Mangosteen Update

An erratic mangosteen flowering over the last two months so we now have at least 60 trees with small fruit in a variety of sizes from marble to golfball. This means a harvest over October November. With any luck there will be another flowering in the next few weeks for a crop in Jan.

February is a fruitful time

Breakfast platter for the Bed and Breakfast in February - beautiful sugar bananas, salaks, red panama passionfruit, abiu, mango, pommelo, and red papaya. A yummy treat.

Harvesting the fruit using the back of the slasher to bring in the fruit.

Cyclone Yasi - the good, the bad and the ugly

For those of you who have missed the news, our farm has been in the path of Cyclone Yasi, and has been 'saved', when the cyclone, considered to be the worst in 100 years, veered to the south, and crossed the cost over 400 kms from us.

Here is an image of the cyclone path

We have lost about 20 fruit trees due to the high winds. You can visit our photos at Picasaweb to see a detailed selection of the images.

But there have been some good news stories as well. My vegetable garden came through the cyclone really well and the eggplant survived.

The durian flowers are still on the trees.

The Galup nut tree lost its top - and in cutting up the broken branches, we found lots of galup nuts - which otherwise would be too high to pick. So I will get to taste galup nut for the first time.

The farm is now cleaned up and looking fantastic. The rainforest has kept its leaves, the beach is as good as ever. The two B&B cottages are fine, and the garden around the cottage is looking good. We are back and ready for fruit tasting and B&B guests. The fact that we had no mangosteen harvest was a plus. So no damage to the harvest because it was non-existent. This makes us very hopeful for a November crop of mangosteens.

Waiting for the cyclone and a new fruit

Cyclone Yasi has been coming for 5 days now. Digby has been pruning the overhanging branches from the gazebo. This photo shows a man who had a new knee replacement operation only 8 weeks ago.

 

Boarding up the bedroom window by screwing iron against the frame. The bedroom will be our 'safe' place to wait out the 24 hours of high wind.

 

We have grown Langsat Duku trees for 24 years, but they only fruited for the first time last year, and then all the fruit dropped off, before I could taste them. I was disappointed. Then Digby found some at Rusty's market at Alf's stall, so I am able to taste the fruit for the first time. They are really yummy, and have become one of my top favourites.

 

What do they taste like - would you believe they have a grapefruit flavour. Certainly tangy - not sweet, and very more-ish. Flesh is very soft and no doubt some people will say it reminds them of lychees.

 

Divine weather and a young cassowary

A teenage cassowary is out on its own roaming on the farm. We were thrilled to have it come and visit during the fruit tasting, which made a great day for the tasters.

 

And just to show what great weather you are missing here is the early morning shot taken when I walked the dogs a few days ago. Calm, sunny and a great day to remind me why I live here.

 

January - bits and pieces

January weather has been sunny and the fruit is ripening rapidly. We decided to set up a fruit stall at the farm gate, with an honesty box. This has been quite a lot of fun, particularly collecting the money - usually all in 20 cent pieces. The bank is going to love us.

 

 

The dragonfruit harvest is amazing. Like picking little aliens off the cactus!

 

With the heavy rains last month I decided to try and grow kang kong - a tropical swamp spinach which grows in water gardens - as nothing else was growing very well.

 

Oh mangosteens! Wherefore art thou, mangosteens?

The first day of 2011, and it looks like it will be a year for NO mangosteen crop. Heavy rains and warmer than normal temperatures are predicted until April, with the La Nina effect. This means the trees are very happy thank you very much, and have no need to burst into flower. We must now pin our hopes on a dry cold winter with an early flowering for a harvest in November- December.