# Gardening in the tropics



## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I moved to Sumatra in Indonesia earlier this year and I'm struggling to adjust my gardening ideas to suit this climate. I grew bumper harvests of chillies and squash in the UK but have so far failed to replicate that success here.

What I'm aiming for is a kitchen garden that can provide us with an interesting and varied diet. My wife, on the other hand, want to grow crops we can sell.

Some plants can serve both purposes, and more. We grow several varieties of banana, the most commercially viable of which is the sweet plantain (Saba). It is used to make banana fritters and a sweet banana stew (coconut milk, palm sugar, banana). The flower is also edible and the leaves are used for all sorts of purposes - essentially replacing aluminum foil in the kitchen. You can also eat the stem, and the rib of the leaves is strong enough to use as a makeshift rope.










We also grow several other varieties. This is a local North Sumatran variety called Barangan. The flower of this variety is also edible.










Ambon bananas are a bit like the Cavendish bananas we get in the west, but much tastier. Their flowers are too bitter to eat.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Some Ambon bananas ready to sell.










We also have some less commercially viable varieties. Banten bananas are small and fast growing.










Gold bananas, called jayt pong muan (chicken egg bananas) in Khmer, are one of my favourite varieties, but we can't sell them. I have no idea why.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Wow, that is so cool. You can actually harvest bananas when they are ripe and taste best!


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

That is neat you have different varieties.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

You have to harvest them when they are green and let them ripen in the house. Knowing when to harvest is something I’m still learning about. Too early and they won’t ripen, too late and they fall off the plant as you try to harvest, or they split, or they are eaten by birds or rats. Our chickens and ducks love eating bananas.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Another multipurpose plant is the coconut palm. Coconut is an essential ingredient in Sumatran curries and cakes (steamed in banana leaves, naturally). We use the shells for makeshift bowls, the coir gets composted here but can be used for many purposes. You can also make cooking oil, sugar, palm wine, and countless other products. Traditional Sumatran jewellery can be made from bits of coconut shell covered in gold leaf.










This is a dwarf variety with a fragrance that is prized for making cakes, but mostly we use them to make coconut milk. Our chickens love coconuts too!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Jambu air (wax apple) is a fruit that is rarely seen in the west, probably because it's just not as exciting as other tropical fruits. But it has a sweetness and its high water content makes it refreshing on a hot day.










Our tree produces several bumper crops a year. We had some landscaping done last week and the guys spent more time climbing our jambu air tree and picking the fruits than they spent working!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

We have a few mango trees, only one of which fruits - and almost all of the fruits fall before they are ripe. We ate two mangoes from our last crop.










Hopefully this current crop will be more successful. This is a variety called Kuini. They taste a lot like Alphonso mangoes.

Our chickens like to roost in this tree.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I love papaya and will keep trying to grow them, but our soil is waterlogged and the trees quickly die off. Rotten roots is always the cause. Sometimes we can get some fruit before they die.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Rambutans and lychees are closely related. My wife planted this rambutan tree a couple of years ago and it is currently producing its first fruit.










She planted this lychee sapling at the same time but it has yet to fruit. It appears to be suffering from some kind of micronutrient deficiency.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Arecanut palms are often planted to mark boundaries. My wife planted several rows of them next to the drainage channels on and next to our property, in the hope that their roots would reduce erosion. That doesn't appear to have worked as well as we had hoped and last week we replaced one channel with a buried pipe and built a concrete wall to prevent our garden collapsing into the public drainage channel on our boundary. Now she wants me to cut down the majority of these palms!










The arecanuts are consumed locally by old women - chewed with lime paste and betel leaves it is a stimulant. Gifts of arecanuts, betel leaves and lime paste are important in many ceremonies here.










According to the agent who buys our arecanuts, most of the crop here is exported to India, for chewing or making paint.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

It will be a couple of decades before this durian tree produces any fruit, but it does provide some welcome shade.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Our avocado tree has some serious micronutrient deficiencies. It perks up for a while after I give it a foliar spray, but quickly reverts to its sickly state. Our neighbour has a similarly ailing avocado tree. Our chickens love to roost in it though.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

This is a breadnut sapling. The fruit can be used in curries.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

We eat cassava leaves when we've run out of vegetables. They are also an essential ingredient is squash curry and banana flower curry. The roots can be made into chips, cakes, or they can be boiled then left to ferment for a few days. The starch breaks down into sugar, and the sugar to ethanol. The result is sweet, light, fluffy, slightly fizzy and mildly inebriating.










Propagating cassava is simply a matter of shoving a stick into the ground.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

A couple of years ago my wife planted a few pineapple tops. They still haven't produced any fruit, but we're hopeful they will eventually.










Hopefully they will produce slips and pups soon, which are much faster to mature. In the meantime we're still planting tops.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

We've got some turmeric plants but they've been trampled during the recent landscaping. Not to worry, they'll grow back.

We've also got a few closely related plants that my wife says have medicinal uses. This one is called elephant turmeric.










I have no idea what this is.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

One of the most prolific weeds we have here is Mimosa pudica, sometimes called shy plant. It's thorny and very nasty to remove. I hate it but smile when I think that people pay good money for these weeds in the west as houseplants.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

This is genjer, sometimes called paddy field lettuce. It pops up everywhere but that's OK as it's delicious.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

When we bought this plot a couple of years ago we were told the arecanut palms along this boundary belong to us. The neighbours all signed their agreement in our deeds. However a while later some guy turned up and said he'd planted them (on our land) and therefore they belong to him. No worries, he can have them. But to show our appreciation for his respect for us I planted sugar cane right beside them and now their roots are struggling to compete.










We've got another variety of sugarcane that we will also plant on that boundary once the canes are large enough to plant.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Wow, that took time to do. 

There is so much to ask about and comment on. Love the last post about the arecanut palms and your solution.

Why are different varieties of bananas not sold in other countries? Do they not travel well?

And the wide variety of what you have available to you is amazing. And it's all on your property.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Why are different varieties of bananas not sold in other countries? Do they not travel well?


That's a huge question, and the answer has a lot to do with United Fruit and the rise and fall of banana republics, banana boats, fusarium wilt, and a lot of other factors. The bananas we get in the west are a variety called Cavendish, although you can sometimes find other varieties in asian supermarkets.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I'd have to look at what they're called but I have seen a different variety in one of the higher end markets. I just never paid any attention to what they were.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

robin416 said:


> I'd have to look at what they're called but I have seen a different variety in one of the higher end markets. I just never paid any attention to what they were.


They may well have been gold/chicken egg bananas. They travel well and are delicious. I'll bet the same vendor also sells durian and cats' eyes (langsat, a type of fruit related to lychees).


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

If I had only known all this yesterday. I was in the city, in that store. I could have checked it out for what it had there that matches up to what all you have growing on your place. I know the bananas offered were very small compared to what we normally see.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Yup, sounds like gold bananas. Is the vendor East Asian by any chance?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

No, they're a high end grocery store. If I need something not commonly found in other stores I know I can go there and usually find it.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

It would be interesting to see what they sell. If they have gold bananas they’re likely to have other produce that we grow here.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Do they sell dried fish? Red shallots? Other strange fruit? I’d love to know.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Once we sell to an agent it’s difficult to know where our produce will end up, but I know that some of it is exported.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

The red shallots is a definite maybe.  

I just checked their website, the only thing they listed that is relatively new in the area is plantain. 

I actually wonder what could come from Asia to the states and still be fresh enough to use. So, what we're seeing is probably coming out of countries to the south of us.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> I love papaya and will keep trying to grow them, but our soil is waterlogged and the trees quickly die off. Rotten roots is always the cause. Sometimes we can get some fruit before they die.
> 
> View attachment 36260


Could you make a few elevated beds for them?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Thank you so much for all of the pictures and information!!!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Could you make a few elevated beds for them?


Our recent landscaping has effectively created a 30m x 3m raised bed. I'll certainly try growing papaya there.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

That's good, everything always looks so green and lush in your pictures!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

This is eddo, growing wild in our compost heap. My wife planted some a few months ago then harvested them and now they pop up here and there.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

How do you use Eddo?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

What do you grow that the chickens can't eat or can't have?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> How do you use Eddo?


It's a dry-land variety of taro, as far as I know. You can eat the root. My wife just told me to gather some and she'll put them in a curry.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> What do you grow that the chickens can't eat or can't have?


I don't know. I trust them to avoid eating things that will make them ill. I noticed when I kept hens in the UK that they never once tried eating rhubarb leaves but they'd peck at everything else in the garden.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Could you make a few elevated beds for them?


I planted a papaya sapling today, choosing a spot where I think the soil will drain.










Just to be extra-sure I dug a channel to some lower ground and filled it with course sand/gravel.










I then mixed in some compost and well-rotted manure.










Then planted the sapling on a little mound.










Hopefully this will be enough. It would be just my luck if this plant turned out to be male!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Did you know all of this stuff before moving there? It's like you've been a lifelong resident when it comes to the flora and fauna of the area.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Did you know all of this stuff before moving there? It's like you've been a lifelong resident when it comes to the flora and fauna of the area.


I ran away from home at the age of 19 and ended up getting adopted by a tiger shaman in the deepest, darkest jungle in Sumatra. My roots here are deep.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I dropped out of university (Oxford) to do this. I treated it like my studies. I learned Malay, Indonesian and local languages in double-quick time.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

For almost 30 years I told people I came here to find a wife, but she had to be from the Karo tribe. Guess which tribe my wife is from!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Biring said:


> I dropped out of university to do this.


Then I went back to university and graduated.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Yes. So how much do you supplement their base diet with fruits and vegetables you grow?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> Then I went back to university and graduated.


Wow, you have an interesting life!


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

What kind of curry? What are your favorites and how spicy?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Biring said:


> I ran away from home at the age of 19 and ended up getting adopted by a tiger shaman in the deepest, darkest jungle in Sumatra. My roots here are deep.


I needed that giggle this morning.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

We feed them uncooked rice, but they find so much more to supplement their diet. Lizards and their eggs, snakes and their eggs/offspring, frogs, centipedes, millipedes. butterflies, ants and their eggs and so on.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Sorry if we have a bunch of questions, I think we are just interested in your life experiences where you live.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> What kind of curry? What are your favorites and how spicy?


My favourite curry is called Rendang. It's been described as beef in a spicy coconut marmalade.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> My favourite curry is called Rendang. It's been described as beef in a spicy coconut marmalade.


That sounds yummy!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> That sounds yummy!
> 
> 
> > It is!


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Do you have anything similar to spicy vindaloos? Does the local cuisine have Ethiopian influences?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Do you have anything similar to spicy vindaloos? Does the local cuisine have Ethiopian influences?


My Hindi/Urdu is a little lacking, but I understand a bit. Aloo means potato. We certainly have hot curries here that contain potatoes. I don't know about Ethiopian influence here. I don't think it's a big thing but it's an obvious pitstop between here and Madagascar, which is culturally similar to Sumatra.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I wish I knew something about Sumatran cuisine.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> I wish I knew something about Sumatran cuisine.


https://witaworld.wordpress.com/201...ional-karo-batak-cuisine-medan-indonesia/amp/

This blog mentions some traditional Karo food.

More generally, Sumatrans eat a lot of sambal - something fried (fish, dried salted fish, chicken, boiled egg etc) then smothered in a paste made from chillies, shallots, garlic, tomatoes.

We've just harvested some sweet plantains. If we can't sell them then we'll make a range of traditional dishes from them and I'll post some photos here.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

In other words, a diet that is unintentionally healthy. 

Do you miss any of the dishes from home or is this cuisine more to your taste? I eat far more veggies now with very little red meat in my diet. For years I ate what my hubs preferred which was meat and potato type meals.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I like the local food and don’t miss much from the UK.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

That really makes the transition to a totally new environment so much easier. 

Since you asked about what the one store might have in different foods, for here, the next time I go into the city I'm going to stop just to take a look.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I wouldn’t say it’s totally new. For me Sumatra is the most normal place on earth. I’ve been coming here for short and long stays over the past 30 years.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

There are just places in this world where the soul needs to be. It sounds like you've found yours.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Thanks for the link, where do you sell produce locally?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> I ran away from home at the age of 19 and ended up getting adopted by a tiger shaman in the deepest, darkest jungle in Sumatra. My roots here are deep.


Wow, I'd like to hear about that sometime!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Our bananas go to people who sell fried bananas or to people who sell bananas in the local market. Our oil palm goes to an agent who sells to a local factory. Arecanuts are bought by an agent who sells to a larger agent and they are eventually exported. Rubber likewise. Other produce, eg betel leaves, is bought and sold locally.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

And Betel is an export to India too?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I think it’s consumed locally.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Betel is a vine that grows up half the trees in our plantation.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Wow, I'd like to hear about that sometime!


I have so many questions about living with a Tiger Shaman. I lived for a few years at a remote monastery in Mongolia, Shankh Monastery.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

You two have quite a few interesting tales to tell.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> I have so many questions about living with a Tiger Shaman. I lived for a few years at a remote monastery in Mongolia, Shankh Monastery.


How did you like Mongolian winters?

Shaman is the wrong word. The local term is pawang and it means expert hunter/tracker/pathfinder with a certain amount of magic thrown in. Back in the day he was the go-to guy to catch and kill man-eating tigers. He told me he'd had to do that twice. He was the lead guide on various Dutch-led expeditions to the highest peaks in the province back in the 50s. He also helped to set up a WWF research station in the jungle but they eventually sacked the initial guides in favour of people with formal qualifications. He set up a small guesthouse and coffeeshop across the river from the research station. That's where I met him. I stayed there briefly in 92, again in 93 and lived in his house from 96-97.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Wow, that is so cool! Because of the collective farming failures and the fragile ecosystem, where I was at in Mongolia in the early nineties, life was tough. The winters are tough and I had enough mutton, mutton fat, roasted barley and butter tea to last a lifetime.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> When we bought this plot a couple of years ago we were told the arecanut palms along this boundary belong to us. The neighbours all signed their agreement in our deeds. However a while later some guy turned up and said he'd planted them (on our land) and therefore they belong to him. No worries, he can have them. But to show our appreciation for his respect for us I planted sugar cane right beside them and now their roots are struggling to compete.
> 
> View attachment 36292
> 
> ...


Do you process your own sugar cane? We used to grow Sorghum here and process it into syrup.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

We haven’t yet. It’s on our to-do list.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

The only thing that’s stopping us is my wife’s concern that it will cost us more in cooking gas than the sugar is worth. One of these days we’ll get a pair of baskets for our motorbike and then I can bring back plenty of firewood from our woodland.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I remember crushing and boiling Sorghum was a lot of work, it was all done outside and we heated the evaporator with wood.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Finally we have a squash on the way!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Can't wait to learn how that will get prepared. I might learn a new way to fix it that I like.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

It will go in a curry.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Papaya.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

OK, are you pleased now that you can see the growth of the different food stuffs? 

And that's not the way I imagined a Papaya fruit grows. But then I never gave it much thought either. I guess I thought it grew like apples do, on the branches.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

The British writer Somerset Maugham described papaya trees as slim women with many breasts. Perhaps it’s difficult to see what he meant when there’s only one fruit.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

LOL That truly was a laugh out loud moment.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

What kind of squash?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)




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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

That looks like it would be really good cooked on its own.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Hopefully we’ll find out in a few weeks.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Have you found anymore developing.

Wait, if it's going in curry how will you know what it tastes like other than in the curry?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I planted about 20 seeds but only one plant looks healthy enough to produce fruit - its roots must have tapped into the motherlode of cow manure I buried in that part of the garden. There are a few other scrawny plants that are good for a few male flowers and not much else.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

The curries here aren’t overpowering and the flavour of the ingredients shines through.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

That sounds like my kind of curry. I really don't care for the over powering heat of most.

What would happen if you could top dress the weaker plants?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

They would probably perk up. We’ve got a bit more manure but we’re using it for our bananas.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Do you have a lot of insects that are destructive to your garden plants? For the the past three years I have not been able to eradicate Squash Beetles in Ohio.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

There’s some type of insect here (not sure what order) called kacinano that sucks the “milk” from unripe rice grains. It can be a big problem and it’s the main reason why people spray vast quantities of insecticide on rice crops in the month or so before harvest.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

This is one of our ****** lime saplings that is bouncing back after losing all its leaves to caterpillars.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

There is another type of caterpillar that cuts banana leaves into rolls to make protective housing while it matures.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Thanks!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Just imagine, we struggle moving from one area in the country to another to get good producing gardens. Where you are now is different planet.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

It’s the same planet, but very far away. If I dug a hole straight down and carried on until I came out the other side I’d be on the west coast of Colombia.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

You can be rather literal. 

Columbia would probably offer the same challenges when it comes to learning how to grow in a tropical climate.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I imagine it would be very similar. I went to Peru once and I spotted some fungi in the Amazon that are identical to what we have here.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I'm not one to pick on you for your struggles growing in the new climate. Since leaving the mountains I have had my gardens fail. More due to the excess heat. I've finally realized it's better to hold off planting until the high heat of Summer. The soil is warm, the extra heat gives the young plants a chance to grow really well and we don't get cold enough to kill them until November.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

And you can grow different things all year round.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

He can. 

I think the only thing here is Winter Wheat. I'm not growing Wheat of any kind.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I have some Red Winter Wheat planted as ground cover.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Our paddy fields are ready for transplanted rice seedlings. Pretty soon we'll have half an acre of front lawn!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Is he walking behind a tiller? It's hard to tell from the pic.

It appears there's lots of clay soil there.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Yes, he’s tilling the soil. Once he finished he went around again flattening the ground ready for transplanting.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

That is so cool, does water life move into the paddies?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Never gave a thought to using a tiller in water. It's got to be different from what we use in gardens, I don't quite see how ours would work when it's that wet and muddy.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> That is so cool, does water life move into the paddies?


Yes. Plenty of fish move in from the channels.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Never gave a thought to using a tiller in water. It's got to be different from what we use in gardens, I don't quite see how ours would work when it's that wet and muddy.





robin416 said:


> Never gave a thought to using a tiller in water. It's got to be different from what we use in gardens, I don't quite see how ours would work when it's that wet and muddy.


Yes, looks like muddy hard work.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Is this the same channel you fish in?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Is this the same channel you fish in?


We've got one channel along half of our east boundary and another along our southern boundary. The whole area is crisscrossed with channels to irritate the paddy fields and to drain excess rainfall.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Yes, looks like muddy hard work.


It looked pretty easy to me. The wheels of the tiller are designed to work on wet ground. It took less than half an hour for them to till about a quarter acre.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I want to see some of the fish you catch.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

There’s not much worth showing here. We have freshwater eels, snakeheads, various catfish, barbs, a few escapees from fish farms such as Nile tilapia and carp, plus some others not worth catching. 30 years ago we could go out on a rainy night with a flashlight, a sword and a bucket and catch dozens of eels in half an hour. We could catch snakeheads as big as my arms using just a machete. Those days are long gone here. I haven’t tried fishing in our channels yet but I would be delighted with a 12” snakehead. Or a 6” tilapia. If I catch anything worth eating I’ll be sure to show it here.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Up in the mountains there is a species of loach that can be found in abundance in unfished rivers. It is delicious. After heavy rains it can be found much further downstream but I haven’t seen any here yet.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

The canals are deep enough to support that many different species of fish?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Most of them aren’t that deep. Tilapia, catfish, snakeheads and eels can survive in muddy puddles. We also have crayfish here. There are lots of fish farms here and the fry often escape to the channels. Last year we flooded our paddy fields for a couple of weeks and found all sorts of fish thriving there.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Is that when free fishing happens?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> There's not much worth showing here. We have freshwater eels, snakeheads, various catfish, barbs, a few escapees from fish farms such as Nile tilapia and carp, plus some others not worth catching. 30 years ago we could go out on a rainy night with a flashlight, a sword and a bucket and catch dozens of eels in half an hour. We could catch snakeheads as big as my arms using just a machete. Those days are long gone here. I haven't tried fishing in our channels yet but I would be delighted with a 12" snakehead. Or a 6" tilapia. If I catch anything worth eating I'll be sure to show it here.


Is it because of overfishing or pollution?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Would you be able to raise some fish?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Is it because of overfishing or pollution?


Overfishing.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Would you be able to raise some fish?


We had some fishponds when we bought this property but a combination of monitor lizards, cats and human thieves meant we never got a single useable fish from them. We may convert one of our paddy fields into a fish pond. There's a type of small tilapia that I think would work well here but I'd have to travel a day or two to get some fish to start us off.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Is that when free fishing happens?


Fishing is a free-for-all here. No permits required, no body of water off limits.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Good morning, Sunshine. Did you sleep in the new building last night? (I couldn't help myself)

From the sounds of it not even private property is off the list.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Good morning, Sunshine. Did you sleep in the new building last night? (I couldn't help myself)
> 
> From the sounds of it not even private property is off the list.


No, my wife calmed down (mostly).


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

If you convert one of the fields how will you keep others from fishing it?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Hopefully a dog will be a sufficient deterrent. Our neighbour has several large fish ponds containing a lot of expensive fish. He hires people to guard it 24/7.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I guess the best thing is to keep Puppy away from people so she'll be suspicious of everyone she doesn't know and will run them off.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Do you have any fresh water shrimp? There are a number of farmers who raise fish here in Ohio. There was a guy in Hiram who tried fresh water shrimp but did not get good returns.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Probably several species. I don’t much care for shrimp so I haven’t paid any attention to what species we have here.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Mangoes are starting to fall from our tree. We've had three good ones so far.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I will bet mangoes off your own tree is a hundred times better tasting than what we can get in stores.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Best mangoes I’ve ever tasted. Do you like the bowl? I chose that one especially!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Forgive me, I'm working on my first coffee. I was totally focused on the fruit.

Totally appropriate and I hope you have a few more like the rooster bowl.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Cool bowl, I can't imagine what a tree ripened mango tastes like!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

It tastes delicious! I had a mango dessert in a high-end restaurant and this tastes better.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Cool bowl, I can't imagine what a tree ripened mango tastes like.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> It tastes delicious! I had a mango dessert in a high-end restaurant and this tastes better.


I bet!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

The guy who taps our rubber trees has just told me there’s a tiger prowling in our wood!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Oh crap. What do you do to keep it away?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I welcome tigers. They are critically endangered and usually not dangerous to humans. My foster father taught me a lot about tigers, including how to protect myself. Sumatran tigers are the smallest race of tiger and are typically not too dangerous if you follow a few rules. Fingers crossed! (And a stinking cigarette butt behind my ear.)


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I was thinking more about the birds and whether they're going to be a target of the cat. And Bear, will it come after Bear if she gets in a standoff with it?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Our woodland is five or six miles away (although last year we had a tiger take a couple of calves about half a mile away from here).


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

One tiger took two calves? Isn't that more than normal? 

Does Bear bark yet when something isn't right in her opinion?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I heard that someone accidentally killed her cub in a deer trap and that she was making her displeasure known.

Bear barks a bit too much. She barks when kids walk past our house on the public road. She barks at our neighbours when they are in their gardens. Hopefully she will learn when to bark and when to keep quiet.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I had one that did that. If I introduced her to people she'd be fine whenever they appeared again. One time I introduced her to a gardener so she'd quit barking at him. She was good after that until one day she started barking at him again. Turns out he showed up in a different truck and she wasn't having it.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

How large is a typical tiger's range? Do they live in family groups?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Tigers range.over many square miles. Cubs will stay with their mum for many months.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Do people respect them being endangered?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

People here are terrified of tigers.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I would imagine, they are also built in to the local culture.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> Do people respect them being endangered?


There is a lot of money in endangered species and most of them end up getting exported to East Asia. I've heard that agents will supply, for example, high powered air rifles to hunters so they can bag as many hornbills as possible. The hornbill populations here have been hammered. They used to be an everyday sight, now they are increasingly rare. I haven't seen a helmeted hornbill for years (their "horns" are considered a substitute for rhino horn in Chinese medicine).


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I hate stuff like that!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

At least there are groups out there trying to stop it.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

They’re not talking to the right people. My friends here work as guides when there are guests, and pay lip service to conservation issues. When they don’t have guests they are out in the bush shooting birds to sell to the agents in the city, but they’ll never admit that to an outsider. My neighbour is doing her PhD on primate conservation but clearly has no idea how many primates are killed to provide baby monkeys for the pet trade. Because of my history here I can bridge that gap but I have to tread carefully.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Wow, yes, politics!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Another banana garden planted; 15 plants, six varieties. I'm hoping I can find the time to plant a few hundred maize plants between the bananas.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Are these the shoots you've talked about? 

I'm guessing by maize you mean a type of corn and it does well in the wet soil there.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Hopefully the soil won’t be too wet. We’re almost at the end of the rainy season here. The soil should dry out completely in the next month or so.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Yes maize, Zea mays. Corn if you will.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

One thing is for certain, you don't stop. You have one more thing in the works on a regular basis.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

The problem is my wife insists I do everything now. No rest or reflection allowed.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I'm not going to touch that but will ask, is this pregnancy related?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

That’ll be her excuse for now. Once the sprog is born I’ll have other challenges.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Looking forward to the next chapter.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> That'll be her excuse for now. Once the sprog is born I'll have other challenges.


That's for sure!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Spotted this on my morning walk - our first pineapple. My wife planted several pineapple tops over two years ago and this is the first one to start fruiting. Hopefully we can get some slips and pups from the plant so the next crop doesn't take so long.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> View attachment 37374
> 
> 
> Spotted this on my morning walk - our first pineapple. My wife planted several pineapple tops over two years ago and this is the first one to start fruiting. Hopefully we can get some slips and pups from the plant so the next crop doesn't take so long.


That is so cool!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Who knew they were so pretty? I sure didn't but then I also didn't know that's the way pineapples grew.


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