Casimiroa edulis (White Sapote as a food and commercial crop in Australia)

White Sapote as a fruit tree in Melbourne?

Yes you can grow White Sapote in Melbourne. This relatively unknown (to Melbournians) fruit is delicious and a potential as a market fruit. Click the links below for;

White Sapote description and tolerances

White Sapote medicinal properties

Casimiroa edulis as a food

Casimiroa edulis is primarily eaten fresh either on its own or added fresh to other foods as due to its properties, White Sapote has proved unsuitable to canning or freezing (Morton 1987). Casimiroa edulis is a sweet fruit containing 27% sugars and has been compared to custard, peach or banana in flavour (University of Connecticut 2017). It is often combined with milk to produce ice-creams or milkshakes and is rich in vitamin A and C (University of Connecticut 2017). Apparently it can be made into a spread similar to marmalade (Morton 1987).

Potential as a commercial crop in Australia

Due to its high sugar content (University of Connecticut 2017) I think white sapote has potential as market sold fruit in Australia as most people enjoy sweet fruit. Unfortunately due to its inability to endure chilling long term storage of White Sapote fruit is problematic with a refrigerated life of only two weeks (Morton 1987). Ideally the fruit needs to be picked serveral weeks before ripe with a short piece of stem still attached (similar to a peach) to extend shelf life (California Rare Fruit Growers 2017). Heavy frost and low temperatures will damage White Sapote plants and fruit which is why it may only currently be grown commercially in northern New South Wales.

References

California Rare Fruit Growers (2017). White Sapote. Accessed 30/10/2017 https://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/whitesapote.html

Morton, J.F. (1987), Fruits of warm climates, Media Incorporated, Greensboro, N.C, USA.

University of Connecticut (2017), Casimiroa edulis Llave. Accessed 30/10/2017. http://florawww.eeb.uconn.edu/199900052.html

Burnley late season produce plot still kicking

What's happening at Burnley?

Over the last few weeks my plot at university has been putting on some massive growth. I seem to have been gifted some fantastic weather as it has been quite warm for this time of year and we have had a few decent downfalls of rain (not that it matters so much because I have drip irrigation going). Weeding been kept minimal due to the heavy mulch covering the plot. The effectiveness of the mulch is evident from the carpet of weeds that surrounds the plot which is almost at the point of being classified as some form of turf due to its increasing density.

Harvest from the plot has included several mammoth zucchinis, lots of cos lettuce, some chard and finally a ripe grosse lisse tomato! Yes some of my tomatoes are now starting to blush red. None of the bush tomatoes have ripened but some from the other plots are nice and red. I tasted one from an abandoned plot and it was really floury but I suppose you can't expect great fruit this time of year. The grosse lisse tomato from my plot was a little better but still a bit on the dry side.

Little baby beans are starting to appear bringing hope of a mini bean harvest and the New Zealand yams are also starting to form now that the autumn equinox has occurred. Last week I checked my broccoli and small florets are there amongst the leaves and my snow peas continue their ascent up the bamboo tripod.

Small eggs are present under the broccoli leaves and i'm guessing they are probably cabbage moth larvae. Looks like I took too long to net the broccoli. Other than that no major pest and disease problems are apparent. More to come.

I was starting to think it wouldn't happen then one finally ripened on the vine.

The contrast in my two rows of carrots is obvious. The carrot seed was mixed with sand to aid dispersal but I think I needed to shake the vial more thoroughly as all the seeds ended up in one row and few in the other. I sowed some more in the thin row to try and compensate.

My broccoli plants have outgrown their netting.

Mammoth zucchini and regular zucchini on my backpack for scale.

Zucchini flowers are spectacular.

 My broccoli freed from its netting

Under-storey action beneath the chard and broccoli.

More mammoths

 

Baby beans forming at last.

Another harvest zucchini and my first chard. The cos is getting a bit big now, this one was the size of my head which may explain why they call it a 'head of lettuce'.

Burnley produce plot. Harvesting lettuce cos the time is right.

Melbourne University plot mini harvest

The last blog post I wrote about my Burnley produce plot related to it as it stood back on the 9th of March (approximately one month prior to this post). Back then all the seeds and seedlings had been planted out, the plot had been mulched and fertilised and drip irrigation was installed. Now in less than one months time I am starting to harvest some food.

The plot on the 9th of March

The plot on the 6th of April

It's amazing how productive the plot has been considering the minimal amount of work I have put into it. During the last month I have probably only done a total of 30 minutes of weeding thanks the thick layer of mulch I have employed. Other tasks have included netting the brassicas to protect them from cabbage white butterfly, threading some twine around my tripod to aid the peas in their ascent up the bamboo and pruning my indeterminate (vine) tomato plant. Pruning the vine tomato is actually something which at home I had attempted and failed. Essentially I think I failed because of the myriad of conflicting and confusing youtube videos I had watched on the subject. Due to that negative experience I gave up and grew only bush varieties (which necessarily require pruning). I think next spring I might give some vine varieties a go and write up my own guide on the subject. Today was the first harvest from the plot and I took home some zucchini and two heads of cos lettuce. All the other plants look to be doing fine. Next update coming soon.

From left to right: tomato, zucchini, beans, lettuce, NZ yams and carrots

My modified pea tripod (inspired by the Melbourne art centre spire) 

The vine tomatoes are looking healthy but will they actually ripen this late in the season?

Two cos lettuce (miraculously untouched by snail or slug) and a mega zucchini from the plot.

Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show 2016 garden designs

MIFGS 2016 

Recently in Melbourne the annual flower and garden show was in full swing in the Carlton gardens and as usual I paid a visit with camera in hand to try and capture some of the amazing designs on display. As usual everything was of high standard with a few of the designs really impressing me. Aside from the garden designs the garden sculpture/art section of the show was also impressive with more timber being used in the pieces submitted. I've covered the show several times before in my blog and this time rather than waffle on about this and that I've decided to jump right in with the pictures which I'm guessing is what everyone really want to see.

Ian Barker garden design

A regular at the show Ian Barker and his team put together this wonderful display which made use of an existing pond in the Carlton Gardens. To my eye the design appeared to be a mixture between sharp / formal lines broken up by the use of herbaceous perennials and a gravel path. Obviously it also incorporated a small boat ramp. Polygonum, Helenium, Salvia, Geum, Verbascum and Panicum were some of many species used.

 

'The Greenery Garden' by the Greenery Garden Centre. Gold Medal Winner

The Greenery Garden Centre is an establishment in Melbourne's northern suburbs famous for its large range of high quality plants. It isn't the cheapest nursery in Melbourne but the stock is always of good quality. What there design name lacked in terms of creativity was certainly made up for in terms of plant layout and selection. The hard architectural elements of the design were also fantastic with several sections visually separated from each other. This made the design somehow seem larger than it was in its entirety. The shiny dark green foliage of the background plantings highlighted the light coloured flowers in the display. They used time proven classics such as Hydrangeas, Cistus, English box and Magnolia 'little gem'.

'Absendere' by Landscabe Labs. Bronze medal winner

This minimalist design won the bronze. Not really my cup of tea but obviously the judges thought otherwise. It seemed to incorporate more turf and architecture than it did bedding plants and trees. In the beds I think I saw some Sedum, Lomandra and maybe some young Proteas.

GHLD & The Garden Co. Silver medal winner.

This rather tropical looking design was good enough for a silver. One of its main tactics was the usage of large foliage. Ancient Cycads, palms, Agaves, Cannas, Strelitzias and Fragipanis were all used.  The surfer girl in the water feature was a focal point but I'm not sure if many people would appreciate that in their home garden.

BLAC Design and Contruction. Gold medal winner

This very subtle design took out a gold medal. It was a bit an out of the box type of design with not a flower in sight. It was basically a mixture of different green foliage with a few grey / blue plants and some really light almost lime green plants in there to help keep things interesting. I can't really tell from my pictures but lots of the plants in the bed look to be prostrate gymnosperms or conifers to the layperson. There also appears to be several grass plants in there too.

The Aggregata Plants & Gardens blog personal choice award goes to................

'The Retreat' by Paul Hervey-Brookes

Not all the plants used in this design were Australian natives but 'The Retreat' unmistakeably had an Australian aura. This design showcased what I would describe as a wilderness garden come colonial settlers cottage style of garden. It used several Eucalypts for the tall plants and had several beds which bordered a meandering path of granetic sand and river pebbles. Westringia, Anigozanthos, Limonium, Correa and Salvia (I think) were used in the beds. The colour of the sand and the river pebbles seemed to simulate a dry river bed you might find somewhere where the soil has a tinge of redness to it (like parts of the snowy mountains). This splendour was all complimented by a traditional rusty gate.

Garden art and sculpture

I have recently been doing some work for a company called 'Neo Rustic' which sells different Australian  and exotic hardwoods and makes benches, tables and furniture from timber. Maybe that is why I seemed to notice an increase in the amount of timber used in the garden sculpture at MIFGS. I really love the use of timber in garden sculpture as I think it has a much more organic appearance compared to straight stone or metal pieces. Lots of the timber seemed to be Tasmanian in origin (eg Huon Pine).

My plot at the University of Melbourne (a tradition since 1950)

Melbourne University Burnley vegetable plot week one (1/3/2016)

 

History of the plot system for students at Burnley

As part of our subjects for this year we are establishing vegetable plots in the field station at Burnley. The whole idea of having plots to develop and nurture was initiated back in the 1950s after a visit from Miss Frances Miner from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. She described a system of individual plots. The idea was implemented at Burnley and sections of the field station (back then a market garden) were transformed into cut flower, tree and also vegetable plots. Students were assessed on their plots and the best ones were awarded prizes (Winzenried 1991). The idea has been continued to this day although I'm not aware of any prizes being awarded. The plots are a great way to provide some hands on gardening experience for students that haven't done much actual gardening.

Plot layout, dimensions and soil composition

The plots were given are 4.2m long by 1.2m wide with the top of the plot (the short edge) facing north east. They all form a grid with walkways of roughly 60cm between them. All plots were raised beds of soil with no sides made of sleepers. We levelled them all down to roughly 15-20cm. The soil in the field station was a welcome contrast to the heavy clay of my home garden in Macedon. It seemed quite sandy and was a dream to work with a spade. The soil itself seemed a little hydrophobic as I noticed some water run off but this was easily worked around by constructing berms (water wells) which helped with the initial watering in of the seedlings.

Crop species

Our lecture Dr Chris Williams chose the crop species. It was always going to be touch and go as to whether some of these plants were going to mature as some of them (eg tomato plants) were being planted out rather late in the season. The timing of the start the semester meant we were growing our plants in more of a transition phase between summer and autumn rather than planting out in spring as one would traditionally do. From south to North we planted out the following seedlings / plants;

• Advanced tomato plants (Grosse Lisse and Roma) with intermingling Genovese basil seedlings as companions.
• Black Beauty zucchini seedling (semi advanced)
• Oregon Sugar snowpea seeds planted around a bamboo tripod
• A row of Brown Beauty bush beans (planted from seed)
• Cos lettuce seedlings
• New Zealand Yam / Oca (delicious if you haven't tried it then give it a go)
• Nantes carrots (by seed)
• Green Dragon broccoli seedlings
• Ruby silverbeet seedlings

Work done during week one

We initially level out or plots down to raised earth beds approximately 15-20cm in height. I then plated out the seeds / seedlings mentioned above and installed a bamboo tripod for the snow peas. I paid careful attention to irrigation as we were working on a day that was to reach 36 degree Celsius! I watered in each hole, planted the seedlings, constructed a berm (water well) around each seedling then watered in the seedlings. I spread dynamic lifter fertiliser on the bed and then mulched the bed with lots of straw (the sown seeds were lightly sprinkled with very fine sugar cane mulch). I mulched the walkways and then irrigated the whole bed very thoroughly.

Worries about irrigation

As I am a part time student I was worried about my plot drying out over the coming week. I only attend Burnley two days per week which meant five days where I couldn't water. The forecast predicted very hot weather. Luckily in my absence a fellow student voluntarily irrigated my plot.

A note on my lecturer for this subject (Plant production and culture)

Dr Chris Williams is particularly interested in edible plant culture, public open space issues and also in combining the two in the form of edible landscapes . He writes his own blog on such subjects. If you are interested the address is http://peopleplantslandscapes.blogspot.com.au

The field in 1894 when it was a market garden (Winzenried 1991).

Women attending crops in 1900 in somewhat impractical attire. Women were allowed to train at Burnley starting in 1899 which I believe was a quite progressive decision during that period of Australia's history (Winzenried 1991). 

Seedling being planted out at an unknown date (Winzenried 1991).

Class of 1950 students in what I assume could have possibly been the first student plots (Winzenried 1991).

 Student plots in 1965 (Winzenried 1991).

Student plots in 1980 (Winzenried 1991).

Overview of the area for our plots

Plots as furrows.

My levelled bed with spacing marked out and a few plants in the ground.

My plot all planted out and mulched.

References

Winzenried A.P. (1991) Green Grows Our Garden: A centenary history of horticultural education at Burnley, Hyland House Publishing Pty Limited, Melbourne.

Williams C. (2016) Lecture notes plant production and culture, University of Melbourne, Burnley.