Well, the second year of the tropical permaculture garden has officially begun. My sense of permaculture is to try to use everything in one's immediate vicinity to the fullest, then import after that. In a future blog, I aim to touch on some of the more creative things I have done, with this conception of permaculture in mind. However, for now, I am just going to report on how things are going in the garden at the denouement of the wet season, for no other reason than to see if I can learn anything - maybe you will too.

The climbing spinach is doing O.K. It is not really earth-shattering on its own, but then again it is a single, slow-growing perennial. A few more plants will hopefully do the trick. The passion fruit is growing, but now that the sun is on the autumn axis, it gets virtually no direct sunlight. Problematic. I would like to reposition it, but the space here is really lacking and doesn't really lend itself to doing this. Probably better to prune it, put the clippings in the compost, and give it to someone who has a hope of year-round sun for the thing.

The coconut tree is literally going nuts. Last winter and spring as the fishers were filleting their catch, I was able to obtain a number of carcasses. The ground around us is pretty much just rocky fill in several areas, with nary a weed about (well, maybe a couple) so I figured I'd take a punt and see if a bit of nitrogen might sweeten things up a bit. I had remembered a story David Suzuki once told about the grizzly bear, the salmon, and the fir trees: forest growth was directly correlated to the path of the grizzly bear. Why? Grizzly poo and salmon carcasses provided nutrition to the soils. After depositing the remnants of GTs, tuna, mackerel, coral trout, sweet-lip, and golden trevallee deep into the ground (wrapped in newspaper), I covered the holes, packed them down, and covered with cardboard boxes and large stones so that the feral cats and dogs wouldn't get to them.

About two months later, the worms started popping up in the areas where the fish had been buried.

Last year, the coconut tree in the backyard produced five coconuts. We've eaten 5 this year and it's only April. Furthermore, we've given away six, have another 20 on the tree, and some newer nut stocks on the way. The insects were there today, happily buzzing around some recent flowers. The fronds give good cover to the southwest corner of the house, and should improve this benefit over the years. The dead fronds are used in three ways: first, the leaves are clipped with the secateurs and deposited in the compost; second, the wide part of the branches are used to construct organic garden beds; third, the narrow parts are good as supports for various things. Anything unused goes into a part of the yard dedicated to another experiment: long-term composting of woody and fibrous materials.

The coconut husks are a great mulch for the paw paws and as a general tonic for the rockmelon bed. Done right, the coconut shells can be halved and used as seedling pots, or as bowls.

All from putting a few dead fish into the ground that would have smelled up the bins.

The paw-paws are going great guns. We've got about 25 fruit on 4 trees, 2 other trees blossoming, and 3 other trees in the ground and taking well. A few personal notes on paw-paws:
- They seem to like a fair bit of shade. I've seen a few around here keel over from 6 months of full sun @ 30 degrees for 7+ hours a day. Might be different down south. That said, it's still 29 in the shade here for the majority of the year, and a lot of secondary light abounds what with proximity to the water and lightly coloured housing.
- They seem to like a concrete slab. Whether this has to do with concrete chemistry or to do with proximity to a shady structure built on a concrete slab is beyond me.
- They like a bit of urea.
- Seedlings come up well from smaller, cooler composts. The last batch of mature compost we put over the garden landed us about 75 seedlings. We planted four more ourselves, and gave away another 30...now the rest are just getting in the way - if we had more land we'd definitely plant them.
- They respond positively to direct mulching of weed prunings and cuttings around their base.
- When the leaves yellow I snap them off (unless they are holding up fruit) and place the leaf at the base of the trunk.

The basil is doing well, it's over a year old now and pretty much a woody weed. It keeps on ticking over with a bit of a prune (helped most recently by a couple of kids wrestling in the garden). This basil happens to get no more than 4 hours sun a day in summer and will not see direct sunlight for the next 6 months. It sure knows where the sun is though, based on its horizontal growth.

Rockmelon vines popped up out of the compost, a few fruit are around but as yet are untested.

Tomato and capsicum have also sprung up from the compost, probably 2 or 3 months away from fruit yet as they are in shady spots under the coconut tree.

Broad beans are coming out of the ground; hopefully they will continue as I focus on hilling them as they grow.

Eggplants are doing ok, about 6 plants with 5 fruit total and flowers still coming. Could probably use another stake or two. These seem to do particularly well up here for some reason. The only water they really see during the dry seasons is the rinse from the laundry. I have used hand-pollination with these, and although I can't say it works for sure, I don't think that it has reduced yields.

Butternut squash looks ready to kick it into top gear as five small fruit have appeared suddenly near the ends of what is turning out to be an impressive-looking, if not yet yielding, vine. We got a big rain a few days ago which sat in the flowers that remained attached to new fruit after pollination. Sadly, the small fruit under these flowers rotted, providing the most pungent of odours. I am experimenting by knocking the flowers off of some of the new fruits before they fall off by themselves.

Experiments in need of retesting:

The zucchini and cucumbers were a flop. Too much sun I think. Didn't even get a fruit! This also may have been a pollination issue, as things were pretty dry around the time the stalks were popping up out of the ground. The plants were actually quite prolific, full of big, furry leaves ready to use energy from the sun's rays to build sugars and starches to deliver to fruit...too bad about the lack of insects to buzz around the beautiful yellow and orange flowers. Has anyone tried hand-pollination of these crops?

The peanuts never rose 3 months after planting.

Finding a hard time raising lettuce seeds including cos, mizuna, and wild rocket. I suspect that the "potting soil" is probably the worst thing I could do for them. I got them raised last year in home-made compost, but we don't have any mature stuff at the moment. Any suggestions?

After a year of part-time gardening, things are looking really good. It is an absolute pleasure to sit amongst this piecemeal garden at sunset or any old time, really, and watch the activities going on around here. Frogs, grasshoppers, birds, butterflies, wasps and flies of all sorts; small spiders so shiny and golden you could get blinded, and of course, feral cats, cockroaches, fruit bats, green ants, common ants, and fruit maggots. Hey, they all play their role.

We gave the TV to the TV repairman. Don't need it anymore.

Peace,

Clive.