And you get to eat the jakfruit too!

Dig in - best to use gloves - yummy jakfruit.

You don't need to jump off tall buildings to be adventurous.

Find out more about jakfruit 

 

Photo-shoot for 'Adventurous by Nature' campaign

Our neighbours, Amy and Jasmine Davidson provided the talent, along with their dad, Pete and friend Jy. These photos will be used to promote Tropical North Queensland as an adventurous destination.

Breeding tiny jakfruit

This wheelbarrow tells a long story that has taken more than 6 years to unfold. Manipulating fruit characteristics is not something that happens overnight. Fruit growers need patience. 

Digby  is proudly holding a wheelbarrow full of tiny ripe jakfruit weighing 1-2 kg. Most jakfruit we grow on the farm are big - over 10 kgs and sometimes up to 40 kgs. Six years ago we found a baby jakfruit and decided that this would have much more marketing potential - nobody wants to buy a 40 kg fruit - they will never eat it all. Unless of course you grew up with it in Sri Lanka or Malaysia. We want to be able to sell our jakfruit to our fruit tasters - this is the fruit that we think will work.

Now we are saving the seeds to grow more small trees and as our old jakfruit trees reach senescence, they will be replaced with trees growing tiny jakfruit. Will I live that long? Who knows!

Read more about Jakfruit

Diving back into the orchard

I am now back to being a farmer, after 6 months away in the US, hiking the Appalachian Trail. Dirt between the fingernails is something that hikers and farmers have in common! I spent some time today digging and weeding around the dragon fruit plants. Some of them have died from neglect - the weeds were too high for the young newly planted ones to survive. As I moved the weeds away, a Children's Python was curled up against the post of one plant. It was really tiny and a vivid black and white stripey colour. Didn't seem too disturbed by me. The dragonfruit is just starting to set tiny buds.

Packing Shed Mural

If you look closely at the photo below you can see the Mangosteen Mural on the wall of the shed. This is a series of 5 paintings that I recently completed showing the development of a mangosteen from bud to fruit.

The Harvest Team

Mangosteen Harvest in Full Swing

The Zen of picking mangosteens

I am at peace with the world. I have finally arrived at a place which feels exactly right - get up in the morning, go and pick mangosteens, pack mangosteens, send mangosteens to market, receive cheque.

Twice a week, at the moment, Digby and I wander the orchard, tree by tree, look up into the canopy, find mangosteens which are purple or starting to turn purple, and pick them with the special picker - a metal contraption on a long bamboo pole. The best way to describe the metal contraption is that it looks like a kings crown - you catch the mangosteen stem between the crown bits and the fruit drops into the little bag attached.

At the moment we are picking 3 laundry baskets every 3 days. Not much compared to what is still green out there and waiting. Soon it will be picking every day.

I look at the fruit in the orchard with new eyes - what else can I pick and send to market? There is a new assessment of all our fruit and a re-alignment of possibilities for making a living at Cape Trib. Maybe fruit can really give us the economic independence, we dreamed of twenty years ago when we started planting the orchard.

Mangosteens in waiting

Mangosteens are being difficult

We had predicted that the mangosteen harvest would commence in earnest around mid Feb. It is now the third week of Feb and there is only a small dribble trickling out. Most are still green.We are all ready to go - and we wait and we wait. Last week we sent 6 trays to Sydney -  less than 20 kg. It looks like it will be around the same this week. We want the deluge!!! And we want it now!! If it delays much longer we will be on the plane to Los Angeles, with the crop still on the trees. So we are desperate to get the crop in before the end of March.

Ro and Kieran get ready to step into our shoes

Two old friends of ours are about to step into our shoes for seven months so that we can achieve our lifelong ambition of walking the Appalachian trail, on the eastern USA, from end to end - 2,120 miles. Rosemary and Kieran have recently retired and are very excited about taking on the role of looking after our B&B guests, running the fruit tasting and the farm. We are booked to fly to the USA on the 29th March and return on 20th October. Rosemary and Kieran have stayed with us on several occasions over the years at Cape Trib, and love the area.

Rosemary most recently worked as a child psychologist in schools, but has swapped problem parents and challenging adolescents for the peace and quiet of the vegetable garden.  Now there’s also more time for other interests such as the local environment, listening to music, reading and cooking home-grown food.  Travelling has always been a particular passion, and after spending six months last year exploring outback Australia, especially the Kimberley and Pilbara, it’s time for the next adventure sampling life in the Wet Tropics and eating lots of exotic tropical fruit while Digby and Alison take a break.  

Kieran has a background as a culinary herb farmer and has worked both as a voluntary and professional bush regenerator for the National Trust and a private company in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.  Kieran’s main interests are bird-watching and environmental weed control.  In 2003 he was awarded the Centennial Medal by the federal government for his efforts in protecting native vegetation and was named environmental achiever of the year by his local government authority.  He is the founder of several conservation groups and is the editor of a monthly 14-page conservation newsletter.   
Kieran and Rosemary are both looking forward to the experience. The photo above shows Kieran, Rosemary and Digby enjoying a hamburger at Glen Helen Gorge in the Northern Territory. Ro and Kieran acted as our back up team while we walked the Larapinta Trail over 21 days.

Opening of our new packing shed

 

 A gathering of supporters for the official opening of the new packing shed by Mayor Val Schier