This weekend I planted two more trees as part of my little bit to save the world! A lovely Hakea and a Grevillea. I also added more vertical growing space for vegetables.
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Me too. A Flindersia australis (crow ash) and an Elaeocarpus eumundii (Eumundi quandong). Both can grow to be large, 20m plus trees but I have an acre-and-a-half. The crow ash is a local dry vine scrub tree, tollerant of the monsoonal cycle of flood and drought but the Eumundi quandong is from a somewhat wetter climate, so we’ll see how it goes. Both are thriving now at the end of the wet season.
My vege garden is somewhat overrun as the speed grass growth and mowing is overwhelming and very time consuming at this time of year, but I am gradually reducing the mowing as I fill in much of my acerage with mainly local dry scrub species, creating a “dry rainforest” that excludes light at ground level and prevents most grass growth.
My sugar banana has rapidly grown from a 1 foot tall sucker to an 8 foot high plant over the wet. Galangal and ginger going mad, as are the jap and butternut pumpkins and sweet potatoes. Most dramatic is the pacific yam (dioscorea sp) which has grown so rampant as to need me to more than double the height of the trellis, and still it has grown across onto the orchid house. In a couple of months, the huge vines will die down and I will excavate the yams.
Well I excavated a yam – 6 kilograms! Luckily you can cut pieces off as you need them and store the remainder in a cool, dry, dark spot and they will last. The vine grows arial tubers as well.
Well done. I have been thinking of trying to grow them myself.
Some species – Dioscorea esculenta – should grow on the central NSW coast. It will need a tall trellis to climb and you will need deep, friable soil where you plant them to make harvesting easy. I had to dig down beside it with a pick and shovel as the tuber was around half-a-metre long. 75 kg has apparently been recorded after a number of years left in the ground but I suspect that at that size, the eating qualities would probably be similar to a tree stump. The top 1/4 or so where the roots emerge from is fibrous and best left for re-planting. Similar in flavour and texture to potato when roasted, I think mashed would be good too.
Thanks Lefty. We buy them each week – one of the few vegetables we do not grow in our garden.