One nice thing about our new home is that it has an established Kitchen garden, although at the moment it is probably what you would call `fallow'. The previous owners let it die off as they were moving so we have a bit of work to do but the basics are there. There is a large rosemary bush, some tomatoes, basil, a Curry tree, parsley, mango, orange, mandarin and lemon trees, plus quite a few other things which we can't identify but which look very interesting. One of the pluses is that we have several tall and prolific paw-paw (papaya) trees and we currently have 6 large paw paws on our kitchen bench and yesterday we gave 2 away. The problem we had though was how to pick them. Anyhow Alan has invented a `paw-paw picker' which is 2 old broomsticks joined together with a plant pot cable tied on the end. The trick then is to twist the pot so that the fruit breaks off and lands in the pot. Sometimes works sometimes doesn't but it is better and safer than a ladder and we can use it for mangos too :)
2 comments:
Hi Helen,
It reminds me of watching the amah's in Singapore cutting down jack fruit, rambutan and mangos from very high trees.
They would tie together two old broom sticks or mop handles into one long handle. On the end of it they would tape/tie a long bladed knife. Standing on ladders they would saw away at the stalk until the fruit dropped into another waiting amah's hands.
They had to be efficiant as squirrels, bats and birds would be waiting to get to the fruit they missed.
It sounds like you have a wonderful garden...I'm so envious. We have lots of trees and too much shade for things to grow well. Alan sounds like a pretty handy guy to have around!
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