What did you plant today? Garden and Farming for FOOD SECURITY.

[Tigger]

Thank you Harmony. You make good sense; we’ve had a particularly wet, wet season. Every other potato variety (red lady, sebago) has done well, it’s just the ‘Royal blue’ variety that’s gone mad. I think your analysis is very accurate.

It’s a shame, really. The Royal Blue worked so well over our winter - they are fantastic for baking, and I had good yields with them over the previous winter / dry season. It seems that they don’t do so well in the tropical wet.

Would you believe, I just received a shipment of ‘Dutch Cream’ and ‘Nicola’ seed potatoes last week. I’m soooo looking forward to growing these!

Everything is an experiment for me. Our climate is what you’d call ‘Mountain Tropics’. Yes, we have high rainfall and humidity during the wet season, but our dry season can get quite cool, because we’re at 870m, similar to the ‘Blue Mountains’. Temps can drop to 2-4 degrees C at night when the desert winds roll in...

I still have so much to learn. And your insight is well-received! I must check the soil conditions again this season.

Here’s my potato planting plan for this season:
Sebago (continuation from last year)
Red Lady (continuation from last year)
Dutch Cream (new seed stock)
Nicola (new seed stock)
Royal Blue (from new seed stock- not old)

[Tigger]

Oh, and just on your comment about not planting again in the same (garden) bed. I did that! Oops! The other varieties I planted were in beds after growing beans and peas. That’s why!!

Lesson learned…

[Tigger]

I apologise for not posting any updates recently.

Most of my focus has been on repairing the garden and structural reparations in the wake of TC Jasper and a particularly long wet season here in the tropics. Many crops have failed.

Suffice to say that we have a long way to go to repairing the embankment before the next wet season (we’re up for over AUD$100K for a geotechnical assessment and stabilisation of a key part of our property) and many of our crops failed due to the huge amount of rainfall. There is a a small concession: Tumeric harvest has been better than expected:



I am yet to harvest the ginger and other root crops.

Also, I have had a bumper crop of sweet mandarins, oranges, bananas, grapefruit, dragonfruit and kumquat. That’s mainly because of the huge rainfall this season.

I’ve sold a lot of fruit to the local markets; the rest has gone into pickles and jams.

We’re running our freeze-dryer hard to preserve the excess, putting a strain on our power reserves (we’re not on-grid).

I am shooting feral pigs for red meat, and I am trading fish from our dam for milk and eggs with our neighbouring farms.

I am really sorry for not posting as often as I’d like to: our farm is in serious preparation mode and I don’t have the bandwidth to upload frequently. But I made a promise to show progress on the Tumeric crop: there you are

[Harmony]

You have been busy Tigger. Wonderul crop of Turmeric and so good to hear your fruit crop was so abundant.


It's great you are getting good practice trading with your neighbours and preserving what you can produce and dealing with the unexpected. We are pleased to see what you are doing and how you are progressing when ever you have that little piece of time.


It's been clearer and frostier where I am this Winter. My tomatoes have been really hit by that, even in the greenhouse, but still able to pick enough for salads etc. The cooler crops in the greehouse of greens have been succussful so far, English spinich, pak choy and other little greens from the cabbage family that make wonderful fresh greens for salads and sandwiches. Kale also provides fresh greens during the colder period, even outside the green house. The half barells of carrots are providing good fresh tasy carrots and hopefully the newer ones I planted will continue into the warmer seasons. It's all about learning from trial and error and becoming flexible with the ever changing conditions

[Hym]

The apricot tree seen in my avatar has been with me for 27 years.
We've gone thru many different seasons together.

With my great appreciation for all of the fruit she has given for my family and friends,

The beautiful leaves that make at least 6 months each year full of her lush color and cover,
white and light purple blooms with thin yellow stamens in the spring,

Lush green leaves thru the summer heat, strong winds and rain, and into the fall with her leaves dropping, back to the stark, barren branches and now thick trunk.

These last few weeks have been another learning....I now understand.

This the business of protecting the green fruit from the sloth of the ground squirrels and the waste from the apricots felled with only one small peck from the magpies squawking at each other, a species here unlike any other species in this area, born to annoy all other species, trees included.

Shooing them off and throwing the wasted fruit over the irrigation ditch/our acequia, so I could see any new fruit on the cleared ground that I am soon to pick up....all the while providing any avian, obnoxious or not, an area far from the tree that would divert attention away from the unpicked fruits left.

In all of that effort to protect the fruit I became intimately aware of a process I hadn't noticed so vividly all of these years...

My worry was allayed when I really saw what was happening here, an interaction that is breath and thought, the subtlety of all living things...

The tree itself has a sensitivity to giving, separate from dropping its fruit....even as it lets go of the fruit it conceived of, nurtured, protected, and offers up to the living.....

Barefoot on the soft, surrounding grounds I recently opened up to add water, more than the deep drink she gets from hugging the irrigation water flowing closely by....

Seeing, admiring, breathing close...
and Inhaling the air that is borne of this Being...

I became aware of the consciousness that we call a tree.

I decided then to address it as the consciousness it has always been.....

[Harmony]

Posted by Hym (here)
The apricot tree seen in my avatar has been with me for 27 years.
We've gone thru many different seasons together.

With my great appreciation for all of the fruit she has given for my family and friends,

The beautiful leaves that make at least 6 months each year full of her lush color and cover,
white and light purple blooms with thin yellow stamens in the spring,

Lush green leaves thru the summer heat, strong winds and rain, and into the fall with her leaves dropping, back to the stark, barren branches and now thick trunk.

These last few weeks have been another learning....I now understand.

This the business of protecting the green fruit from the sloth of the ground squirrels and the waste from the apricots felled with only one small peck from the magpies squawking at each other, a species here unlike any other species in this area, born to annoy all other species, trees included.

Shooing them off and throwing the wasted fruit over the irrigation ditch/our acequia, so I could see any new fruit on the cleared ground that I am soon to pick up....all the while providing any avian, obnoxious or not, an area far from the tree that would divert attention away from the unpicked fruits left.

In all of that effort to protect the fruit I became intimately aware of a process I hadn't noticed so vividly all of these years...

My worry was allayed when I really saw what was happening here, an interaction that is breath and thought, the subtlety of all living things...

The tree itself has a sensitivity to giving, separate from dropping its fruit....even as it lets go of the fruit it conceived of, nurtured, protected, and offers up to the living.....

Barefoot on the soft, surrounding grounds I recently opened up to add water, more than the deep drink she gets from hugging the irrigation water flowing closely by....

Seeing, admiring, breathing close...
and Inhaling the air that is borne of this Being...

I became aware of the consciousness that we call a tree.

I decided then to address it as the consciousness it has always been.....

Hym, your post about your apricot tree was wonderful to read. It brings the larger consciousness we share with our world into awareness, taking those moments we can open our self to really feel our surroundings and our relationship to all life.

I am usually very aware of this connection, as I am sure many home growers are too, when we see and feel the bees living amongst and with our flowers, the worms thriving in good soil and keeping it alive with the trillions of bacteria and fungi, to the birds and creatures we try and share what we can while still providing for our own needs.

The energies a tree and vegetables share with us as we in turn try and share with them. I often talk and communicate with my garden and let the plants know I am saving their seeds for next season and let them, as much as possible, finish their growing cycle to flower and seed to fulfil their own needs and provide for the whole eco system and miraculously continue in the next cycle of renewed energy movements.

I feel if we are grateful of our relationship and and not just here to take what we need and ignore the whole, the food is filled with more goodness and positive energy in the shared processes. Like we care and work as a whole system. Thank you Hym for this wonderful reminder of the plants and life force consciousness that sourroud us and your wonderful Apricot Mother energy of your garden.

[Tigger]

Last winter (in August 2024) I had to make the extremely difficult decision to remove all of the citrus trees on our property. The tress were overgrown, and many of them were diseased and not bearing fruit. Now that I’m in a position to re-plant, I’d like to ask everyone for advice on… mandarins and oranges.

I know that the soils and climate here in Atherton are perfect for growing citrus, so I know I can grow anything I choose to plant. I’m okay with growing limes and lemons…

BUT, I’ll confess to being an utter newbie when it comes to mandarins, oranges and other citrus: I don’t fully understand the varieties. Ideally I’d like to grow those mandarins with loose skin and sweet fruit, and oranges that provide better juicing. But I don’t know what varieties exist (by name), and I’m wondering if anyone has any advice on this one?

Oh, and what varieties do those pesky Australian Sulphur Crested Cockatoos leave alone?

[Tigger]

It’s been one of the wettest wet-seasons in tropical Far North Queensland, and I deliberately delayed planting out too many new crops until the wet season is over. Yesterday morning we had the first clear and sunny day in weeks, so I decided to venture down to the back yard to clear out some of the old garden beds.

I found a pleasant surprise waiting for me. Apart from finding that my turmeric and ginger plants have grown exponentially, I found an entire garden bed full of ripe pineapples. And, of course there is a whole jungle of butternut pumpkins and sweet potato, but a lot of those are not fully developed yet. I made this quick harvest, and will harvest the rest on the weekend: