Hand pollination of Dragon Fruit brings success.

White fleshed Dragon Fruit (Pitaya)

And aren't they luscious. The fruit developed surprisingly quickly. Excess shade wasn't the problem. A lack of natural pollinators was.

Ornamentals are the icing on top of the cake. Making a food forest attractive to work in.

There is no reason why a food forest based on permaculture principles cannot be attractive. Flowers and foliage attract the pollinating insects and birds and make it a pleasant spot for us to visit and work, .... it works for us anyway. The actual time taken to care for many ornamentals can be minimal.

Bougainvillea - Wikipedia

February 27, Late Summer, Garden Activity (in a time of some global heating)

Flowering, fruiting and leafing in a summer ending with a climate change induced heatwave.

Our Food Forest in February, 2019

When Paul from Barefoot Backyards trims our front hedge it makes such a difference.

Another Midsummer post in the hottest of weather in mid north coast NSW

Even in the hottest of midsummer with heatwaves pounding Australia we have produce available and an exciting garden to explore. We only aim to produce a variety of food for our family, hence we plant a number of fruit and nut tree varieties; or we plant the same tree variety in different locations on our acre to create different ripening times. 

So you will not see a row of custard apples but you will see a custard apples planted on the high side, the low side, in shade and in sun. In addition to planting location variability is the variability of the plants themselves, being seed grown they have slight genetic differences.

Perennial Capsicum with a bite

Midsummer Produce from the food forest and garden

Sweetleaf or Katuk

A tropical low is not unusual and welcomed.

We have had showers over two days and now seven hours of continuous heavy rain. We expect more rain. Parts of the district have had over 100ml. Our landscaping copes well with such rainfall events. Our sloping acre of food forest loves the rain and the warm days that follow.

Food Forest: Heavy rain but our landscaping copes well.

The amount of protein and minerals in food will be reduced by global warming: Science

...even if we grow our own...

#foodforests #growyourown #globalwarming

I just discovered more ways to use coffee cherries

Drying coffee beans at home

We have ten coffee bushes and I have just picked a bucket of coffee cherries. The flesh is now deseeded of beans and chucked in the worm farm. I wondered if the cherry flesh could be used for jam and discovered a whole new use for the coffee husks/flesh.

 

November, more and more productive

Nectarine

 I massacred a Nectarine tree to reduce the size and the few fruit produced this season are now larger.

Cherry of the Rio Grande