Fruit starts to ripen in September

I love September - it is the month when the seasons change from the cold crisp nights to warm balmy weather and sunny blue skies. The orchard comes to life as many trees start to flower, and fruit ripens overnight. We have started picking Malay Roseapple and Star Apple - two fruit with wonderful flavour. The smell of roses is an amazing thing to find on a fruit, and the fruit tasters are delighted - it tastes crisp and delicous just like an apple. The birds and the bats love them too.

Recipe for Pommelo Salad

We had dinner with friends recently and Dieter made this salad from
- pommelo
- prawns (shelled)
- avocado
- coriander (chopped)
- lettuce
- olive oil



He called it the 'Bill Grainger' Pommelo Salad, as this salad was made by Bill Grainger at their farm, filming on location for an Australian series.

It tasted really good. We recommend it!

Great news - we are now ECO Certified

After several months of very hard work, we have now been given ECO Certification for both our Bed and Breakfast Cottages and also our Exotic Fruit Tasting and Farm Walk.



This certification is for Ecotourism - 'tourism in a natural area that offers interesting ways to learn about the environment with an operator that uses resources wisely, contributes to the conservation of the environment and helps local communities.

We are now a CERTIFIED ORGANIC farm

After 2 farm audits conducted over the last 9 months, we now can call ourselves CERTIFIED ORGANIC. Any one can use the word 'organic' but a farm which has been certified organic has met strict standards and these have been judged by an outside auditor.

Our farm practices have always been organic, but we have never bothered to become certified while our mangosteens were young and not producing. We are now hoping for harvests of several tonnes, and it was time to go and get our farm practices made official.

There wasn't much we actually had to change. The main thing we have had to do is stop using cardboard for mulch around the fruit trees. In the past we always collected the cardboard boxes from the resorts and used them for weed control - very effective too. But the coloured ink on the boxes can be a contaminant - with high mercury in the inks, so we have had to change over to a special black weed mat called 'weed gunnel'. This seems to be working well and lasts longer than cardboard.

This means we are now in a position to be able to sell our mangosteens as certified organic throughout Australia and overseas. Big step forward.

My first dugong sighting

On Sunday Digby and I paddled our sea kayaks north to Emmagen Creek. On the return journey, the pointy bit of my boat nearly collided with a dugong. It was crossing in front of the kayak, diving out of the water and then plunging. It was so close I felt I could almost touch it. In twenty years of living here, I have never seen a dugong and to see one so close - WOW! what a privilege.

The tail flashed before me - it was like a miniature whale - and the mermaid like tail gives rise to the legends about 'mermaids'.

Learn more about dugongs

New Video - Tasting Jakfruit

New video - What's on the tasting today?