Mangosteen harvest starts in 2 weeks

Mamgosteens by mail order in a 4.5 kg box

We will start picking mangosteens in about 2 weeks. This fruit comes from a small flowering about 3 months ago, and we only expect about 100 kg. The main harvest is due to ripen during April and May and we expect between 3-6 tonnes at that time.

If you would like to purchase a box of mangosteens please visit the link below to place your order, and you will be invoiced.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/193ImNVLWsMb8w7a_GmoOATRTNkmjXryNgwDu2tdNUwA/viewform

Retiring from tourism

We have sold off part of the property, with the homestead, the rainforest, and two B&B cottages. We plan to keep the mangosteen orchard for another few years, but our base will be Mossman. We have been involved with tourists since 1994, and this is the end of an era.

Our plan is to sell our fruit directly to customers via farmhouse direct, an online market stall for australian farmers hosted by Australia Post.

Visit by UK Masterchef Judge - JohnTorode

Digby participated in a documentary about Australian Food, with John Torode. They spent a pleasant morning wandering around the orchard checking out the fruit, and tasting and talking about the flavours, with a director and a cameraman. It will be shown on the UK 'food' channel in March 2014, so keep an eye out for it. A great experience!

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.

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