August 20/2018
January 21 2018
The garden has been without bore reticulation for over 12 months now and it is beginning to hurt.
Hand watering has kept plants alive but it is not enough and mains water just doesn't have that nutrient rich life giving power of the local artesian supply. The mango lives but it's leaves show signs of sun stress in the hot, dry January environment.
Bananas no longer swell and burst forth with large hands of fruit
They shrivel and die on the plant then collapse.
A very sad state of affairs.
This year I am trying something different. I am recycling all the paper waste in the household as a base for a weed reducing mulch in the garden beds.
I throw all the cardboard rubbish down in a general, haphazard manner. There is a surprisingly large amount of it collected over a very short time.
Then I lay a suffocating mat of newspaper over the randomly placed cardboard. I used to read The West Australian daily but since connecting to the internet I no longer buy it so I am forced to use the free and community newspapers. The Stirling Times and The Subiaco Post are ideal for this set up, being bulky and free.
Hose the laid out papers to make them heavier and to set in place.
Cover with straw and you've created a neat looking area that will retard weed growth with watering break down organically.
A scruffy, surprisingly large area at the front of the property is prepared.
Once again I have used The Subiaco Post as a mulch base here. It is a well weighted paper with a real estate section included.
The area is now a lot neater and ready for a permaculture approach.
Transplanting Bananas.
I love growing bananas in Perth. The climate is surprisingly amenable, they are an attractive and exotic-looking plant and there is a real sense of achievement to be gained when an edible crop is produced.
The banana plant below has fruited and, as a consequence, is dying off,( bananas only produce one crop ). Two equally strong suckers have grown from the base so, to prevent overcrowding I have decided to remove one sucker and to transplant it to an area whwere I want to establish more bananas.
I carefully dig around the whole plant, identify a sucker to remove. In this case either one is as good, and, almost as an afterthought I push the original plant over, leaving it lying on the ground.
The sucker I remove is transplanted directly into a bed of zinia and watered heavily over the next few weeks.
Over the next few weeks I notice that the plant I have pushed over has sprouted two new suckers of its own. I dig up the root base and transplant it whole.
By the end of summer my transplanted sucker is stressed and still very much alive. I have watered it heavily during the whole period.
The remaining sucker has had a much better time of it and has required no special care from me.
Here are the same plants some six months later in mid August.
This plant looks almost dead but it still has strong new growth. It has looked after itself over the winter and I feel confident that it will grow well once the warmer weather returns.
Similarly these two have done well, struggling through the winter and I feel that they will enjoy the next few months.
These results are modest I know and I am constantly trying to improve my results.
I tend not to fertilise these transplants and rely on regular watering.
I intend to use these next few warmer weeks to transplant bananas to other locations. I feel that the heat of high summer was a problem with these transplants and perhaps a gentler planting season will see better results.
The banana plant below has fruited and, as a consequence, is dying off,( bananas only produce one crop ). Two equally strong suckers have grown from the base so, to prevent overcrowding I have decided to remove one sucker and to transplant it to an area whwere I want to establish more bananas.
I carefully dig around the whole plant, identify a sucker to remove. In this case either one is as good, and, almost as an afterthought I push the original plant over, leaving it lying on the ground.
The sucker I remove is transplanted directly into a bed of zinia and watered heavily over the next few weeks.
Over the next few weeks I notice that the plant I have pushed over has sprouted two new suckers of its own. I dig up the root base and transplant it whole.
By the end of summer my transplanted sucker is stressed and still very much alive. I have watered it heavily during the whole period.
The remaining sucker has had a much better time of it and has required no special care from me.
Here are the same plants some six months later in mid August.
This plant looks almost dead but it still has strong new growth. It has looked after itself over the winter and I feel confident that it will grow well once the warmer weather returns.
Similarly these two have done well, struggling through the winter and I feel that they will enjoy the next few months.
These results are modest I know and I am constantly trying to improve my results.
I tend not to fertilise these transplants and rely on regular watering.
I intend to use these next few warmer weeks to transplant bananas to other locations. I feel that the heat of high summer was a problem with these transplants and perhaps a gentler planting season will see better results.
March 14 2013.
Summer has been and gone and the transplant results are pleasing. At this point it is interesting to compare growth rates of bananas transplanted in the height of summer and intensively cared for and those transplanted during the more benign months of August and September; Months that are warming up but still wt and mild.
This plant, transplanted one year ago mid summer has done well with a lot of hard work and care from me.
It is definitely all right but the lesson I learned this year is to plant during the cooler months and to let the natural environment care for the plants.
Here's those two plants again 12 months on, flanked by suckers I planted in the spring. They are almost at the same stage.
These were planted as small suckers and have powered ahead.
Similarly these springtime plantings are doing well.
There are many more suckers appearing in the mature stands of banana and I think that March is a great time to transplant before the colder months are here and bananas go into plant hibernation, or dormancy.
August 6 2014
Here's a mid winter harvest of surprisingly large fruit, a few have over- ripened very quickly and need to be removed so as not to accelerate the ripening process for the others.
Not a giant but not bad for mid winter in Perth W.A. The taste is good too.
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