.

Blossom drop – Last week I noticed that my new tomato flowers weren’t looking healthy at all. They seem drier than the previous set which really thrived and developed into 51 healthy tomatoes. These new tomato flowers are shrivelling up and some have already fallen off the plant without developing into fruit (Nooooo!). I couldn’t believe it. I had so many new flowers which I had hoped would form tomatoes, but alas, it was not meant to be. I hope the next set do better.

After doing some research, I found that blossom drop is common and looking at all the possible causes I have narrowed it down to two which I think could be the culprit:

• Lack of water – we’ve had some short sharp showers and so I haven’t been watering the plants as regularly as I used to. Reflecting on this I don’t think the showers were providing enough water for my plants as the soil has been pretty dry so I am going to start watering every other day as before
• Too many blossoms and fruit  – up until now my plants have been developing really well and I do currently have 51 tomatoes spread across 9 plants and a lot of flowers developing (and dying!). According to The Spruce having all these fruit and flowers developing at the same time requires a lot of energy and they will all be competing for a limited amount of energy and food, and only the strong will survive. They state that once the majority of tomatoes have been harvested the problem will resolve, so again, I just have to wait it out.

Playing the waiting game – In this blog, I have mentioned patience and waiting several times and that has been one of my biggest challenges: waiting for something significant to happen. In the whole scheme of things it hasn’t been that long (3 months) to get my first ripe tomato, but at times it has felt like a life-time. Each step does take a while – it took two months from seed to the first sign of a blossom, then from flower to pea-sized tomato took a week, that got me excited, but then it took over a month for that pea-sized tomato to develop into a fully ripened red tomato, but it was so worth the wait – it was delicious!

Why grow tomatoes?

Tomatoes are a great fruit to grow because they are packed with nutrients. They are known for their fairly high lycopene content which has been linked to a reduction in our risk of developing heart disease and cancer. Tomatoes are also rich in vitamin C, folate, vitamin K and fibre, and they contain iron, potassium, vitamin A and vitamin E.

All these nutrients and minerals are excellent for your overall health and by growing tomatoes in your garden you’ll get an ample supply so you’ll get a good dose of nutrients.

Happy gardening!

Well….that was a fairly long blog post (sorry!), but I hope that it gave you an idea of what it’s like to grow tomatoes and some of the challenges you may encounter along the way. Despite the challenges, it has been a lot of fun and very rewarding. I am looking forwarding to harvesting more tomatoes, so far I have only harvested two so there are many more to come. I’ll keep you all updated.

In my next blog I will move on to my okras – the stars of the show!

See you next time and happy gardening!

Some references and more information

1. Identifying Tomatoes with Blossom End Rot
2. How to prevent blossom end rot
3. What kind of tomatoes should I grow
4. Controlling Blossom Drop 

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If you missed our previous blogs you can read them using the links below

1. Improving Our Health and Wellbeing Through Gardening: An Introduction
2. Improving Our Health and Wellbeing Through Gardening: How I Got Started

On 9^th February the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA ) released a set of temporary safety recommendations, for healthcare professionals, on the fibroids drug ESMYA. This action was taken by the MHRA following reports of serious liver injury in four women taking ESMYA.

The MHRA have made the following recommendations:

• Do not initiate new treatment courses of EMYA, including in women who have completed one or more treatment courses previously.
• Perform liver function tests at least once a month in all women currently taking ESMYA. Stop ESMYA treatment in any woman who develops transaminase levels more than 2 times the upper limit of normal, closely monitor and refer for specialist hepatology evaluation as clinically indicated. Liver function tests should be repeated in all women 2 to 4 weeks after stopping treatment.
• Check transaminase levels immediately in current or recent users of ESMYA who present with signs or symptoms suggestive of liver injury (such as nausea, vomiting, malaise, right hypochondrial pain, anorexia, asthenia, jaundice). If transaminase levels are more than 2 times the upper limit of normal, stop treatment, closely monitor and refer for specialist hepatology evaluation as clinically indicated.
• Advise women using ESMYA on the signs and symptoms of liver injury.

They noted that there have been no reports of liver injury with ellaOne, a emergency contraceptive pill, which contains ESMYA. Therefore, there are no safety alerts for this medicine.

Currently the European Medicines Agency (EMA)  are currently conducting a review of EMSYA and will provide an update in the near future.

What is ESMYA?

ESMYA is a prescription drug that was first authorised in the EU for use in patients with fibroids in 2012. It is used to treat moderate to severe symptoms of fibroids and works by stopping the hormone progesterone from stimulating the growth of fibroids and this reduces their size.  It was initially licensed to be used before surgery to shrink fibroids but can now also be used as a stand-alone treatment. It should only be used for up to three months at a time.  The use of ESMYA can be repeated but there should be breaks between each 3-month course of treatment.

The most common side effects of ESMYA are the absence of a woman’s period and thickening of the lining of the womb. You can speak to your doctor about what all the side effects are and these will be listed in the drug leaflet which comes with ESMYA.

ESMYA must not be used by women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, have vaginal bleeding or have womb, cervical, ovarian or breast cancer. You can speak to your doctor about other restrictions or these will be listed on the drug information leaflet.

For Information

For more information you can download the EMA’s information sheet for healthcare professionals and the MHRA’s full letter issued to healthcare professionals below.

Wednesday 14th February, 2018

In today’s episode, we discuss public-private partnerships in the health sector and give our view on the types of business partnerships that we think health charities should veer away from. We base our discussion on the recent announcement of the new partnership between Heineken and the Global Fund

Yesterday, we were delighted to attend the St Kitts World Cancer Day Luncheon. This was an event organised as a celebration of hope to honour the lives of cancer survivors in St Kitts and Nevis. The event was organised by the Health Promotion Unit at the Ministry of Health with support from Lake Health and Wellbeing and the Department of Youth Empowerment.

The event featured talks from high-profile guests including the Minister of State with responsibility for Health, Social and Community Services and Gender Affairs, Minister Wendy Phipps and Chief Medical Officer Dr Hazel Laws.

We also heard from cancer survivors who shared their experience very powerfully through poetry and testimonies. Carla Astaphan recited her poem Left Breastie which she wrote shortly after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and Agness Farell spoke of her experience of being diagnosed in 1998, she recounted her ups and downs and the formation of her support group Reach for Recovery.

In addition to these presentations, the Coordinator of Community Nursing Services, Nurse Eulynis Brown gave a very informative overview of cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine which will soon be introduced in St Kitts and encouraged attendees to support the Ministry in its roll-out as it’s a very effective method of preventing cervical cancer.

The highlight of the event was the presentation made to the longest living, oldest and youngest cancer survivors. It was moving to see the longest living cancer survivor being recognised, she was diagnosed 21 years ago and faced both breast and lung cancer. Despite all her challenges, now at the age of 82, she is so positive, happy and full of life; a true hero and inspiration to us all.

This was a positive and uplifting event which demonstrated the strength of the human spirit and we were honoured to have attended and been asked to deliver the vote of thanks.

Today is World Cancer Day, a day that gives the entire world the opportunity to come together to show solidarity on an issue that pretty much touches everybody – whether that be directly or indirectly through a family member, friend or colleague who has been diagnosed. The day aims to be a positive day with the focus being on empowerment, celebrating the lives of those who have been diagnosed and highlighting that everyone has a part to play in fighting cancer.

The theme for today is “We can. I can.” and is part of a three-year campaign exploring how everyone can contribute to reducing the global burden of cancer.  Organisers of World Cancer Day, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), have developed a set of key messages that show exactly how everyone, as a collective or as  an individual, can play a role in reducing the impact of cancer. These messages are:

We Can:

• Inspire action, take action
• Prevent cancer
• Create healthy schools
• Create healthy workplaces
• Create healthy cities
• Support others to return to work
• Challenge perceptions
• Improve access to cancer care
• Shape policy
• Build a quality workforce
• Make the case for investing in cancer control
• Join forces to make a difference

I Can:

• Make healthy choices
• Understand that early detection saves lives
• Ask for support
• Return to work
• Take control of my cancer journey
• Love and be loved
• Make my voice heard

The aim of these messages is to reduce the millions of preventable cancer deaths that sadly take place throughout the world each year by giving everyone clear information and pushing governments to make cancer a priority.

World Cancer Day in St Kitts.

As you may know, we are now based in St Kitts, and for World Cancer Day we are delighted to have partnered with the Health Promotion Team at the Ministry of Health to take the key messages of World Cancer Day out in the community.

We started with a social media campaign using the wonderful resources developed by the UICC and of course the #WeCanICan theme but added #SKNCan (i.e. St Kitts and Nevis Can) to raise awareness of what residents of St Kitts and Nevis can do to reduce their cancer risk.

As part of our social media activity we took the messages (physically, on selfie cards!) to the streets of Basseterre and asked members of the public, businesses and government departments what messages resonated with them and did they feel they might consider taking forward to do their part in beating cancer. We then took pictures of people holding the selfie cards with the message that best represented what people thought would be most effective and these were used to raise awareness last week, in the run-up to World Cancer Day.

This was a great way to raise awareness in the community, it was fun and a bit light-hearted, but still got important messages across to the public whilst creating some teachable moments as people asked questions about what they could do specifically to prevent cancer.

We’re also in the process of organising a cancer awareness lunch to be held on 11^th February where we’ll be celebrating survivors, providing information on what the public can do to reduce their risk of developing cancer and promoting early detection through awareness of signs and symptoms and seeking help promptly.

You Can Get Involved

There is still time to get involved in this campaign.

You can visit the World Cancer Day’s website, download a selfie card, take a picture and post it on social media to show what you can do to help in the fight against cancer. Don’t forget to include the hashtags #WorldCancerDay, #WCD2018 and #WeCanICan. If you’re in St Kitts and Nevis, then go ahead and add #SKNCan.

For all the St Kitts residents out there, you can attend our cancer awareness lunch next Sunday. Stay tuned to our events page for all the details!

We’re so delighted to announce that our first Fibroids Twitter Chat of the year is with Laterria Patton on 21st February  at 5pm, AST (that’s 1pm PST, 4pm EST and 9pm GMT)

Laterria Patton is a Self Care Activist who writes a food blog that promotes reproductive health to black women. The blog content utilizes natural self-healing food practices to educate black women who are suffering with reproductive health problems about the hormonal process and how to keep it in balance.

She is passionate about eliminating the obstacles that contribute to the epidemic of reproductive health disorders amongst black women such as an absence of nutrition-based literature that specifically caters to their cultural needs and preferences, not having access to fresh toxic-free fruits and vegetables,  doctors who discourage  natural healing practices and a lack of understanding and support from their family unit.

Laterria is on a mission to create a world where there is a tremendous improvement in the outcomes and costs associated with breast, ovarian, uterine and vaginal ailments amongst black women because she believes that healthy eating, hormonal balance and reproductive health should be a positive, simple and stress-free experience for all women.

Join us for a chat with Laterria Patton about the common challenges that contribute to uterine disorders (like fibroids), how these challenges can be overcome and how women can achieve optimal uterine health through self-healing food practices.

We’ll be putting questions to Laterria and you can put your questions to her too. So if you have a burning question about uterine health or just want to get involved in the discussion then do join us on the day. To take part in the conversation please use the hashtag #FibroidsChat.

For more information on Laterria, please visit her blog  www.medium.com/@laterriapatton or follow her on social media

Twitter:  www.twitter.com/selfcareandfood

Facebook: www.fb.me/selfcareandfood

Instagram:  www.instagram.com/laterriapatton/

In 2016, the Black Women’s Health Imperative in the US published a really interesting report on black women’s health entitled IndexUS: What Healthy Black Women Can Teach Us About Health.

This report is the first comparative index on black women’s health based on healthy black women. It provides:

• Practical tips to help black women improve their health
• Recommendations for political and civic leaders on how to improve the health of black women
• An explanation as to why the health of black women is important.

This report was birthed out of the BWHI’s desire to change the negative narrative on black women’s health based on data from the Black Women’s Health Study which showed, yes, there are challenges when it comes to the health of black women, but actually, there is much to celebrate.

The Black Women’s Health Study is a research project based at Boston University that over the past 20 years has been exploring the health and well-being of black women and comparing this to that of white women. It is a fairly large study with 59,000 black women taking part.

 As data has been made available from the study, the results have been constantly negative with the prevailing message being that black women’s health is worse than white women’s, this may be true, but the BWHI asked researchers if there were any positive messages from their research.  Looking back at the data it was found that over 50% of participants in the Black Women’s Health Study described their health as good or excellent. Of this the BHWI said:

“That is something to celebrate! Black women exercise, we eat healthy, we’re educated and we work hard. It’s time to change the narrative. It’s time for our story to be told in a way that shows who we really are when it comes to our health. We do not see ourselves as broken—stressed, yes, but not broken. We are inherently strong, resilient and passionate about our health. We are not defined by disease, obesity or poverty.”

Armed with this information the BWHI then analysed the data from these healthy women in the Black Women’s Health Study to understand their lifestyles and what makes them healthy. Based on their analysis and findings they prepared their report ‘IndexUS: What Healthy Black Women Can Teach Us About Health.’  From this work, the BWHI was able to establish a set of factors that were predictive of good physical and mental health in black women which they summarised in the image below.

The BWHI is currently conducting a series of listening events across the US that will allow for honest conversations about black women’s health and based on these conversations they will update IndexUS. 

IndexUS is a fascinating and useful report and we encourage all black women to read it; the report can be accessed on the BWHI’s website here

We were absolutely delighted to be featured in the Secret Birds new social media campaign, 31 Days of Business Ideas. This campaign aims to inspire young entrepreneurs to start their business journey by giving them a wide range of ideas to learn from. The variety of businesses featured highlights the vast possibilities that are out there and underscores the importance of identifying a need and developing solutions to address that need.

Lake Health and Wellbeing (formerly The Lake Foundation) is featured on day 22 of this campaign providing up and coming business owners with the idea that challenges around health and well-being can be developed into business opportunities. We do stress that delving into this field should be done for the right reasons; to help society and not solely for personal gain as this is a field that significantly affects people’s lives and you need to have empathy and a genuine interest in people to be truly successful.

Secret Birds aims to help women in the prestart-up and start-up phase build their businesses through connecting, collaborating and growing multi-faceted memberships and to teach girls in disadvantaged communities entrepreneurial skills through Nestling Pop Ups.  They aim to build a global community with no limitations or boundaries and their mantra is to share your secrets and share your success; sharing is one of their key values and underpins everything they do.

We would like to say a big thank you to Secret Birds for featuring us in this campaign. To find out about the other businesses featured in this campaign visit the Secret Birds’ Twitter or Facebook pages and GrenStart’s Facebook page

You can also find out more about Secret Birds on their website here

Welcome to our first ‘Inspirational People in Healthcare’ piece of 2018.

Today we are delighted to feature Dr Busayo Mobolaji-Lawal and Dr Tunrayo Mobolaji-Lawal, sisters who are still early in their medical careers but making a huge difference to their patients and community.

Dr Busayo Araoye (Nee Mobolaji-Lawal)

Dr Busayo Araoye obtained a BSc in Biological Science from the University of Ghana, studied medicine at the University of Ghana School of Medicine and Dentistry and is currently an Internal Medicine Resident at St Vincent’s Medical Centre in Connecticut.

While studying Busayo gained valuable experience as an Internal Medicine Exchange Student at Hospital Clinico Universitario Lozano Blesa in Spain and as a post-graduate intern in Internal Medicine at the St Nicholas Hospital in Nigeria.

Her desire to become an Internal Medicine doctor who serves not just her patients but her community as a whole was shaped during her clerkship. Of that experience she says:

“I encountered the most medically and socially complex patients. I gained exposure to patients from diverse cultural and financial backgrounds which helped me develop a sense of compassion, empathy and humility. It also broadened my perspective of health care accessibility and it awoke in me the urge to advocate for my patients and my community.”

She also has research experience having been an integral part of teams exploring: the quality of life of caregivers at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana; the different types of cervical cancer diagnosed at the University College Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria; stroke and cocaine use; and antibiotic resistance.

Her case presentation on antibiotic resistance was recognised at the American College of Physician’s regional conference in 2017 where she was a semi-finalist in their abstract presentation competition in Connecticut.

Through a range of voluntary work Dr Araoye has counselled communities on healthy lifestyle practices, engaged in free health screening and played an instrumental role during a cholera outbreak in Ghana. She was also an Electoral Member of the University of Ghana International Medical Students’ Association and a mentor to many being an inspirational and effective role model to young students with an interest in medicine.

We applaud Dr Araoye for the difference she has already made and look forward to seeing her continued success and future achievements as she progresses in her career.

Dr Tunrayo Mobolaji-Lawal

Dr Tunrayo Mobolaji-Lawal graduated Summa Cum Laude (with highest distinction) from the State University of New York at Stony Brook with a BSc. in Biochemistry in 2011. She then studied medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine graduating in May 2017 and is currently an Emergency Medicine Resident at Yale New Haven Health.

In preparation for pursuing a career in Emergency Medicine Dr Mobolaji-Lawal held a number of shadowing and voluntary positions. As a sophomore in college she gained experience in the Emergency Department of Stony Brook University Medical Centre. This experience shaped her view of medicine and the type of doctor that she wanted to be, one who puts her patient’s first. Her third year clerkship was at the Cleveland Clinic Emergency Department, of that she said:

“Every hour brought in something new to the ED. The diversity of clinical encounters – unique patients with varying disease processes, range of illness severity and assortment of procedures – further attracted me to Emergency Medicine.”

Whilst performing chest compressions on a seriously ill patient as an Acting Intern at The Metro Health System Emergency Department  she realised that she was exactly where she wanted to be (involved in patient care and making a difference)and this solidified her passion for Emergency Medicine.

Dr Mobolaji-Lawal is also passionate about addressing health inequalities and ensuring that medically under-served communities are able to access healthcare services. To that end, through her voluntary work she has provided healthcare and screening services to deprived communities.

Throughout her academic life she excelled being awarded the SUNY’s Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence, which recognises the integration of academic excellence with accomplishments in the areas of leadership, athletics, community service, creative and performing arts, campus involvement or career achievement. She was also awarded the Provost’s Award for Academic Excellence, an award given annually to a very select number of students who have shown true academic excellence, not just in the classroom but in research, creative activities or in building an academic community. Additionally she was awarded the Andrea Roher Scholarship which is awarded to an undergraduate student dedicated to the field of Health and Wellness. Finally Dr Mobolaji-Lawal was the recipient of the Bernadine P. Healy and Floyd D. Loops Scholarship and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine Full Tuition Scholarship.

Additionally, Dr Mobolaji-Lawal was the president of the Minority Health Interest Group at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College, held a number of positions representing her Medical School and was involved in teaching and tutoring students.

We look forward to seeing Dr Mobolaji-Lawal excel as an Emergency Doctor and wish her every success with her career.