Organic Gardening in Fiji

Organic Gardening In Fiji

By Brian Smithers Illustrations by Matthew Roy

Introduction If you are holding this book in your hand, it is either because someone is forcing you, or you have found yourself in Fiji with a desire to eat fresh vegetables, a gardening spade, and a bit of confusion. Here in Fiji, we are attempting to grow foods that we enjoy from places like Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the US and often, it is not going very well. It turns out that there are reasons for this. (Keep reading.) This book has come out of my experience in gardening in Fiji after falling in love with gardening in temperate Oregon. Who am I? I am glad you asked. My name is Brian Smithers and I am a garden lover, moonlighting as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I am also a facultative vegetarian (not always an option) and prefer to eat my veggies local and organic. This can be quite difficult in Fiji since the traditional foods are not long on the vegetables I am used to, making gardening a must. The good news is that I love it. When I set about digging and planting, I ran into plenty of problems that I was not used to in Oregon and went looking for resources on gardening in Fiji. What I found were scant. The Ministry of Agriculture used to put out a guide called ―Fiji Crop Farmer’s Guide,‖ but that has been out of print for a few years awaiting the updated version. It is a very useful guide for specific crops but as far as garden practices go, it is silent. I am actively holding my breath for the newer version. You should not. The second resource that I found is a book called ―Growing Vegetables in Fiji‖ by Kirk Dahlgren, a former Country Director of Peace Corps Fiji. This book was written in 1981, and most recently issued in 1989 by ECHO after they found it buried in the Peace Corps library and re-released it. Dahlgren’s book is wonderful, and there is very little in the book you are now holding that doesn’t owe a debt of gratitude to his, but having been written in 1981, it is outdated. While many of the gardening practices are sound, in a sign of the times, the solution to pests and nutrient deficiency in his book is to spray it with a petrochemical. Now that we know what we know about the dangers to the environment of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, especially when it comes to destroying coral reef, I am sure that even Dahlgren would agree that gardening practices have changed and that an upgrade to his book is in order. There are many new varieties of vegetables that have been developed since 1981 that do much better in the tropics and have been included in this book. With 1

these updates, this book picks up where Dahlgren left off. To be clear, this is not a replacement for Dahlgren’s book. This book is void of many of Dahlgren’s charts and numbers loses its usefulness in planting on a commercial scale. For those who seek more technical advice, you may still need to find a copy of ―Growing Vegetables in Fiji.‖ Backyard gardener and small farmer, read on. Last but not least, you are reading version 1.0 of this book, and as all books go that are written under a deadline, it is sure to be rife with errors and inadequate in multitudinous ways. Please forgive those inadequacies and rest in the knowledge that work continues to make version 2.0 even better. Better yet, let me know if you there is something that will make the next version even better. I won’t be mad at you. Happy digging!

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Table of Contents Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Chapter 4: Chapter 5: Chapter 6: Chapter 7: Chapter 8: Chapter 9: Chapter 10:

Gardening in Fiji for Dummies Soil and its Gifts The Fijian Climate Fertilizer, Pesticides, and Herbicide, oh my! Pests, Disease, and Certain Death Let’s Get Started Sowing the Seeds of Love Trellising Crop Rotation: Damned if you don’t Group 1 Crops: Crops Susceptible to Bacterial Wilt Chapter 11: Group 2 Crops: Crops Susceptible to Cabbage Moth Chapter 12: Group 3 Crops: Cucumber Family Chapter 13: Group 4 Crops: Legumes Chapter 14: Group 5 Crops: Everything Else Chapter 15: Spices Chapter 16: Other Fruits Chapter 17: Aromatics as Pesticide Chapter 18: Composting and Mulching Chapter 19: Hot Season Farming Chapter 20: Conclusion Appendix 1:Pesticides: Giving Up on Organic Gardening? Appendix 2:Fijian and Hindi Vocabulary Bibliography

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4 7 11 14 16 20 25 30 34 37 45 53 58 66 80 94 99 101 106 110 111 115 116

Chapter One

Gardening in Fiji for Dummies? Thinking about Fiji conjures up immediate images of a tropical paradise—a land flowing with fruity cocktails and coconut trees. With copious sunshine and, in most parts, rain, it would seem that just about anything ought to grow here, and it does. However, if you have stayed for any length of time in Fiji, you will find yourself eating an artist’s palette of starch: taro, cassava, yam, sweet potato, and breadfruit. This book is being written for one purpose: to tell you that you don’t have to take it anymore. You don’t have to subsist only on glorified potatoes (although root crops can be a delicious and nutritious part of your diet). Fiji is a home-gardener’s paradise and there are too many wonderful things that you can grow and eat to continue wasting life eating things that you don’t enjoy. Why Bother? This is the first question of gardening that you will either ask yourself, or if you are attempting to talk others into growing vegetables, that they will ask you. People grow vegetables for many different reasons, but here are some of the main reasons that people in Fiji—of European and South Pacific Islander descent alike—use: 1. It Saves Money: There is a minor investment in material upfront when gardening in the purchase of supplies, seeds, etc, but over time, there is a considerable cost savings between buying a tomato and growing one yourself. This becomes an even larger cost difference if you find yourself traveling some distance to the closest vegetable market to buy that tomato. And if you find yourself on a more remote island, you may have to buy an expensive ferry ticket to get to Suva and pay for a week’s hotel room and meals (plus, you are probably going to have some beer and see a movie while you are there) to get to your nearest tomato. That tomato becomes really expensive. You get the idea. 2. It is a local, organic food source: A very significant cause of greenhouse gas emissions is the world-wide transport of food from one place to another. As long as North Americans require year-round bananas, this trans-oceanic food travel is going to continue, but you can do your own part here. Anytime you or your food has to travel to get to your table, you are adding 4

to this problem. When your food is next to your house, your garden becomes a net absorber of carbon dioxide. You win! In addition, you know exactly what is going into your soil and on your plants. When you buy it in the market, you have no idea what has been added to the soil and sprayed in order to grow that red tomato. Chances are you don’t want it in your belly. 3. It provides a balanced diet: The South Pacific diet is notoriously high in starch and low in many vitamins and minerals that help one to live a healthy life. Sure, someone could eat taro and taro leaves in coconut milk every day of their life and live, but they will not do so healthily. There are many basic vitamins and minerals lacking in the traditional Fijian diet that can only be found in vegetables. 4. It reduces waste: Increasingly, many of the foods that we eat come in some sort of packaged form. This is not as big of a problem in a developing nation like Fiji as it is in the western world, but waste is a serious problem on these small, isolated islands. Cans, jars, plastic containers, bottles, and plastic bags are a scourge on Fiji and there is no integrated plan to deal with this waste. Even buying from the market results in walking away with 5 plastic bags. Those who sell vegetables in the market generate an enormous amount of waste in packaging and transport to the market that we don’t even see. While there are many ways to reduce waste, growing food locally is quite possibly the best way. 5. It can be a source of income: This may not be much of a motivator to a kaivulagi in Fiji, but it may be the primary incentive for many Fijians. Depending on where you are, organic vegetables can be a great source of income. In addition to the markets in the towns and cities, many resorts are willing to pay top dollar for locally grown, organic vegetables. In areas that have no market, such as on isolated islands, there is even more demand, and one person who just grows, say, cucumbers or capsicum, can earn significant extra money for his/her family. Finally, in a culture that is not long on opportunities for women’s financial contributions, gardening is a great alternative livelihood. 6. It’s the only way: I have never seen a strawberry in a market in Fiji. I suppose that you can find them in the major supermarkets from time to time but I would cringe to see the price. I have eaten them from my garden in Fiji and they are delicious. For some specialty items, it may be that the only way to eat it is to grow it. In my village, most villagers who saw my 5

garden had never seen things like strawberry, broccoli, arugula, radish, parsley, oregano, and thyme. If I want to eat them, I have to grow them. What’s so special about Fiji? The Soil Whenever you eat a fruit or vegetable, you are really eating dirt. It is dirt that has been turned into something delicious by the wonders of photosynthesis, but it is dirt. Your garden is only as good as the soil you are planting in and Fiji happens to be blessed in that regard. The vast majority of the Fiji Islands were formed by volcanoes. Luckily for us, they are not still active, but the rich volcanic soil that those volcanoes left behind is. Because magma is a literal melting pot of all of the elements in the earth, when that spews forth onto the earth as lava, the earth gets a nice coating of rock that contains all of those trace elements that are required for healthy plants. A couple of million years later, that rock is eroded away and when enough plants die and get mixed in with that eroded rock, the resulting soil black gold, ready for your veggies. The Sun If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you came from somewhere that has warmer summers and cooler winters, a.k.a the temperate zone. If you are like me, you came from somewhere that freezes over in the winter, making gardening impossible without a significant investment in greenhouses or growing lights for a good portion of the year. Fiji sits within the tropical zone making it plenty warm year-round to plant. Unfortunately, the climate has some costs associated with it in regard to pests, but mostly it is a good thing for gardeners. There is much less of a defined planting and harvesting time in the tropics so many crops are able to be planted and harvested throughout the year. It is warm year round which means that crops grow fast, much faster than in many temperate places. The Water The final ingredient in the holy trinity of gardening is water and in most of Fiji, there is plenty of it (most of the time). On the eastern sides of the major islands, there will be very little to no need to irrigate. In most of the rest of Fiji, by paying attention to the cycles of wet and dry seasons and planting accordingly, there will also be no need to irrigate. In some of the western and northern parts of the larger Fijian islands, you may have to do some watering, but there are no places in Fiji where it is too dry to grow vegetables.

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Chapter Two

Soil and Its Gifts As I mentioned above, a garden or farm is only as good as the soil that it is grown in. All over the world, farmers and agricultural scientists have joined forces with chemists to overcome this minor obstacle by dumping loads of chemical fertilizers on marginal soil to trick plants into thinking that it is good soil. In Fiji, that is not necessary. Of course a farmer can increase yield, even in Fiji, by using fertilizers. However, it is absolutely not necessary and now that we know what kind of long term effects these chemicals have on the soil and the surrounding environment, the costs far outweigh the marginal benefits. Now that I have you hooked into gardening by my spell-binding introduction, the soil situation is not all roses and sunshine in Fiji. Because Fiji is an area that receives a lot of rainfall, the soil fertility is tenuous. The soil is very rich, but because of the constant rainfall, this soil can be very quickly eroded away. Before humans showed up in Fiji a few thousand years ago, the vast majority of Fiji was covered by tropical forest. These forests have a notoriously thin layer of healthy soil that, when the trees are removed, washes away to clay or bedrock rapidly. Without the leaves of the trees slowing down the rain, without the leaf litter, and without the absorption and anchoring properties of the roots, that top layer of soil can be washed away in short order. A drive west from Suva will take you through areas where land has been clearcut and then planted with no regard to soil conservation. Now, you can see large areas where the topsoil is gone and in its place is the red parent rock material. Without proper management, your topsoil can be gone in just a few wet seasons. But don’t worry, keeping your soil around isn’t difficult and this book will give you plenty of ways to not only conserve your soil but make it better than it was when you started. Soil can be divided up into three major types. The first is sandy soil. Just like it sounds, sandy soil is made up of larger sediment particles. It is well-draining but dries very easily. Some vegetables, like carrots, thrive in sandy soils, but most don’t like it. The second type is clay soil. This is made up of fine minerals and is very heavy. When it rains, clay soils tend to become waterlogged easily, suffocating your vegetables. The third type is not so much a type on its own but 7

is a mixture of the two. Loam is a mix of sand, clay, and silt and is usually the ideal soil for gardening. If your soil is overly sandy or clayey, you may need to add one or the other to your soil in order to make it more hospitable to garden crops. In addition to the soil consistency, there is a set of elements that are vital to growing good vegetables. In the agricultural world, we talk about the 13 elements that the soil needs to grow food. While there are numerous silly mnemonics to remember them, I will spare you those. (There are actually 16 elements needed for healthy plant growth but three of them, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, come from water and air as opposed to the soil.) Many of the 13 elements are naturally occurring in almost all soils and are needed in only trace amounts. Of the 13, six are needed in larger amounts by plants and are elements that your garden may find in short supply: 1. Nitrogen is usually the most limiting of the elements for plant growth and is the major constituent of chemical fertilizers. It is soluble in water which means that rain washes it away. That is a problem in rainy Fiji. Shortages in Nitrogen lead to yellowing of older leaves, stunted growth, and small fruits. Luckily, there are many ways to add nitrogen to your soil such as through animal wastes, crop rotation with legumes (more on that later), and adding compost. 2. Phosphorus is used by plants in a variety of ways for growth. While plants don’t require a lot of Phosphorus, they have to have it for growth and if it isn’t in the soil, you have to put it there. Symptoms of a lack of Phosphorus are slow growth, a slender stem, and slow maturity. Adding bone meal, manure, or compost will meet your Phosphorus needs. 3. Potassium makes stems rigid in plants, allowing for taller growth, among other metabolic uses. Some of the symptoms of Potassium deficiency are browning of leaf margins, slow growth, and fruits not being solid inside. Wood ash, manure, and compost are all good sources of Potassium. 4. Calcium is important for cell growth, making it especially needed at growth tips in plants. It is easily lost due to leeching, and its deficiency is a dead giveaway in tomatoes. When a tomato is grown in Calcium-deficient soil, it results in a condition called blossom-end rot that is exactly like it sounds. While the side of the tomato attached to the plant looks healthy, the other end rots away. This is very common in tomatoes and in some other vegetables. Adding lime or dolomite to the soil can solve this 8

although once your tomatoes fruit, it is too late for that particular plant. One way to pre-empt this is to add a little lime or even egg shells to the soil where you plant the seed or transplant the seedling. Compost is also usually rich in Calcium. 5. Magnesium leeches out of the soil easily like Calcium but some plants, like broccoli and cauliflower, have an especially high Magnesium need. Symptoms of deficiency include brown spots on the margins and tips of leaves or yellowing of the entire leaf. Dolomite, Epsom salts, and compost are good sources of magnesium. 6. Boron is the last of the big six, and is the winner in its ability to be leeched from the soil. Boron deficiency leads to the death of the growing tip, spelling doom for your veggies. In broccoli and cauliflower, Boron deficiency will lead to browning and death of the flower head just before you want to pick and eat it. Borax is the best way to get Boron into the soil at the rate of about 1-2g per square meter. Soil additives such as dolomite, lime, and borax are naturally occurring substances that add only your target elements. They are also readily available at most stores that sell farming or gardening supplies. The best way to know the elemental make-up of your soil is to have a soil sample analyzed at a lab. This is expensive in the US, but luckily for us, in Fiji it is free. The Fiji Agricultural Laboratory, based outside of Suva, will analyze your soil from samples delivered to them in about a month. (Contact the Koronivia Research Station for detailed instructions at 347-7044). One way to do a quick visual test is to see what is growing there before you clear it. Thick grass is a good indicator. It may be very tempting to start digging where there is less vegetation, but don’t do it! Your laziness will only get the best of you. If you noticed the common theme of adding compost to maintain proper amounts of these major elements, give yourself a point. You can forget all about this list of elements and their symptoms of deficiency if you are practicing good composting and crop rotation, both of which will be covered in a later section, with perhaps the exception of boron. Keep some Borax around. The final bit on soil has to do with pH, the measure of how acidic or alkaline your soil is. Soils with low pH are said to be acidic. This can happen where soil has been heavily leeched by rainfall or near pine forests. This has become a 9

bigger issue since Caribbean pine plantations were introduced into Fiji. You can raise pH, making it less acidic, by adding lime; your plants will like the extra Calcium anyway. Soils with a high pH are alkaline. This happens in dry soils and/or where salt water has found itself. This is a little harder to deal with as adding acid to soil is never a great idea. You may want to find another place to plant. If you are insistent on giving it a go in that location, adding large amounts of compost will do you a lot of good. There is an entire section on composting toward the end of this book, so I won’t give that away except to say that with proper composting, soil deficiency will largely be a thing of the past. In short, do it. Get started on your compost pile early and play with it often.

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Chapter Three

The Fijian Climate When planting a garden in Fiji, one of the best ways to start is to go native. While it (hopefully) will not be the extent of your gardening, planting what the people around you are planting is a good way to get the hang of having your hands in the soil. Many of the traditional Fijian crops are easy to plant and chances are there is a lot of knowledge how to do so. In addition, many of these crops take a long time (9 months) to mature so they can be doing their thing while you are working on your vegetables that will take much less time to mature. Before Europeans, Indians, and Asians showed up on the scene, the Fijian diet consisted mainly of root crops, a few leafy greens, and what they could pull from the sea. Being an isolated group of islands, before human occupation 2,000 – 3,000 years ago, Fiji had very little in the way of vegetation that could support a civilization. Most of the foods that Fijians ate by the time Europeans first came to Fiji were brought with them while they were settling the Melanesian and Polynesian islands. In Fiji, we are talking about taro (dalo). It is the king of all crops in Fiji and many people subsist mainly on the root, the leaves, and coconut milk. A few other crops that can be considered native to Fiji are cassava, yam, sugar cane, Fijian spinach (bele), and the sweet potato (kumala) although none but bele are actually native to the South Pacific. The sweet potato is an interesting one because it is not native to Fiji but was already found throughout the Pacific region when Europeans first came. Unlike all of the other crops that the Pacific Islanders brought with them from Southeast Asia, the sweet potato is native to South America. How the sweet potato made its way from South America to the Pacific Islands is a pretty strong argument that the people of the Pacific Islands and the people of South America have had some contact at some point in history. How and where is anyone’s guess. There are some other crops that have made their way into the Fijian mainstream that arrived when the Europeans and Asians did. From the Americas came pineapple, guava, papaya, cassava, many vegetables, and the sweet potato (which was already here). From Asia came the banana, mango and many spices, and 11

from Europe came many of the vegetables. From India came many of the spices that are in use today such as curry in addition to the important staple, rice. The food crops that Fijians tend to grow have one thing in common; they are extremely easy to plant. A brief look above will show that the majority of these crops are planted by either pushing a stick in the ground, planting a shoot, or they grow so readily from seed that they don’t need any help from people. Mostly, Fijian agriculture is accomplished through vegetative propagation. This is the process of growing new plants from parent plant material as opposed to growing from a seed. The simplest example of vegetative propagation is taking a cutting of a tree or plant and sticking it in the ground. In the tropics, that cutting will often take root and you have yourself a new plant. The plant is genetically identical to its parent plant so what you have really done is cloned the parent. Do not try that with someone’s arm. I did once; it was messy an ultimately not successful. It would be easy to call Fijian reliance on vegetative propagation proof of their not understanding farming in that it is clearly easier to plant this way. But the reality of the situation is that in the tropics, many plant reproduce this way. The reasons for this have to do with the absence of winter. In temperate regions, many plants have to find a way to outlast the winter. If they are unable to withstand a freeze itself, the next best thing is to package up their DNA in a little pod that can fend off the cold and then grow from that when it thaws. This is a seed. In the tropics, there is little need for this survival strategy. It is plenty warm year-round allowing for plants to be a little more creative in its reproductive strategies. Many tropical plants produce what are called suckers right from the root stock. These are clones of the parent that grow by vegetative propagation. Bananas, taro, and pineapple are great examples of this. Planting new plots of these crops are as easy as digging up the sucker and planting it somewhere else. If planting were that easy in the temperate regions, I guarantee we wouldn’t bother with seeds either. For plants which spent their evolutionary years in temperate regions (most of the western vegetables), growing in the tropics is a mixed blessing. Because there is no winter to kill off the plant, many veggies keep on giving. The growing season is much longer and, for many crops, it is year-round. Being temperate in origin, most vegetable crops do best at temperatures between about 24-30°C. It is frequently hotter than this in Fiji during the hot season. In addition, Fiji receives 12

about twice the average rainfall of most temperate regions. Hotter temperatures and too much rain can quickly lead to plant diseases if not managed. Photoperiodism is another issue. In the temperate regions, day length changes drastically between winter and summer and many vegetables have evolved to use day length as a clue to change behavior. Many temperate vegetables use lengthening day length to concentrate on vegetative growth and when the day length starts shortening, signaling upcoming winter, the plants switch to flower and fruit production. Fiji is at 18°S latitude which means there is very little difference in day length between short and long day periods. This can confuse vegetables that have evolved in the temperate region. To deal with this, some vegetable varieties have been selected to grow in the tropics that don’t pay as much attention to day length. These varieties have also been selected for an ability to better handle the higher temperatures and rainfall as well the host of pests that come in the tropics. Knowing what we now know, with enough effort almost anything that is grown in the temperate regions can be grown in the tropics. However, there are a couple of things that just won’t work. The first are some of the fruit trees like apples and pears. These trees require a good, cold winter to kill off pests and without it, the fruit just rots. That is why all of the apples in Fiji are imported from New Zealand. The stone fruit trees don’t do well in Fiji for similar reasons. Celery is one thing that is real pain to get started in Fiji. It is notoriously difficult to get to germinate in the best of circumstances, and the tropics are not the best of circumstances. Finally, garlic is one of the saddest absentees. The problem with garlic isn’t that it won’t grow—it will—it just won’t bulb. If you are satisfied with garlic greens, plant away, but because garlic bulbing is a function of day length, in the tropics, garlic never gets the message from the sun to form a bulb. So, that comes from New Zealand too. This nay-saying aside, by all means give it a try. The only reason that any of the temperate crops now grow in the tropics is because someone figured out a way to make that happen. You could be the one to bring the non-photoperiod sensitive garlic to the world!

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Chapter Four

Fertilizer, Pesticides, and Herbicides, Oh My! Larger scale vegetable farmers in Fiji have had a very difficult time successfully farming without the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. The reasons for this have more to do with how they plant than whether they actually need to use them. When gardening near the home on more home-sized scale, the need to use these chemicals largely disappears. It used to be that the only way to farm or garden was to first spray herbicide to kill all of the plants you didn’t want, and then spray fertilizer to make your crops grow fast, and then spray on pesticides to keep the critters off. This was great while it lasted but we now know that these chemicals that keep our crops growing and pest-free have a much greater impact on our environment than we’d hoped. It turns out the same things that kill weeds do the same to the zooxanthellae in coral reef. While you might spray it very judiciously only on your plot in the appropriate amount, when the rains come, they aren’t so careful. The herbicide leeches directly into the river and out to the sea. Fertilizers also contribute directly the death of coral reef. Leeching to the sea the same way herbicides do, there the added phosphates and nitrogen fertilize the algae living on the reef. This causes algal blooms which can overtake coral in a variety of ways. Even worse for the gardener, fertilizers overload the soil with nitrogen and often kill off the very critters that break down organic matter, the process that produces nitrogen naturally. This vicious cycle makes your soil dependent on artificial fertilizers since use of them killed off the soil’s ability to make its own. Pesticides are a local problem as well. Since these tend to stick around for a while after spraying, they don’t just kill off your problem bugs; they may also kill off your pollinators. And of course, anything that kills a living thing can’t be good for you. Fruit and vegetables that have been sprayed with pesticides need to be washed very thoroughly. 14

So, what do we do? There are some very simple practices that we can follow to keep our garden fertile and pest-free without chemicals. One is how we buy seeds. Buying seeds that are selected for the tropics is one way. Growing varieties that have been selected for the tropics means that their genes better enable them to thrive in hot, wet, tropical conditions. Healthy vegetables are much better able to fend off pests as well. Another non-chemical thing that we can do is to compost. Properly making and using compost and mulch is the best way to add nutrients to our soil that will make fertilizer unnecessary. Practicing good crop rotation is probably the most important thing that we can do for our garden. These practices will be discussed in detail in sections ahead, but they are important to keep in mind at the very beginning because these practices play a fairly important role in the design of the garden. Finally, there is no substitute for herbicides that doesn’t involve the gardener getting his or her hands dirty. I call it mechanical herbicide, a fancy way of saying weeding. Weeding gets a bum wrap in gardening. We talk about it like it is a dreaded chore, and sure, it isn’t particularly fun. It is, however, an indispensable part of gardening. Weeding gets you down to the ground, digging in the dirt, right along with your crops. It forces you to spend time with your crops and while you don’t need to talk about your day with your eggplant (you can if you want), knowing your crops intimately will pay great rewards. When weeding around your plants, you see how they are growing, where the problems are. You can see if any pests or diseases are getting a foothold and can deal with it before they take over. Singing to your plants may not make your tomatoes sweeter, but spending time with your hands in the dirt will certainly help you to understand the needs of your crops.

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Chapter Five

Pests, Disease, and Certain Death Pests can be the death of your garden—literally. A single pest infestation or disease will wipe out your hard work, so understanding how these happen and what you can do to minimize their impacts are very important. When we talk about pests, we are usually talking about insects, although pests really include anything that tries to eat your veggies or the plants they grow on. (I guess you can also include humans with sticky fingers in this category. I do.) It isn’t particularly important to know what all of the pests are for each plant as much as it is important to know how to get rid of them and, even better, how to prevent them from coming at all. I will not be going species by species to discuss methods of dealing with pests as there are some practices that you can use to deal with almost all pests. Besides, that would be boring and we are already too far down that road. The first has to do with what and how you plant. For example, planting large areas of Brassica like broccoli and cauliflower, long bean, eggplant, or cucumber is inviting disaster. These crops are particularly attractive to things like aphids and large areas of these crops in monospecific stands are easily sought out by hungry bugs. Intercropping these crops with non-susceptible crops, especially intercropping with fragrant herbs like basil or marigold can significantly lower incidence of infestation. Aphids also love the warm season so trying to grow aphid magnets like broccoli during the summer is inviting disaster. Wait until March or so to plant your broccoli. (There will be much more on this later.) How you harvest is also very important. Typically, a healthy plant is able to fend off pests in small amounts. As crops mature and ripen the plant sort of gives up on that part and it becomes susceptible to infestation. Harvesting promptly not only assures you the most delicious, ripe vegetables; it also helps you beat back the beasts. When something is ripe, pick it, eat it, or give it away. With this in mind, removing crop waste promptly is also important. When leaves fall off or when a plant is done fruiting, remove the vegetation from your garden right away 16

and take it to the compost. Do not use your garden waste as mulch as this will serve as a site for pests. For pests that have made their way to your plants, despite your best efforts, there are a couple of ways to control them without chemicals. Making a solution of soapy water and chili pepper (see ―Magic Aphid Spray‖ recipe below) and spraying with a simple spray bottle does a pretty good job of killing and warding off aphids. Just be sure to re-apply after rain as it will wash right off. Another organic pest control product is called neem oil, which you can spray onto your crops as well. Also, be very sure to remove all dead and dying leaves and fruit from your garden. Sick or dead plant parts are an easy way for the pests to get in. In places with more developed organic farming industries, there are a host of new chemicals that meet organic standards. I don’t recommend many of these any more than petrochemicals, as in many cases it is just replacing one chemical with another. Just because the chemical is derived from a living plant or a ―natural‖ product does not mean that it doesn’t harm the environment less than one derived from dead plants (petrochemicals). The organic label often only concerns itself with how long the plant has been dead from where the chemical comes. Aphids One of the best clues that you have aphids is the presence of large numbers of ants. Often when a gardener looks at a sad-looking plant, they will see ants running around all over. Naturally, the gardener assumes that the plant is being eaten by the ants and that is why it is so sad. But, as one of the central tenants of Ecology states, correlation is not causation. Ants don’t eat your plants (usually, leaf-cutter ants excluded); these ants are just ―farming‖ aphids. Aphids are smallish yet visible insects that make their presence known by infecting the leaf-stem junctions and under the leaf. Where they have infected, it looks like a white powdery substance, along with a dirty buildup around leaf junctions. The ants are there to keep the aphids in line and to provide some protection. For their trouble the aphids give a little squirt of sugar to the ants from time to time. Everyone wins…except you. Aphids can really be destructive if they are let go, so getting to them early is important. They infect tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, melons, squash, cucumber, and all of the cabbage family of plants (broccoli, cauliflower, etc) readily so be sure to check these plants regularly. Getting rid of aphids entirely won’t happen organically, but you can easily keep them from affecting your crops. The first 17

way is through brute force. If you have means of a hose, a good hard spray will get rid of that round of aphids for a couple of weeks. Repeat as needed and be sure to check on the underside of leaves. Ladybeetles (aka ladybugs) are voracious aphid eaters and can be purchased in the US. Not surprisingly, they are not readily found in Fiji, but if you see them hanging around, let them be! They are on your side. Finally, you can spray a simple concoction onto your leaf junctions and under the leaf. The following mixture is quite effective in killing aphids and keeping them off for a week or so: Magic Aphid Spray 1 cup vegetable oil 2 cups water 2 tsp soap *optional: 4-5 finely chopped chili peppers. Mix all of these ingredients and let it sit for an hour or so. If you used the peppers, strain with a fine strainer. If there are any pepper pieces in the pot, they will plug the plunger on the sprayer, ending its life. Mix the solution and pour it into a spray bottle. Spray onto your affected plants once over 2-5 days until they are gone. Repeat this if you see them again.

Usually, a combination of the hose spray every week or so along with ―Magic Aphid Spray‖ will do quite well to keep aphids away. If your spray is too potent, it may burn the leaves. If that happens, be sure to rinse off your plants 1 hour after spraying. Nematodes Nematodes are another scourge of gardening, especially in the tropics. These critters are very small and while unrelated, resemble worms in the soil. They are parasites that live on the roots of plants and form knots on the roots called galls. They go after a broad range of crops so their avoidance is difficult. Luckily, there are many species of nematode and many nematode species affect only specific crops. That means that proper crop rotation can keep nematodes at bay. Nematodes are most severe in sandy soils and are a problem for bele, cassava, Chinese cabbage, dalo, eggplant, kumala, okra, passion fruit, sweet peppers, rice, sugarcane, sweet corn, tomato, and watermelon. In the most extreme cases of nematode infestation, leaving a plot fallow, or empty of crops, for 6 months to 1 year may be the only option. Some weeds are even nematode hosts, so if you 18

have to leave a plot fallow for nematodes, you should keep it clean of weeds as well. Finally, for reasons not quite understood, using compost in garden soil has been shown to lower incidence of nematodes. This is a theme. COMPOST! For more information on composting, skip ahead to the chapter on Composting and Mulching. Plant diseases are basically just pest infestations that you can’t see. Diseases of plants include infection by bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Once again, there are specific diseases for specific crops, but practicing some good crop rotation and composting can minimize almost all of them. Using resistant varieties selected for the tropics is a good way to prevent diseases. Prompt disposal of crop waste is very important as leaving that waste in the garden provides a wonderful breeding ground for disease. Pulling sick-looking plants quickly is also good practice to head off the disease before it can spread to other plants. Since pests are often carriers of disease, keeping your crops pestfree is another way to keep your crops disease-free. And for the 20th time, practicing crop rotation will keep your garden one step ahead of diseases. Finally, if the pests are getting the better of you, and you are about to quit, it may be worthwhile to read Appendix 2 on non-organic pesticides.

Making a fence of bush poles or, better yet, a living fence of corn or bele will do a great job of keeping out grazers, human and otherwise. 19

Chapter Six

Let’s Get Started Materials OK, now it is almost time to start planning your garden and getting things into the ground. Before doing so, you will need some basic tools and a few other odds and ends, some of which are more important than others. The things that you can’t really do without are the following: 1. Spade: This is really just a shovel but it is usually long and skinny. Perfectly serviceable spades can be as inexpensive as $15 and as much as $100. You get what you pay for at a hardware store. 2. Small Garden Shovel: These are those little garden shovels that look like a trowel. You will use this all of the time for weeding and planting. You can spend $5 on one that you will have to replace in a month or two or you can spend $15 on one that will outlive you. Err towards the upper end of these and you will be much happier. 3. Bucket(s): Good for moving dirt, compost, or water, these are a good friend. More importantly, the small plastic ones can be found for as little as $2. Get a few. 4. Starter pots: The small, collapsible, plastic pots are just fine and very cheap. The smallest cost about 10¢ each and the larger ones not much more. You can get these in packs at any store that sells gardening supplies. Alternatively you can poke holes in the bottom of just about anything, like old cans or cups, and use it as a starter. There are a couple of things that will really help you out and provide some efficiency but are certainly not mandatory: 1. Digging Fork: Most Fijians will tell you that this is mandatory, but you can do just about anything with a spade. That being said, they are really helpful in turning and loosening soil and in turning compost. In places 20

where the soil is hard, a digging fork will need to move up to the list of things you can’t do without. 2. Hose: You wouldn’t think that you would need a hose in Fiji, but droughts happen and anything more than a few days without rain necessitates watering. A hose can really help, but one can make do with a bucket and a can with holes in the bottom as well. A hose with an adjustable nozzle can also be a great pest-fighting device. If aphids are a problem, a sharp stream from the hose is a great way to keep them in check. Seeds Not all seeds area created equal, let’s be clear about that up front. The cheapest seeds are those that come in little, colorful packages such as Yates brand that you can find in many hardware stores and supermarkets. These seeds are cultivated in Australia and New Zealand and, as a rule, are really meant for more temperate climates than you find in Fiji. Planting these in Fiji is a bit of a roll of the dice; some will work out just fine, many will not. I would recommend using these seeds as experiments to see if you can get your favorite variety from home to grow here. If something is unavailable in a local cultivar that you want, give it a go and let me know if it works! The best seeds to plant in Fiji are those that have been cultivated for tropical climates. The Ministry of Agriculture offices often have the more common seeds like cabbage, tomatoes, and eggplant available in its regional offices. This is hit and miss as they are more often out of what you may be looking for, but since they are free, it is at least worth asking. The Ministry recommends, as do I, that you get your seeds from Hop Tiy in Suva. While I don’t like to recommend one particular vendor, in this case, there is only one. Hop Tiy has cornered the market on seeds and many gardening supplies in Fiji and you will do yourself a favor by heading straight there for most of your gardening needs. The seeds that are specifically bred for tropical climates in general—and sometimes Fiji specifically—are kept in the back behind the counter. The seeds packets have more seeds than you will need unless you are planting a very large area so it is best to share. These are a little more expensive than the cheap seeds packets, but you get what you pay for. A third option will save you money and ensure that you are planting varieties that will succeed in Fiji. It involves getting your own seeds from locally produced vegetables. Here is how it works: 21

1. Go to your local vegetable market and buy ripe fruit and veggies that you want to plant. 2. When using these for cooking, remove the seeds. 3. Put the seeds in a bowl of water. Compost those that float. Those that sink are more likely viable seeds. 4. Wash the viable seeds and dry them in the sun on some newspaper. 5. Plant away! I like this option because if you are eating the fruit or vegetable, it means that you know it is a successful variety. It comes with a guarantee of success, you can’t beat the price, and you get to eat before you plant. The only problem with this is if the vegetable was a hybrid. In that case, the seeds will be sterile and nothing will happen when you plant them. If that is the case, try something else! Where to Plant For backyard gardening, how you plan your garden is often a matter of putting your beds together jigsaw-style in and among the existing ―landscaping.‖ Taking a few minutes to plan out your gardening beds will go a long ways toward making sure that you are not wasting your time. The first thing to look at is your soil. If you managed to read Chapter 2, you are an expert on soil types now. The problem is that the soil by your house is what it is and at the beginning, you just want to plant in it. The best indicator of healthy soil without getting too dirty is to see where the grass and weeds are growing the healthiest. It may be tempting to start your garden in that lonely spot where there isn’t anything growing thinking that will be much easier. Think about it—there is a reason that nothing is growing there. Don’t, for a minute, think that you are smarter than a blade of grass when it comes to soil health. Almost any soil can be helped with additions of compost, ash, and/or sand or soil brought in from other areas so even if your soil isn’t great now, you can make it great. That being said, starting with healthy soil will save you some sweat. In seeking the place for your perfect plot, look for a flat area, preferably close to your house. If you have to plant on a slope, plan to place the beds across the slope, not up and down to reduce the effects of erosion. It is always a good idea 22

to plant your garden in an area where you can see it, the better to chase away pigs, chickens, dogs, and a certain species of primate with sticky fingers. You will want to plant on the north side of your house or other large structure, for reasons that aren’t automatically apparent. Since Fiji is south of the equator, the sun shines from a more northerly direction, as it moves from east to west for the majority of the season. Since almost all of the garden crops require or at least tolerate full sun, planting on the north side in the southern hemisphere is the best bet. (In the warmer months, the sun passes over head and for a few months comes at Fiji from the south, but in those months, you will be doing your best to lessen the sun exposure on your crops.) If you plant on the south side, at least some of your garden will lie in the shade. Take a day to watch the sun and shade on your yard to see where the shade is, but remember that the shade will be longest around the months of May-July when the sun is at its furthest north.

Planting on the south side of a house or large structure (in the Southern Hemisphere) will mean that your garden is in the shade. Try to plant the majority of your garden on the northern side. This is reversed in the Northern Hemisphere where planting on the south side is best. Raised Beds: No longer just for those possessed The idea behind a raised bed is that you create a permanent plot of loose soil where you will never walk and only plant. In this way, you can concentrate your 23

weeding efforts and compost placement only where your veggies will most benefit. It also minimizes the compaction of the soil since you will never walk on it, keeping the soil aerated. Finally, by elevating it slightly, you allow the plot room to drain so that if something is going to get waterlogged, it will be the lower areas around your plot. In order to raise a bed in the US, usually one goes to Home Depot and buys a lot of pressure treated timber, galvanized screws, weed excluder, and soil. There are reasons for doing this in a cooler climate having to do with faster heating of the beds, but lack of heat isn’t an issue here. Here is a secret: in Fiji, you don’t need to buy anything to make your beds. Beds should be approximately 1.5 meters wide and as long as you need. The reason for the specific width is that you want your plot to be no wider than you can reach halfway across. This will allow you to reach that weed in the middle of the plot from one side or the other without having to step on your wonderfully loosened soil. Plan on separating your plots by a path wide enough for you to kneel in and work comfortably, usually something like 0.5m. For reasons which will be explained more fully later concerning crop rotation, plan on making at least 5 separate plots of 1.5m wide and 1.5 – 10m long. In order to raise your bed, you need only a shovel and a digging fork if you’ve got one. Once you have identified where you will plant, plan where each of your plots and paths will go, being sure that each plot is fully surrounded by pathways. I like to stake this out at the outset so that I can get a visual as to where everything will be, adjusting it when I realize that I have blocked a door to my house or that there is a laundry line running through one of my plots. Then it is time to dig. Turn the soil in the entire area, both where the plots and the paths will be, using the digging fork or shovel. Be sure to break up all of the large clumps and the grass roots. Getting as many of the grass roots as you can get out of the soil at this point will pay large dividends in not having future weeds. That being said, however much you sweat at this task, you will not get them all—it’s OK, you will need something to do later. Once you have loosened and turned all of the soil in your plot(s), shovel the topsoil from your paths and put that soil onto your plot. This will both lower the path and raise the plot. Voila! You now have a raised bed. Be sure not to overdo this. Your bed should be about 10-15cm higher than the path at this point. As you walk on the path, it will pack out and end up being lower. If your plot 24

ends up being much higher than your path, erosion will fix the problem for you when it rains. Walk the path a few times to pack it down and then cover the path with a deep layer of any dried plant material you can find such as grass clippings or leaves. This will keep the weeds at bay in your paths. If you will be adding compost, sand, or other soil to your plot, do so now and then flatten the plot with the back of your shovel or your hands (but do not pack down the soil) You will be happy when this part is over since it is the bulk of the manual labor. But now you can take a step back and enjoy the skeleton of what will be your garden.

Two beds surrounded by paths make sure that there is easy access to your beds and keep weeds at by. A thick layer of mulch in the pathways will go far in keeping weeds out.

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Chapter Seven

Sowing the Seeds of Love Is this the worst song ever? Perhaps, but I like the idea. In gardening, there are basically three ways in which you can get something growing: vegetative propagation, direct sowing, or transplanting. The first, vegetative propagation is the most common in traditional Fijian agriculture making use of cuttings. The other two, direct sowing and transplanting use seeds and are more common in European vegetables. It means that Fijians will be experts in the former and stand around scratching their heads, wondering what the crazy kaivulagi is doing when you break out the seeds. Vegetative Propagation: This fancy phrase simply means planting by use of cutting (reproduction by means of the vegetable material, not the seed). It is essentially cloning since the offspring will be genetically identical to the parent from which you take the cutting. This is how the vast majority of Fijian agriculture is accomplished: taro, cassava, bele, bananas, and most ornamental plants are all grown vegetatively. The method is simple. In the case of bele or cassava, cut a piece of stem about 50cm long and stick it in the ground about 20cm deep with the bottom end down. For bele, it is best to cut the growing tip since it will grow the fastest, but any part of the stem will work. In the case of cassava, planting sections from the base of the long stem will give the best results. These will look like they are dead when you plant them but after 1-2 weeks, small leaves will start to grow. If nothing is happening after 2 weeks, you might want to try again. Plants like taro and bananas propagate by producing suckers, or clones from the root stock. When the suckers grow from the base, you can just remove those by pulling or digging and then plant them in another area. It is best to cut off any leaves at this point since they will most likely die anyway. When planting taro, dig a hole deep enough to bury at least half of the stem. For bananas, just make sure that all of the roots are covered.

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Direct Sowing: Sowing directly is simply putting the seed into the ground and watching it grow. It isn’t immediately obvious which plants do best by sowing directly and which should be started in pots or seedbeds and transplanted. I have a rule of thumb that works pretty well. If a plant is something that is planted and then harvested in full, I like to sow it directly. This includes things like Chinese cabbage (bok choy), radish, lettuce, dhania (cilantro), carrot. Exceptions to this are members of the cucumber family, which produce many fruit but which should be sown directly as well. For these veggies, each seed produces one vegetable that will be harvested by pulling the entire plant out. There are some plants, such as carrot, that do very poorly when transplanted and should only be sown directly. I also sow directly beans and okra since they are easy to grow, even though they produce many fruit per plant. In following chapters, there are details about how to sow each of these. 1. Prepare your plot by mixing in a good amount of compost if you have it. 2. After mixing in your compost, flatten the plot, cover it with mulch, and soak for about a week. 3. When you are ready to plant, remove the mulch and dig a shallow line according to the depth requirements of that vegetable with a stick across the plot. (You can find those requirements later in this book in the sections on each vegetable or on the back of some seed packs.) It may be a good idea to mark this line at the end of the row with an upright stick so that you know where your row is before the seeds sprout. 4. Plant each row according to spacing requirements, and then cover the seeds with soil.

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A garden shovel is great for digging a trench to direct sow but a stick can be just as useful. Be sure to check the ideal seed depth on the seed packet or in this book in the chapters on specific crops.

After watering thoroughly, it is a good idea to cover the plot with coconut or banana leaves until the seeds emerge to protect from sunshine or heavy rain. Remove the leaves as soon as the sprouts emerge, usually between 2 days and 2 weeks. Adding mulch between the rows will also do a nice job of reducing erosion and adding nutrients to the soil. Transplanting: As opposed to direct sowing, in transplanting, the seed will be sown either in a pot or a seedbed and then later transplanted when they are hardened to your plot. The rule of thumb here is to transplant vegetables that will produce many fruit over the course of its life. This would include tomatoes, eggplant, and capsicum (bell pepper). (Cucumbers would fall into this category but do not do well after transplanting so should be sown directly.) To be clear, none of these require that they be started and then transplanted. All can be directly sown. It is just that starting these in seedbeds or in plots gives you a little more control over the germination, watering, and sun of these plants that you do not have if they are sown directly. In this way, you can baby them along a little while they grow a thicker skin. Once they have a decent root structure and enough leaves to survive, they can be transplanted into the plot. Since these starts can take up to a month before they are ready to transplant, getting these started is the first thing that I do when starting a new garden. They 28

can be growing while I am preparing my plots, which can take some time. The method is simple enough. Fill small starter pots (or any container that has small holes in the bottom for drainage) with the best soil that you can find. You should also try to use soil that isn’t full of weed seeds. Compost is the best, but at the outset, you may not have that option. If you are able to purchase a bag of potting soil, that is great. Otherwise, there is plenty of good soil around. Under trees is the best since there are relatively few weed seeds there. Plant the seeds according to their appropriate seed depth and keep them watered so that the soil is moist. I like to plant 3-4 seeds per pot and then thin to 1-2 plants later. Place the starts in a place that gets some sun and some shade so that they don’t get baked by the sun. It is also nice to put all of your starts on a moveable tray that you can move in and out of the sun or rain as you desire.

Starts can be put into just about anything but plastic bag starter “pots” work great, are readily available, and are cheap. Using old tin cans is even cheaper and saves you from figuring out what to do with a used tin can. Knowing when to transplant the starts to your plot is a little like reading the stars—a very inexact science. It is best to transplant when the stem has become a bit more rigid and the plant has 3-4 true leaves. This can be in as short as a few weeks and as long as a month. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

First, prepare the plot by mixing in compost and flattening the soil. About an hour before transplanting, water the start thoroughly and let it sit. Try to pack the soil of the start as much as possible. Dig a hole where the start will go. In a motion that can only be learned by experience, upend the start so that the start and the soil come out as one piece and deftly place all of the soil in 29

the hole without damaging the plant or allowing the soil to crumble. It is best not to try to separate plants that were grown in the same pot as their roots will have intertwined. Plant the entire pot and then thin as needed. 6. Fill in the hole with soil and then water thoroughly. 7. Placing mulch around the base of the new plant will do wonders for water retention in the soil. An alternative to using starter pots is to use a seedbed which can either be mobile or not. The idea of a seedbed is to make a miniature plot where the seeds will be planted much more closely together than they will be at maturity. A portable seedbed made of wood about 50cm square and a few inches deep is nice in that it can be moved in and out of the sun and can be covered with clear plastic in the rainy season. A seedbed can also just be a small section of your garden that isn’t in direct sunlight. Transplant according to the same instructions above, only with seedbeds, you will need to carefully dig up and remove each seedling. You don’t need to move any soil with the seedling but take extra care to not damage the roots. This is done by loosening the soil below the seedlings with a stick or garden shovel and then lightly pulling the seedling out. Plant the seedling so that the first leaf node is above the soil. This method works much better if you plan to plant large areas of a vegetable like capsicum, tomato, or eggplant. Making a little shade structure for your seedbed is a will keep the sun and hard rain from killing your seedlings.

A shade structure made of bamboo supports cut to a point or bush timber with a trimmed Y branch cradle the horizontal poles and covered with coconut or banana leaves keeps out sun and hard rain. 30

Irrigation: Gardening in the tropics has its blessings, and one of those is water. Sometimes it is too much water, but usually, it is the perfect amount. For that reason, irrigation is not nearly as important as it would be in more temperate areas. I am including irrigation here because it is during the early stages of development of plants that they are the most sensitive to heat and drought. As plants mature, their root systems are advanced enough to find water even if it has not rained in some time, but at the beginning, your seedlings may need some help. During germination and initial growth, the soil should always be slightly damp. If it hasn’t rained in a few days, some help may be required. This can be from a hose or for small jobs, a bucket of water and an old can with holes poked in the bottom works great.

A bucket, such as an old breakfast cracker bucket, and a tin can make a great irrigation duo. Poke a number of holes in the bottom of the tin can, dip it into a bucket full of water and there you have a gentle spray “nozzle.” Used cans are cheap so you can experiment with the number of holes and the size of them.

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Chapter Eight

Trellising A trellis is something that provides a climbing surface for your garden. This can be a ready made trellis, something you make or even the side of your house. Basically, trellising adds a third dimension to your garden by allowing your vegetables to grow up, while also adding an artsy touch to your garden area. The reasons for trellising your vegetables are numerous. Primarily, there are some plants that will grow much better with a trellis. Climbing and pole beans will yield much more if provided the right climbing surface. The same goes for cucumbers and tomatoes. An equally important reason for trellising is limited space. Some plants like cucumber and some beans will do fine running around on the ground, but they take up a lot of space to do so. Having them climb straight up will both increase yield and free up that space on the ground to plant even more densely. Another benefit of a good trellis is that it gets the fruit and leaves off of the ground, where pests and leaf diseases are more common. In the case of tomatoes, leaving the fruit to ripen on the ground will cause it to rot quickly on the vine. In order to know what kind of trellis is best for your plants, it is important to know how that plant climbs. There are two ways that your vegetables will climb: either it will climb with growing tip and wrap the entire stem around the surface, or it will climb with the use of a tendril. In the first case, we refer to them as pole climbers as they will climb anything that is 15cm around or less. Pole beans are the prime example in this case. In the second case, plants climb by use of a tendril. This is a small shoot that a climbing plant throws off of its stem with the sole purpose of finding something to grab onto and attaching the vine to it. Cucumbers, some squashes, snap peas and some other beans climb this way. The major difference is that these climbers need something 1cm around or less to grab onto. They will not climb up larger sticks or poles.

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Most of the materials that you will need for trellising can be found locally such as bamboo or other sticks or old hurricane mesh. A couple of other things like string and nails are inexpensive and readily available but also come in handy. The simplest trellis is a 3- or 4-pole teepee, used for pole beans like pinto, black, or long bean. In this case, simply cut 2-3m long pieces of branch no more than 15cm in diameter. Make a teepee out of them, tying the tops together with string or wire. You can grow up to three plants per pole so planting four or five beans per pole and thinning later will guarantee three per pole. Once they start climbing, you can help them along by training them to the pole. This part is cool; in the Northern Hemisphere, you would do this by wrapping the bean clockwise, but thanks the Coriolus Effect, when south of the equator you do this counterclockwise. It isn’t just toilets and cyclones that follow the laws of physics anymore! As the plants grow, trimming the side shoots will cause the plant to concentrate its growing on the part that is trained onto the pole and will increase yields.

A 3-pole teepee-type of trellis works great for pole climbers. Making a string or wire trellis is another great way to grow vertically. These can be used for any climbing plant, pole climbers or tendril growers. You can do this by building a frame out of bush timber with poles 3-4m high that will sink into the soil on either side of the plot. Connecting the poles, attach a pole near the bottom of the poles perpendicular and one near the top. Then tie strings between the two horizontal poles, spacing the strings according to your crop. 33

With pole beans, you can plant the beans every 4-5cm and place the strings every 13cm, tying three plants per string. With cucumbers and tomatoes, it is best to plant one per string, 16-20cm apart. Once any of these start throwing side shoots, or suckers in the case of tomatoes, it is always a good idea to trim them off, always being sure to keep at least 1 growing tip.

A pole and string or wire trellis works great for pole or tendril climbers. Using waste construction materials is always an option. Old hurricane mesh or chicken wire can be used by making an A-frame from two pieces leaning on each other. Then simply plant beans or cucumbers at the base at the right spacing and trim.

Old hurricane mesh makes a great trellis for just about anything. Tomatoes are a little different. They certainly can be trained onto poles or trellises, and in many ways will grow better that way, although that takes more work. At the very least, tomatoes need some sort of the support.

34

One method is to make tomato ―cages‖ out of laundry wire or some other sturdy wire. These cages use three concentric rings with increasing sizes as you move up. The smallest ring will be closest to the soil. Connect these with three long pieces of wire running up and down, leaving 0.5m of pointed end on the bottom to sink into the ground. Place the cage so that the plant is in the middle and will grow through the smallest ring first, then ultimately through the largest ring, which will support the plant as it fruits. For a larger area of tomatoes, building a frame out of bush timber will save you time and resources. On the corners of the bed, drive timber supports into the soil with a fork at the top. Run poles along the tops of these at 0.5-1 meter above the ground. Run poles across as well, essentially caging in each tomato. These cages and frames can be used for a variety of vegetables if there is need to keep the fruit off the soil. Capsicum and eggplant can be helped by these if the branches start to sink due to the weight of the fruit. You can do this on the cheap using 3 sticks for the vertical supports and string for the concentric circles, although expect some maintenance on these. Trellising tomatoes, however, can result in higher yields as one is able to plant at a higher density. Plant the tomatoes to climb, one per string, every 16-20cm across the bed. This is quite a bit closer than you can plant if one is not trellising. Trellising reduces the yield of each plant, but since it allows for increased density, the overall yield is higher. As the tomatoes grow, train them onto the trellis counter-clockwise and trim off suckers as they form to concentrate the resources on the one growing tip. Just be sure to always keep one growing tip on the tomato. Hanging Pots While hanging pots are not technically a trellis, many plants do very well in one. This has the all of the benefits of trellising with the added benefit of growing veggies where there is no soil at all. Tomatoes, eggplant, and capsicum work very well as do many others. There are many designs out there for how to do this, but the simple description is to put a hole in the bottom of the bucket or bucket sized bag, anchor the transplant so that it is growing out of the hole and upside down, then fill the bucket or bag with soil. Many plants can be surprisingly productive while defying gravity.

35

Chapter Nine

Crop Rotation: Damned if you Don’t If you have read this book straight through, you are now a gardening scholar and can get your garden started. In the following chapters, you will find more specific information about each of the vegetables that you may want to plant. But before we can do that and so that we can organize the crop types in a way that can be very useful to crop planning, we need to discuss the concepts of crop rotation as these concepts will be very important in how you plan your plots and what you plant where. Crop rotation is the practice of changing what you plant in a given spot in a way to limit the needs for artificial fertilizers and herbicides. It was one of the central tenants of the growing field of permaculture. Each crop type has a unique set of needs that it takes from the soil and a unique set of pests that attack it. In the case of legumes (beans), rotating them onto a plot actually adds much-needed nitrogen to the soil through the activities of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in the root nodes of beans. For example, if you plant tomatoes on a plot, the first crop will most likely be quite healthy, the second, healthy enough and in subsequent planting, the yield will continue to decline, eventually succumbing to disease and pests. The reasons are that tomatoes require specific nutrients from the soil and without resting the soil, the soil will become exhausted. The second reason is that as soon as the tomato is in the ground, pests start attacking. It takes awhile for them to get a foothold and by the time that they do, you may be finishing off the last of the crop for gazpacho and salsa. Replanting tomatoes in that plot will be like manna from heaven for those pests, which are now well-established. Now your tomatoes have the double-whammy of a lack of nutrients and a lot of pests. The solution is to rotate a new crop with a different set of needs and pests on that plot after the first crop. If you remember from Chapter 6, you read that you should plan on planting five plots when planning your garden. Well, crop 36

rotation is the reason. There are five groups of plants that share the same basic soil nutrient requirements and pests and can be treated as the same crop as far as crop rotation goes. These groups are: Group 1: Crops susceptible to bacterial wilt (tomatoes, eggplant, etc) Group 2: Crops susceptible to cabbage moth (Bok choy, radish, etc) Group 3: Cucurbits (Squash, pumpkin, cucumber, etc) Group 4: Legumes (beans) Group 5: Everything else (root crops, bele, okra, carrot, etc) Therefore, when planting in your plots, you should be sure to plant only members of the same group in the same plot, or if you mix it up in one plot, be sure to not plant anything from any of those groups in the next cycle. I will go into more detail as to what crops are in what groups in later sections. For now, take a look at the example of a garden of 5 plots. In the plots you are growing: Plot 1: tomatoes and eggplant (Group 1) Plot 2: bok choy and broccoli (Group 2) Plot 3: cucumber and pumpkin (Group 3) Plot 4: pole beans (Group 4) Plot 5: carrots and cassava (Group 5) Once you have harvested your crop from this growing cycle, simply rotate what you grow on each plot. So, the next growing cycle will look something like this: Plot 1: carrots and cassava (Group 5) Plot 2: tomatoes and eggplant (Group 1) Plot 3: bok choy and broccoli (Group 2) Plot 4: cucumber and pumpkin (Group 3) Plot 5: pole beans (Group 4) It is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security after one’s first growing cycle. Typically, you have cleared an area that was not used for cultivation so the first crop will be a wonderful, pest-free crop. The logical thinking would go something like, ―Well, the cabbage did so well in this spot last year; I’ll just do that again.‖ Do not be fooled. Plant the same thing again at your crops’ peril. The bugs will thank you.

37

These are the major garden crops and their rotation groups. Plant all of your crops in the same group in the same plot. After that cycle, rotate which group you plant in which plot. Planting tomatoes after beans is the best thing that you can do for your tomatoes. Group 1 Bacterial Wilt Tomato Eggplant Capsicum Chili pepper Potato Peanut Cowpea

Group 2 Cabbage Moth Chinese cabbage English cabbage Turnip Broccoli Cauliflower Radish Beets

Group 3 Cucurbits Cucumber Watermelon Pumpkin Squash Rock melon

38

Group 4 Legumes Common bean Mexican beans French bean Peas Long bean Pigeon pea Winged bean

Group 5 Others Bele Okra Carrot Celery Taro Garlic Leek Onion Lettuce Maize Yam Cassava Sweet Potato

Chapter Ten

Group 1 Crops: Susceptible to Bacterial Wilt Tomato

Eggplant

Capsicum

Chili pepper

Potato

Peanut

Cowpea Group 1 largely includes the crops of the Solanaceous family in addition to peanuts and black-eyed peas. Members of the Solanaceous family are also called nightshades and include tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, and peppers. These are notorious gobblers of nitrogen in the soil so planting after nitrogen-fixing legumes is always a good idea and will increase yield. The biggest pests in this group are bacteria that go by the name of Pseudomonas solanacearum. This little bacterium alone wiped out the potato industry of the Sigatoka Valley in the 1960s and has caused more localized damage to capsicum and tomato crops. It lives in the soil where it can enter the plant through the root system causing a disease called bacterial wilt. This is made much easier if the roots are damaged during transplanting, making it very important to take extra care when transplanting members of this group. Once in the plant, the bacteria attack the leaves and stem and cause the leaves to wilt and eventually die. One good way to check if your dead plant was infected is to cut a section of lower stem and place it in the water. Infected plants will ooze a creamy fluid. This bacterium is much more active in the hot, wet season and can be minimized through pulling infected plants immediately, planting resistant varieties and always rotating crops.

39

Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) Fijian: tomata

Hindi: tomatar

Let’s be honest—the whole reason many would be planting a garden is to have home-grown tomatoes. What the world did without tomatoes is a mystery to me. Originally from South America, it wasn’t cultivated there possibly due to its similarity to poisonous wild tomatoes. Taken to what is now Mexico, it was widely cultivated there. In the early colonial period, it was mostly just used as a table decoration in and around Florence in Italy. I would like to shake the hand of whoever accidentally knocked the decorations onto the pasta. It was Thomas Jefferson who, after creating a country, tasted tomatoes in Paris and then brought them back to the US. He was truly a visionary. Nutritional Value: Source of Potassium, Calcium, Sodium, fiber and protein Recommended varieties: F-1 Hybrid Tomato Raising Sun No. 1 is a good any season. Commercial varieties like Moneymaker and Beefsteak can work inseason but are not really selected for tropics. Recommended season: Perform best in the cool season from May – October but can be grown year round with some attention. Cultivation: Start in seedbeds or small starter pots. Transplant 30-40 days after sowing when the stem hardens. Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 6-10 days Spacing: Transplant into rows 60cm apart, 50 cm between plants Harvest: 10-12 weeks after transplanting, 5 weeks of picking Problems: Blossom-end rot is a result of a lack of calcium. Head this off by adding a small amount of lime or crushed up eggshells when you plant. Fruit cracking is a result of too much water. In the wet season, it may be necessary to cove with clear plastic. Sunscald can result from exposure of the fruit to sun. It causes light-colored soft spots and can be reduced by not trimming vegetation to allow fruit to mature in the shade of it leaves. Tomato fruitworm (Halicoverpa zea) can attack mature fruit in its caterpillar stage. This can be controlled with trap crops like corn or lima beans, which the moth prefers to lay on. Sprays of soap, chili pepper, and water can also be effective. Spinosad is a natural bacterial spray with that will organically kill the caterpillar, however it is not readily available in Fiji. 40

Eggplant (Aubergine) (Solanum melongena) Fijian: baigani

Hindi: baigan

Eggplant is native to south and Southeast Asia. Unlike most garden crops, eggplant has the benefit of having evolved in the tropics, which means that it does much better in Fijian gardens than many crops and can be grown year round. It also means that there are many varieties to choose from. Interestingly enough, eggplant has the highest concentration of nicotine but, before you try to smoke an eggplant, with a concentration of 0.01mg, it is a fraction of what is found in tobacco or even from what you get from second-hand smoke. Many varieties of eggplant will survive the wet season and can yield for multiple years if trimmed properly. Nutritional Value: Vitamin C, fiber Recommended varieties: Chahat, Sigatoka Beauty, Black Beauty (less resistant), local long purple (resistant to everything) Recommended season: Year round but does best planted December-March Cultivation: Start in seedbeds or starter pots, transplant after 28-32 days Planting depth: 6mm Germination time: 6-10 days Spacing: Transplant into rows 50cm apart, 50cm between plants Harvest: 60-90 days after planting, continues for 6 months – 2 years. Prune to ½ height after 6 months for continual crop. Remove when diseased. Problems: Control bacterial wilt with crop rotation; remove at sign of infection by nematodes.

41

Capsicum (Bell pepper) (Capsicum annum) Fijian: Boro

Hindi: Mirchaa

Originally native to the Americas and found nowhere else, it became widely used quickly after being discovered by Europeans in the 16th century. What makes peppers spicy is a compound called capsaicin, but bell peppers don’t actually have any if it in them, making them sweet. They will produce fruit year round but it is very difficult to get them established in the hot and wet season. Nutritional Value: Very high in Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Yolo Wonder B, Hybrid Ace, Summer Bell, Blue Star Recommended season: Best planted April - September Cultivation: Sow in seedbeds or starter pots, transplant after 6 weeks Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 6-10 days Spacing: Transplant into rows 45cm apart, 45cm between plants Harvest: 8-10 weeks after planting, harvest before fruit turns red to avoid bird theft. Cut with scissors or a knife to avoid damaging plant at harvest Problems: Bacterial wilt avoided through crop rotation. Remove diseased plants immediately.

42

Chili Pepper (Capsicum sp.) Fijian: rokete

Hindi: Mirchaa

The word chili is a Nahuatl word, indicating Aztec origins. Spiciness in a chili is caused by the compound capsaicin which is concentrated in the seed. More capsaicin makes for a hotter chili. The hottest chili pepper is the Naga Jolokia from northeastern India, at over 1,000,000 SHU (Scoville Heat Units). Jalapeños measure about 4,000 SHU and Habañeros at 300,000 SHU. Birds, amazingly, have no capsaicin receptors so are unaffected by the heat and happily munch away at even the hottest chili peppers. This compound is different then piperine, which gives pepper spice its heat. Pepper spray is actually concentrated capsaicin. To give it a try, cut up some chilies and then rub your eyes. The chili pepper is actually a number of different species including: Capsicum annum: Many common varieties such as Bell peppers, Wax, Cayenne, Jalapeños, and the Chiltepin Capsicum frutescens: Tabasco and Thai peppers Capsicum chinense: Naga, Habañero, Datil and Scotch bonnet (hottest peppers) Capsicum pubescens: South American Rocoto peppers Capsicum baccatum: South American Aji peppers These can be planted year round but, somewhat uniquely, perform best in the hot, wet season. Nutritional Value: High in fiber, source of Vitamin A and C, Riboflavin, and Niacin Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Any time but best to plant September - February Cultivation: Sow in seedbeds or starter pots, transplant after 6 weeks Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 5-8 days Spacing: Transplant into rows 1m apart, 30cm between plants Harvest: Fruits appear 3-4 months after planting for 1 year Problems: Stem Rot can be controlled by pulling diseased plants immediately and good crop rotation 43

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) Fijian: patata, vatata Hindi: alu Like most of the crops in this section, the potato comes from the Americas, most specifically from South America. The potato is native to Peru and there are thousands of varieties that are still grown throughout the Andes. A single household often grows as many as a dozen varieties and like maize in North America and wheat in Asia, the potato provided the energy to create the Incan civilization. A single acre of potato and the milk from 1 cow was enough to feed an entire Irish family an extremely monotonous but adequate diet. The potato got a bad rap for causing blindness in moonshine operations, but to put that to rest, the problem was using old automotive radiators as condensers, not the potato. The Sigatoka Valley used to be a major center for potato cultivation in Fiji but after a bacterial wilt epidemic, the crop is no longer grown in large amounts. Nutritional Value: High in Fiber, Potassium, Vitamins C, A, and B12. Recommended varieties: Sequoia, Domoni, Red Pontiac, Serrana, Dalisay, Sebago Recommended season: Plant May – June as does best in the cool season Cultivation: Cut potato into sections with 2-4 eyes per piece. Dry the cut pieces or dust with wood ash and plant directly. Planting depth: 20-30cm deep Germination time: 10 days after sowing Spacing: Plant in rows 25cm apart, 25cm between plants Harvest: Three months after planting Problems: Bacterial wilt avoided by crop rotation

44

Peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) Fijian: pinati

Hindi: Mungphali

The peanut is native to South and Central America and is known by many names around the world such as earthnuts, groundnuts, goober peas, monkey nuts, pygmy nuts, and pig nuts. Whatever you call them, no baseball game listened to online with a shabby internet connection is complete without them! A number of famine relief agencies use a high-protein, high-energy peanut-based paste called Plumpy Nut or Medika Mamba as a therapeutic food aid in disaster relief and for malnourished children the world over. There is a lot of energy packed in a peanut, which is why Rudolf Diesel ran his first engine that still bears his name on peanut oil. George Washington Carver reportedly invented 300 uses for peanuts and amazingly, one of them was not peanut butter (but did include roasted, salted peanuts most likely for baseball games). Peanuts have a unique growing pattern in that after pollination of the flower, the flower stalk elongates and dives into the soil where the peanut fruit develops. Nutritional Value: Source of B-complex vitamins, Vitamin C, Iron, Zinc, and Calcium. Recommended varieties: Local Spanish, Vishaal, Volasiga Recommended season: Best planted February - October Cultivation: Raw, unboiled peanuts can be purchased from the markets. Shell the peanut but leave the reddish seed coat. Sow directly. Planting depth: 30mm deep Germination time: 6-7 days Spacing: Sow directly into rows 30cm apart, 8cm between plants Harvest: After flowers are fertilized, build up sandy soil on either side of the plant. Harvest 15-18 weeks after sowing. Problems: Leaf spot and bacterial wilt can both be avoided by planting clean seeds and following crop rotation practices.

45

Cowpea (Black-eyed pea) (Vigna unguiculata) Fijian: Bini

Hindi: Boraa

The cowpea is originally native to India, making it the only crop in Group 1 not native to the Americas. Dating back to the Jewish Babylonian Talmud, eating black-eyed peas, along with gourd, leeks, spinach, beets, and dates on New Year’s is said to bring good luck. However, this appears to be a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for fenugreek, rubiya, with the Arabic word for black-eyed peas, lubiya, the error clearly accounting for a few thousand years of Jewish bad luck. In addition to using the beans in soups and dhal, the leaves can be used as a green, and the immature seeds in curries. Nutritional Value: Source of B-complex vitamins, Vitamin C, Iron, Zinc, and Calcium Recommended varieties: Mana, Rachna, Shikar, Ivory Recommended season: Plant year round Cultivation: Sow 2 seeds directly using dry seeds from the market. Train climbers onto stakes or poles 1.5-2m high. Planting depth: 25mm Germination time: 4-6 days after sowing Spacing: Plant in rows 65cm apart, 20cm between plants or 3 per pole on a teepee pole trellis. Harvest: Remove green pod 55-70 days or dry seed 80-90 days after planting Problems: Cercospora leaf spot and bacterial wilt can be controlled by using clean seed and proper crop rotation.

46

Chapter Eleven

Group 2 Crops: Susceptible to Cabbage Moth Chinese cabbage English cabbage Turnip Broccoli Cauliflower Radish Beets Crops in Group 2 are mostly members of the Brassica family and are categorized by their sensitivity to infestation by cabbage moth. The cabbage moth larvae are the culprit and a caterpillar infestation can happen very quickly. Planting Group 2 crops more than once on a plot is almost a guarantee of infestation, and usually towards the end of the growing cycle, many plants will have already begun to succumb. Being certain to harvest immediately at maturity and removing all crop waste from the plot are some ways to slow down infestation, but it will come eventually. Get ready to rotate. In addition to cabbage moth susceptibility, these crops also have high boron requirements. Since boron is easily leached by rainfall and since Fiji gets plenty of that, boron deficiency in the soil can be a problem. Adding some borax to the soil may be needed, especially during the wet season. Being sure to mix in plenty of compost before planting these crops can reduce this need.

47

Chinese cabbage (Bok Choy) (Brassica chinensis) Fijian: Kaveti

Hindi: Gobi

As the name might indicate, this crop was originally cultivated in China and goes by a number of names and English phonetic spellings: bok choy, bok choi, pak choy, etc. It is a very popular crop in Fiji and has far more nutritional value than the English cabbage. Its popularity can be traced to the ease with which it is grown and how fast it matures. Nutritional Value: Source of Vitamins A, B, and C Recommended varieties: Pak Choy Kwang Moon, Wongbok, Tropicana, Saladeer Recommended season: Best in the cool, dry season but can be grown year round Cultivation: Sow directly onto plots prepared with borax or compost. Alternatively, sow in seedbeds and transplant after 20 days. Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 4-6 days after planting Spacing: Sow directly and thin or transplant into rows 30cm apart, 30cm between plants Harvest: Harvest leaves from the base as needed. Pull plants before it bolt, 4-6 weeks after transplanting or 8-10 weeks after sowing Problems: Moth larvae of many species can be beaten to the punch by crop rotation. Aphids can be controlled by spraying a mixture or water, soap, and chili powder. Vinegar and chili powder can also be sprayed.

48

English Cabbage (Brassica oleracaea capitata) Fijian: Kaveti

Hindi: Gobi

Cato the Elder praised the cabbage saying that it ―surpasses all other vegetables,‖ praising it for its medicinal properties. He was wrong. While it is very popular and is the basis for dishes like sauerkraut, Chinese suan cai, and Korean kimchi, it is nutritionally very poor. It is, however, easy to grow and is a nice comfort food for those who remember gardening in the winter in the northern hemisphere. Nutritional Value: Source of Vitamins A, B, and C Recommended varieties: KK Cross, Olympic, Green Cross, KY Cross, Resist Crown Recommended season: Best in the cool, dry season but grows year round Cultivation: Sow directly or in seedbeds and transplant at 25 days Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 4-6 days after sowing Spacing: Thin or transplant to rows 45cm apart, 40cm between plants Harvest: At 60-90 days after sowing Problems: Moth larvae of many species can be beaten to the punch by crop rotation.

49

Turnip (Brassica rapa) Fijian: None

Hindi: None

Pliny the Elder, in a direct slap to the face of Cato the Elder, declared the turnip to be one the most important vegetables in Europe just before he decided that he, too, thought it would be a good vacation to see what Mount Vesuvius looks like when it is erupting. Turns out, it looks deadly. Anyway, native to Europe and Asia, the turnip is a wonderfully versatile vegetable—both the root and leaves are edible—and has been used for human and livestock consumption. In Fiji, it is strictly a cool season crop as it will not tolerate heat. Nutritional Value: Very high in Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Any (none recommended) Recommended season: May - November Cultivation: Sow directly Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 6-10 days Spacing: 2 seeds in rows 20cm apart, 15cm between plants. Later, thin to 1 Harvest: 55-80 days after sowing Problems: Boron deficiency causes cracked stems and can be helped by adding Borax. Cabbage moths can be controlled through crop rotation.

50

Broccoli (Brassica oleracea) Fijian: None

Hindi: None

Broccoli is one variety of the super-species Brassica oleracea that includes broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, collard greens, and cabbage. It is among the most nutritious of the European vegetables. The head, which is the most common usage of the broccoli, is actually the immature flower. If left to grow, each head will produce hundreds of small yellow flowers. Broccoli will form heads in the cool season and can be grown as a green in the hot season. The leaves can be cooked and eaten just lake any green such as kale. In wet areas, pests can be a real problem in the wet season, making growing broccoli for greens very difficult. Nutritional Value: Good source of Vitamin C, Thiamin, Iron, and Zinc Recommended varieties: Any (none recommended) Recommended season: Year round, April – August for heading broccoli Cultivation: Sow directly or in seedbeds, transplant 3-4 weeks after sowing Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 3-5 days Spacing: Transplant into rows 75cm apart, 50cm between plants Harvest: After head forms, but before yellow flowers emerge, about 2-3 months. Problems: Minimal problems in cool season. Avoid planting in wet season in wet areas. Brown rot is caused by Magnesium deficiency and can be helped with Epsom salts and crop rotation.

51

Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea botrytis) Fijian: None

Hindi: Phul gobi

Another member of the super-species that may some day take over the world, cauliflower is similar to broccoli in many ways, including the eating of the inflorescence, or flower stalk. There are many varieties of cauliflower, and one can find orange, purple, and green varieties in Europe. Cauliflower has a bit of a leg up on Broccoli in Fiji as it is better able to tolerate the wet conditions during the hot season, which is why it is often seen in Indian dishes. Nutritional Value: Good source of Vitamin C, Thiamin, Iron, and Zinc Recommended varieties: Tropical sweetheart, Snowqueen, White contessa, Marker Wonder, Pioneer Recommended season: Year round, April – August is best Cultivation: Sow directly or in seedbeds, transplant 3-4 weeks after sowing Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 3-5 days Spacing: Plant in rows 75cm apart, 50cm between plants Harvest: After head forms, but before yellow flowers emerge, about 2-3 months. Problems: Minimal problems in cool season. Avoid planting in wet season in wet areas. Brown rot is caused by Magnesium deficiency and can be helped with Epsom salts and crop rotation. Brown spots on head are caused by Boron deficiency and can be treated by adding Borax to the soil. In acidic soils, Molybdenum can be deficient which causes long, twisted leaves. Applying lime to the soil will increase pH and make molybdenum more available.

52

Radish (Raphanus sativus) Fijian: None

Hindi: None

The radish is a European vegetable that has been cultivated since pre-Roman times. Radishes and onion were the staple foods fed to the slaves who built the pyramids as it was a cheap, filling food. In Oaxaca, Mexico, there is a Noche de los Rabános (Night of the Radishes) festival on December 23rd in which figurines are carved out of radishes and displayed. In Fiji, it does best in the cool season but can be planted year round. It is one of the fastest garden crops to mature, making it the darling of 7th grade classes the world over. Repeat plantings a week or two apart guarantees a steady supply of radishes. In Fiji, the long, white radish is more easily grown and the leaves can be used as a green, but commercial red radishes may also be grown. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Long white icicle, Awa cross, Everest Recommended season: All year round Cultivation: Sow directly every 2-5cm, thin to 5cm apart after two weeks Planting depth: 6mm Germination time: 3-5 days Spacing: Sow in rows 20cm apart, 5cm between plants Harvest: 4-5 weeks after sowing Problems: None if crop rotation is used

53

Beets (Beta vulgaris) Fijian: None

Hindi: None

If you are looking for a good, blank stare, ask a Fijian if they have ever heard of beet. Remains of beets have been found from the Netherlands to Egyptian tombs. It is a versatile plant in that the root can be boiled and eaten and the leaves will give a flavor similar to cooked taro leaves. Interestingly enough, for people who are unable to break down the betacyanin, red urine is the result—harmless but certainly entertaining. Like many root crops, beets prefer sandy soils and can tolerate somewhat salty soils. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Early wonder, Tall top, King red Recommended season: April - November Cultivation: Sow 2 seeds every 5cm, later thin to one per 5cm Planting depth: 6mm Germination time: 5-8 days Spacing: Sow in rows 20cm apart, 5cm per plant Harvest: 70-80 days after sowing. Twist leaves to remove, do not cut Problems: Cabbage moth can be controlled through proper crop rotation.

54

Chapter Twelve

Group 3 Crops: Cucumber Family Cucumber Watermelon Pumpkin Squash Rock melon The cucumber family, or Cucurbitaceae, includes all the cucumbers, melons, squashes, and pumpkins. Being so related, they are all susceptible to attack from the same aphids and cucumber beetle and for that reason need to be rotated as most crops. They can tolerate a wide range of conditions and most crops can be successful in Fiji. Powdery and downy mildew, disease-causing fungi, have been problems for these crops in the past, but new varieties have done a great job in selecting for resistance to these diseases. Not using recommended varieties is inviting disaster. Downy mildew is a particular problem when humidity is very high and temperatures are in the 15-22°C range showing up as white/yellow spots that kill leaves. Powdery mildew is more common in dry conditions with cooler nights. The ―powder‖ is reproductive spores the spread leaf to leaf and ultimately kills the leaves. Members of the Cucumber family do poorly when transplanted and should be sown directly. If that is not possible, they can be started in starter pots and transplanted as long as all of the roots and soil stay intact.

55

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) Fijian: kiukaba Hindi: khira

Cucumbers are originally from India. Old enough to get mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh, they were brought to Europe by the Romans. The Romans used it to treat scorpion bites, bad eyesight, and to scare away mice. Women wishing for children wore it around their waists in one of the more obviously phallic displays in history, only discarding it once the child was born. Planting nonresistant varieties is very likely to fail in Fiji to downy or powdery mildew and cucumbers do best by when trellised, greatly increasing yield. Do not try to transplant cucumber as it will most likely fail. Nutritional Value: High in Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Supermarket, Market king, Progress, Early set, Soarer, Bountiful No. 2, Cascade, Early perfection Recommended season: Year round, fruits best in the cool season Cultivation: Sow direct 2 seeds, later thin to 1. If trellising, plant across bed, trim side shoots past first flower and trim when growing tip grows over the top of the trellis Planting depth: 12-18mm Germination time: 5-7 days Spacing: Sow in rows 60cm apart, 60cm between plants. If trellising, plant every 8cm across bed. Harvest: 6-8 weeks after sowing, continues for 3 weeks Problems: Downy and powdery mildew controlled by crop rotation and planting recommended varieties.

56

Watermelon (Cirtullus lanatus) Fijian: meleni

Hindi: tarbuj

The watermelon originally comes from South Africa but is eaten all over the world. No summer picnic would be complete without it. In Japan, farmers in the Zentsuji region have figured out a way to grow cubic watermelon by growing the fruits in glass boxes. In Oklahoma, the watermelon was declared the state vegetable in 2007 with the minor problem that it is a fruit. Whoops. Nice, Oklahoma. Watermelon can be grown year round in Fiji but does best in the cool season. Nutritional Value: High in Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Charleston grey, Sugar baby, Beauty Venus, Sugar dilcata, Famers giant, Empire No. 2 Recommended season: Year round but best April - September Cultivation: Sow direct 2 seeds, later thin to 1. If trellising, plant across bed, trim side shoots past first flower and trim when growing tip grows over the top of the trellis Planting depth: 12-18mm Germination time: 6-10 days Spacing: Sow in rows 45cm apart, 45cm between plants. If trellising, sow 8cm between plants Harvest: 70-120 days after planting. Mature when knocking on fruit produces a dull thud. A hard ping means not yet ripe. Problems: Aphids can be controlled by spraying a mixture of water, soap, and chili. Plant recommended varieties to control for mildew.

57

Pumpkin (Curcubita maxima) Fijian: Vavukeni

Hindi: Kaddu

This species of crop includes a number of varieties including pumpkins, squashes, marrows, and zucchinis. All of the squashes are most likely originally from North America and still have the greatest diversity there. Pumpkin itself is really a winter squash, but only some of them look suitable for cutting up and putting a candle in it. The term winter squash has little to do with when the fruits mature as they mature the same time as every other member of the cucumber family mature. The name winter squash comes from the ability of these varieties to store well, making them good keepers until winter (in temperate regions) when you are out of everything else. Squash and pumpkin flowers are monoecious, which means that each flower is either male or female. Pollination can be difficult for these plants if the right pollinators are not present to transport pollen from one flower to another. Squashes and pumpkins can grow either in bushes (crookneck, zucchini) or by trailing (pumpkin, acorn, and butternut). Pumpkins are grown world wide (with the exception of Antarctica) and are quite popular amongst Fijians and IndoFijians alike. Nutritional Value: High in dietary fiber, Vitamins A and C, and Potassium Recommended varieties: Queensland blue, Butternut, local varieties Recommended season: Year round but best planted April-June Cultivation: Sow directly Planting depth: 20mm Germination time: 6-12 days Spacing: Trailing: 2 seeds every 30cm in the middle of the bed. Thin to 1 plant. Bush: Plant in rows 45cm apart, 45cm between plants. Thin to 1 plant. Harvest: 12-15 weeks Problems: Blossom-end rot caused by lack of nutrients or uneven watering. Apply lime to acidic soils and be sure to water evenly. Add compost to soil.

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Rock melon (Cucumis melon) Fijian: meleni

Hindi : kakari

The rock melon, also called cantaloupe or muskmelon, originated in India and Africa and prefer warmer temperatures because of it. In 1941, a moldy cantaloupe from a market in Peoria, Illinois was found to have the highest quality and concentration of penicillin after a world-wide search and for years the world’s supply of penicillin was based on that strain. Since this fruit is descended from tropical ancestors, it requires a long warm season, but the quality is often poor in Fiji. It turns out that the Fijian climate is both a blessing and a curse as bountiful rain and warm temperatures mean both fast growth and ripening and susceptibility to disease. In addition, abundance of rainfall tends to make the melons less sweet. Covering the growing with clear plastic sheeting and controlling the irrigation by covering in clear plastic is a way to make sure you get good, sweet, melons. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Yates Rock, Hales PMR 45, Winston’s No. 1, Sweet Eye, Summer Dream, Hales Best Recommended season: Plant April - August Cultivation: Sow 2 seeds directly, later trim to 1. Trellis for best results. Planting depth: 12-18mm Germination time: 6-10 days Spacing: Sow in rows 60cm apart, 60cm between plants. If trellising, sow 1 seed per 8cm across the bed. Harvest: 12-16 weeks after sowing Problems: Powdery mildew is a problem and there isn’t much organically that can be done about it.

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Chapter Thirteen

Group 4 Crops: Legumes Common bean (Black, pinto, etc.) Peas Long bean Chickpea Pigeon pea Winged bean (Peanut – See Chapter 10, page 45) (Cowpea – Sea Chapter 10, page 46)

Legumes, better known as beans or peas, get the award for ―Coolest Garden Crop.‖ They really are nature’s gift to the farmer for a variety of reasons. The first is that they are naturally resistant to almost all pests making them a wonderful rotation crop, breaking the cycle of disease in the first three groups. In case that isn’t cool enough, legumes are unique in that they leave the soil with more nutrients than they take, specifically with regards to nitrogen. Living symbiotically in the roots of legumes, nitrogen-fixing bacteria take inert nitrogen gas from the atmosphere and convert it to forms that are able to be used by plants. Some of this is used by the plant itself, but much of it is released into the soil. The nitrogen content is improved further by plowing the plant material back into the soil after the crop is finished. Whatever gets planted next benefits from a nitrogen-rich soil. Finally, legumes are high in protein making a great substitute for meat and in many species, the leaves can be used as a green. Thank you, legumes. Beans and peas come in two growing modes: climbing and bush. Climbing beans are the higher yielding of the two as they expand their growing area 60

upward. Climbing beans can be further distinguished into pole beans and tendrilclimbers. Pole beans climb by using the growing tip which grows in helical pattern in order to wrap around something. In the southern hemisphere, this direction is counterclockwise thanks the Coriolus Effect (speaking of cool) and in the northern hemisphere, they grow clockwise. As these grab hold with the entire plant, these can grow up anything less than 15cm in diameter. In tendril-climbers, the bean grows upward by throwing out tendrils—little curly extensions of the stem—to grab onto whatever it can while the tip just grows straight up. Tendrils are not big and will only grab onto things that are 1cm or less in diameter—effective but not nearly as cool. Bush beans are much simpler to grow but do not yield nearly as much as climbers do. That being said, there is beauty in the simplicity since there is no trellis needed. These can be planted in the middle of plots and just a few plants will still yield plenty of beans for a couple of households. Like all members of the legume family peanuts and cowpea help the soil through nitrogen-fixation. They are not included in this section due to their susceptibility to bacterial wilt and should be treated as a Group 1 crop when planning for crop rotation.

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Common bean (Phasoleus vulgaris) Fijian: Bini

Hindi: Sem, Lobiya

This amazing species includes many of the beans that we have given different names to like lima (butter), pinto, black (turtle), kidney, French, white, navy, cannellini, snap peas, etc. They are all variants of the same species that was cultivated independently in both the Andes and in Mesoamerica. Most varieties can be found in either bush or pole varieties, although most commercial beans are of the climbing variety as they will give a higher yield. One wonderfully innovative method that Native Americans gave us was what is called the three sisters: maize, beans, and squash. The maize and beans are planted together and help each other out. The beans provide nitrogen to the maize and the maize provides a pole to climb for the bean. In between rows of maize, squash is planted to shade the soil for everyone, reducing evaporation. Everyone wins, especially the farmer who gets to eat all three! Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, iron, potassium, thiamine, vitamin B6, and folic acid Recommended varieties: All Recommended season: All year, but best yields if planted April - September Culturing: Sow direct. Trellis for climbers Planting depth: 25mm Germination time: 3-6 days Spacing: Bush (Dwarf): Sow in rows 45cm apart, 7cm per plant Pole: Make pole teepee, sow 4 seeds per pole and later thin to 3. Tendril: Sow 2 seeds per 13cm. Later trim to 1. Train onto trellis Harvest: 42-56 days after planting. Harvest green pods for use as a vegetable or allow it to dry on the plant for dried beans. Cut up and plow remains back into soil after harvest. Problems: Powdery mildew can be a problem but can be reduced through rotation with other groups.

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Peas (Pisum sativum) Hindi: Matar The scourge of many children’s dinner plate, the pea has a wonderful place in history as the vehicle through which Mendel observed the principles of inheritance, the foundation of modern genetics. Peas were first cultivated in the Mediterranean region from modern Turkey to Jordan. It is an annual plant and can be found in bush or climbing varieties. Many varieties can be dried allowing for long storage. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, iron, potassium, thiamine, vitamin B6, and folic acid Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Year round, but best during the cooler months Culturing: Sow directly Planting depth: 25mm Germination time: 7-10 days Spacing: Bush (Dwarf): Sow in rows 45cm apart, 7cm per plant Tendril: Sow 2 seeds per 13cm. Later trim to 1. Train onto trellis Harvest: 42-56 days after planting. Cut up and plow remains back into soil after harvest. Problems: Powdery mildew can be a problem but can be reduced through rotation with other groups.

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Long bean (Vigna unguiculata sesquipedalis) Fijian: Bini balavu

Hindi: borboti

The long bean (a.k.a. ―yard long bean‖) is actually a variety of cowpea but does not have the same bacterial wilt susceptibility and so is treated as a legume in terms of crop rotation (and since it is, of course, a legume). Long bean yields very well in Fiji, even in the hot season and even more so when it is given a pole to climb on. They are a mainstay in Fiji-Indian curries and can be grown in any but the worst soils. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Vitamin C, Niacin, Vitamin B complex, Iron, Zinc Recommended varieties: Local white, Sobi, Yard long Recommended season: Year round Culturing: Sow directly Planting depth: 25mm Germination time: 3-6 days Spacing: Sow in rows 30cm apart, 8cm between poles with up to 3 plants per pole. Making pole teepees increases pole strength and yield per plant. Harvest: 6-8 weeks after sowing. Harvest pods when still tender. Cut up and plow remains back into soil after harvest. Problems: Powdery mildew can be a problem but can be reduced through rotation with other groups.

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Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) Fijian: Jana

Hindi: Chana

Native to India and southern Europe, the chickpea, aka garbanzo bean, is one of the earliest known cultivated crops, dating to at least 7,500 years ago in the Middle East. In classical Greece, they were eaten as a staple, green, or even as a desert. They were associated with Venus somehow and were thus linked with increasing sperm, milk, provoking menstruation, and urination. Thankfully, and despite these ancient uses, they taste wonderful. During World War I, roasted chickpeas were substituted for coffee beans, but like okra, this only works if one doesn’t like the flavor of real coffee or appreciate the stimulant effect of caffeine. Chickpeas are neither a bean nor a pea botanically, but are a legume so they have the same nitrogen fixation properties as the other members of this group. Chickpeas do best in the cool season and take about 100 days to mature, making the timing of planting very important. Planting purchased food-grade chickpeas will work just fine. Nutritional Value: zinc, folate, protein Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Plant March-May Culturing: Direct sow or transplant when about 10cm tall Planting depth: 40mm Germination time: 7-10 days Spacing: Sow or transplant to 7cm apart. Later thin to 15cm between plants by cutting to not disturb the roots. Be sure to mulch around the base. Harvest: When leaves start to wither at about 100 days. Pull out entire plant and lay out to dry. Collect seeds as pods begin to split. Problems: Aphids can be blasted away with water and can be lessened by keeping the garden free of debris. Remove any diseased plants immediately.

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Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) Hindi: Arhar While this bean is not going to win any awards for yield or uses, it does win awards for being able to grow on the worst soil. This is a very useful bean for planting on marginal soil as it will yield a decent crop and, more importantly, will add nitrogen to the soil for what you really wanted to plant in the first place. It is used all over the world in resource-poor areas as a drought-resistant pulse (dry seed) or vegetable (green seed). It is most likely from Asia and spread to Africa where it was brought the Americas on boats carrying slaves. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, iron, thiamin, niacin Recommended varieties: Station 8 Recommended season: Sow February - April Culturing: Sow directly Planting depth: 25mm Germination time: 6-8 days Spacing: Sow in rows 45cm apart, 10cm per plant Harvest: 55-70 days. Harvest green pods or allow them to dry on the vine. Plow remains back into soil after harvest. These will survive and produce multiple years but you may be ready to move on after 1. Problems: None serious

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Winged bean (Psophocarpus tatragonolobus) Hindi: Char fukya While you won’t find this bean in many places, it is truly a supermarket in a bean. The bean itself is likened to asparagus in flavor and the beans, leaves, flowers, and tuber are all edible. The seeds contain a ton of protein and beneficial vegetable oils. Planting alongside a fence or permanent trellis will make life easier for you as the vines live for up to 4 years. Nutritional Value: Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Recommended varieties: Winged bean Recommended season: Plant I March after the heavy rains Cultivating: Soak overnight in water and then sow directly Planting depth: 25mm Germination time: 7-10 days Spacing: Sow along fence or permanent trellis 2 seeds per 30cm, later trim to 1 Harvest: 55-70 days after sowing. Harvest when green for vegetable use and allow it to dry on the vine for dried beans. Problems: None serious

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Chapter Fourteen

Group 5 Crops: (Almost) Everything Else Bele

Lettuce

Taro

Okra

Onion

Cassava

Carrot

Leek

Sweet potato

Celery

Garlic

Yam

Corn The fifth group of crops is not grouped together because they have anything necessarily in common; they are grouped because they don’t really share any common pests or diseases with any of the other groups. So, they make great rotation crops. That being said, because some of these have their own pests, it is a good idea to rotate Group 5 crops like they share common pests. Planting onions repeatedly or planting bele and okra repeatedly will have the same disastrous effects as repeated plantings of cabbage or tomatoes. So having a plot with just Group 5 crops and rotating them with the other crops is still needed.

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Bele (Abelmoschus manihot) Fijian: Bele

Hindi: Bele

If you plant anything, plant bele. Bele is one of the few garden crops that is native to the South Pacific which means that it is as easy to grow as you can imagine. It is sometimes called ―Fijian spinach‖ although it is totally unrelated. It is a member of the Malvaceae family which includes plants like okra and explains the stickiness in the leaves. It is, by far, the most nutritious green vegetable grown in Fiji and it is remarkably easy to grow. It yields year round and looks nice enough to plant as an ornamental or as a natural fence around your garden. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium, Iron, Vitamin A, C Recommended varieties: White local, Red local Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Plant cuttings from the growing tip of existing plants. Planting depth: Push in stem 5-10cm into the soil Germination time: 1-2 weeks after planting Spacing: Plant in rows 1m apart, 30cm between plants or plant as a hedge/fence Harvest: Harvest leaves as needed Problems: None serious

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Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) Hindi: Bhindi Okra is a relative of bele from the Ethiopian area of East Africa from where it spread to West Africa and then around the world on board slave ships. It can be grown as an annual or a perennial and grows up to 2m tall. The seed pod is the edible part and the seeds can even be roasted and ground to make a caffeine-free ―coffee.‖ The seed pods are usually cooked in stews and stir fry. Being a tropical crop, okra does well year round and makes for a great hot season crop. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Clemson spineless, Local long white, Dwarf longpod Recommended season: Year round although best during hot months Cultivating: Sow 2 seeds directly, later thin to 1 Planting depth: 10mm Germination time: 3-6 days Spacing: Sow in rows 25cm apart, 25cm between plants Harvest: 6-8 weeks after planting. Harvest seed pods before the pods become rigid Problems: None serious

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Carrot (Daucus carota) Fijian: Kareti

Hindi: Gajar

The carrot serves as a wonderful reminder that with enough sugar, one can make a tasty desert out of just about anything (carrot cake). Here is a cool trick: eating massive amounts of carrots, which is harmless, causes carotenosis which turns the skin orange. And while eating carrots won’t give you 20-20 vision if you don’t already have it, carrots do aid in night vision. At least that is what the RAF told the world is why their pilots were so good at shooting down German planes. It turns out that the new secret technology, radar was more thank. For awhile, thanks to a harmless lie to keep radar secret, Western Europe had carrots to thank for keeping the Germans at bay. Native to Southwestern Asia, it is a cool season crop that does best in loose, sandy soils. Because of its slow germination and inability to be transplanted, careful attention to weed control is required. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Vitamin A and C, Potassium Recommended varieties: Chantenay, Manchester table, New kuroda improved Recommended season: Plant March - November Cultivating: Sow directly. Do not transplant Planting depth: At the surface or 2-3mm below Germination time: 14-21 days Spacing: In rows 20cm apart, plant 3 seeds per 5cm. Later, thin to 1 per 5cm Harvest: 12-16 weeks after planting although keep well in the soil. After 20 weeks, carrots turn woody Problems: Nematodes can cause miss-shaped carrots and can be controlled through proper crop rotation. Split root shapes are caused by excess nitrogen if fertilizing, but is typically not a problem if using compost.

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Celery (Apium graveolens) Originally from the Mediterranean region, celery is not particularly easy to grow in the tropics. It has been used as a dietary aid for weight loss since it has a negative caloric content, actually taking more energy to chew and digest celery than it provides. It also contains androstenone, a precursor to testosterone and with its shape, makes for a prime aphrodisiac candidate! Along with onions and bell pepper, celery makes up the holy trinity of Creole cooking and no Bloody Mary is complete without it…if you can get the ice, that is. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber Recommended varieties: Fordhook giant, Dewcrisp green Recommended season: Plant February - September Cultivating: Sow in seedbeds or starter pots. Transplant when 7-8cm high Planting depth: 5mm deep Germination time: 18-20 days Spacing: Transplant into rows 30cm apart, 25cm between plants Harvest: 11-13 weeks after transplanting, when plants stop growing Problems: None serious

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Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) Fijian: Letisi

Lettuce is originally from the Mediterranean and Western Asia regions, although its native roots are a little murky. It was brought to the Americas by Christopher Columbus where it immediately made no headway in the native diet. Lettuce is also full of lactucarium, a mild opiate-like compound that was probably the cause of Roman post-meal ingestion of lettuce to promote sleeping. There are many different varieties of lettuce, some of which form heads, some that don’t. Even the head-forming varieties will only from heads in the cool season and any dry period will cause bolting and an end to the crop. Irrigation may be required to keep lettuce from bolting. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, some Vitamin A, B, C Recommended varieties: Minetto, Pennlake, Great lakes, Green mignonette, Buttercrunch, Box hill, Ballade, Seven wonders Recommended season: Leafy lettuce year round, head lettuce March - October Cultivating: Sow in seedbeds, transplant at 26-30 days Planting depth: 2-3mm deep Germination time: 5-8 days Spacing: Transplant into rows 25cm apart, 25cm between plants Harvest: 8-10 weeks after planting. Harvest is over when lettuce bolts Problems: None serious. Slugs can be a problem but making sure that the area is clean of yard debris will all but eliminate that.

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Onion (Allium cepa) Fijian: Varasa

Hindi: Payaaz

Onions came originally from non-bulbing wild stock in Asia, although there are similar species to onion found wild all over the world. Ancient Egyptians worshipped the onion due to its concentric ring structure, which they found to symbolize eternal life, and almost certainly for what it does for food. Let’s face it; eating is no fun without onions. Bulbing onions are photosensitive, reacting to day length, and will only bulb during long days. That means that in order for onions to bulb, planting in April or May for a long day harvest is a requirement. Another option is to plant small onion bulbs from the market in the cool season. The onion will grow and reproduce from the seed onion yielding up to 4 bulbs per seed bulb planted. Nutritional Value: Iron, Zinc, Thiamin, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Tropic red, Texas early grano, Superex, Gladallan brown Recommended season: Plant from seed in May or from bulb in June-July. Cultivating: Start seeds in seedbed or sow directly. Transplant when onion is 58cm high. Sow bulb directly Planting depth: 5mm for seed. Bury half the bulb for bulb planting Germination time: 7-14 days Spacing: Transplant or sow in rows 10cm apart, 10cm between plants Harvest: 12-16 weeks when tops fall on half of the plants. Pull the onions from the ground and leave in the sun for half a day with the tops covering the bulbs. This will dry out the skin to allow them to keep. Clip leaves 1.5cm above the bulb and store in a cool, dry place in onion sacks. Problems: Mold is a problem in storing. Be sure to not allow the onions to get wet after harvesting and store in onion sacks that allow for ventilation.

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Leek (Allium ampeloprasum porrum) Leeks are a great onion substitute for the tropics because they do not bulb and are not sensitive to day length. And just in case there is snow at 15°S latitude, they are also able to tolerate a freeze. Leeks can be grown year round but do much better in the cool season. Both the buried stem and the leaves can be used in a similar way to onions, although leeks definitely have their own flavors. Nutritional Value: Iron, Zinc, Thiamin, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Musselburgh Recommended season: Best planted in March - May Cultivating: Sow directly or in seedbeds, transplanting at 20cm in height. When transplanting, push in a hole with a stick about 15cm deep. Drop in the seedling without filling in the dirt. Planting depth: 6mm Germination time: 11-13 days Spacing: Plant in rows 20cm apart, 15cm between plants. Harvest: When shoots are 3-5cm thick Problems: None serious

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Garlic (Allium sativum) Fijian: Qarlika

We all owe a debt of gratitude for the powers of garlic in keeping vampires, werewolves, and miscellaneous demons at bay. It of course causes crazy halitosis, but since this ―ailment‖ was made up by Listerine to market its product, there is nothing to worry about. That being said, Mohammad did make it a point to strongly urge not going into the mosque after consuming it. There is some good news and some bad news with growing garlic in Fiji. The good news is that the plant grows well. The bad news is that it won’t form a bulb. Originally from the Yunan province of China, garlic needs much shorter and longer days than Fiji can provide in order to bulb. That being said, garlic greens are excellent in salads and cooked so should not be forgotten. Nutritional Value: Iron, Zinc, Thiamin, Vitamin C, Allicin (an antifungal and antibiotic) Recommended varieties: Softneck Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Plant individual cloves from a head of garlic Planting depth: Plant with clove tops slightly exposed Germination time: 11-15 days Spacing: Plant 15cm between rows, 15cm between plants Harvest: Use greens as needed. Harvest when leaves begin to brown Problems: Won’t bulb due to day length. Sorry.

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Corn (Maize) (Zea mays) Fijian: Sila

Hindi: Makai

Corn was originally a grass domesticated in Mesoamerica. It ―grew‖ from being a grass with a small cob to becoming the large cob through a freakish mutation and quickly became the cornerstone of pre-European civilization in sub-tropical and temperate America. With the right variety, maize is a wonderful garden crop in Fiji. Since it has few pests, it is a great crop for rotation. Due to its use of C-4 photosynthesis, it also grows remarkably fast although it does require a decent amount of water and soil nutrients. One way to maximize its use and provide nutrients to the maize is to intercrop with pole beans such as pinto, black, or long bean, which will provide nitrogen to the maize while providing a ―pole‖ for the beans to climb. Planting squash between the rows will make your garden look like those that Native Americans planted for thousands of years. Since rain has negative effects on the wind pollination of corn, planting in the wet season for dry season flowering is best. If you aren’t too concerned with yield, planting corn as a fence is a great way to keep things out and make your fence work for you. Otherwise, planting corn in blocks instead of rows increases yield due to the nature of wind pollination. Sadly, corn doesn’t provide much in the way of nutrition but it sure does taste good! Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Vitamin A Recommended varieties: Nirala Recommended season: Plant December - March Cultivating: Sow directly 2 seeds, later thin to 1 Planting depth: 10mm deep Germination time: 5-7 days Spacing: Sow in rows 45cm apart, 20cm between plants Harvest: 16 weeks after sowing, when kernels are milky, not starchy for cob corn. Harvest when starchy and dry to make corn meal or flour. Problems: None serious

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Taro (Colocasia esculenta) Fijian: Dalo

Hindi: Dalo

Taro is one of the earliest known cultivated plants in the world. It is native to the Indonesian lowlands and was brought with the earliest settlers to the Pacific Islands. Even before that, it was a staple in pre-Roman and Roman civilizations. In its raw form, taro is toxic due to the presence of needle-shaped Calcium oxalate. Luckily, this toxin is destroyed by either cooking or soaking the root in water overnight. The starchy root is a staple although the leaves are can be eaten as well and are very nutritious. Taro was originally a wetland crop although some varieties have been selected for drier areas. Nutritional Value:

Root: Vitamins A, B1, B2, and C Leaves: Vitamins B6 and C, Niacin, and Potassium Recommended varieties: Samoa hybrid, Tausala ni Samoa, Vula ono, Maleka jina, Dalo ni Toga, Kuro kece, Wararasa, Toakula Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Plant suckers from mature plants. Planting depth: Dig a hole about 15-20cm deep and plant the sucker Germination time: N/A Spacing: Plant in rows 60cm apart, 60cm between plants Harvest: 9-12 months after planting. Stores up to 2 weeks Problems: None serious

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Cassava (Manihot esculenta) Fijian: Tavioka Hindi: Kasera

Cassava goes by many names around the world such as manioc, yuca, and tapioca. It is originally native to South America but has been planted world-wide in tropical and subtropical areas. Prior to the introduction of rum to South America, it was the ingredient of choice in alcohol for the native population. It gives the highest yield of food energy per cultivated area of any crop plant with the exception of sugarcane, which isn’t really food. However, cassava is fairly poor in nutrients being mostly starch. Nutritional Value: Calcium, Phosphorus, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Beqa, Navolau, Yabia damu, Merelesita, Vulatolu Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Plant 20-30cm cuttings of stem in prepared beds, ridges, or mounds Planting depth: 2/3 of the length of the piece Germination time: N/A Spacing: Beds: In rows 60cm apart, 60cm between plants Ridges: In ridges 1m apart, 60cm between plants Mounds: In mounds 90cm apart, 3 plants per mound Harvest: 9-12 months Problems: None serious

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Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas) Fijian: Kumala The sweet potato is native to South America, but somehow managed to get to the Pacific Islands before Europeans showed up, giving some pretty strong evidence that prehistoric South Americans and Pacific Islanders met up at some point. (There is some chance that seeds could have floated, but come on...) In the US, the sweet potato is often called a yam, which is confusing as the sweet potato is unrelated to the African and Fijian yam. The sweet potato is a great rotation crop as it has very few pests and grows well. Nutritional Value: Vitamin A Recommended varieties: Kabara, Honiara, Vulatolu, Talei Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Cut and plant 12-15cm pieces of stem. At 4 weeks mound up soil, wind up the vegetation over the plant and bury in the mound. Planting depth: Push 2/3 of the stem piece into the ground Germination time: N/A Spacing: Beds: In rows 45cm apart, 30cm between plants Rows: In ridges 70cm apart, 30cm between plants Mounds: In mounds 75cm apart, plant 2-3 cuttings per mound Harvest: 4-5 months. Can be buried in a dry spot for storage Problems: None serious

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Yam (Dioscorea alata) Fijian: Uvi, Kawai First cultivated in Africa and Asia, it then spread throughout the tropics. It is still extremely important culturally in West Africa. Here in Fiji, it is also a very important crop, although a little more labor intensive one. It can be grown either on a horizontal trellis (usually of bamboo) in which case it is called uvi, or on the ground in which case it is called kawai. In many parts, it is a good intercrop plant with uvi planted in mounds, kava on the sides of the mounds, and taro in between the mounds. Nutritional Value: Dietary fiber, Potassium Recommended varieties: All Zones: Vurai balavu, Vurai leka Late Season Wet: Kivi, Murapoi, Uvi-ni-futuna, Beka, Taniela, Damuni, Viwa, Vulaleka Late season dry/interm: Uvi-ni-futuna, Kivi, Murapoi, Beka, Taniela, Vula leka, Viwa, Damuni Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Cut seed tubers into 200g pieces. Dust with wood ash and plant. Trellis on 2-3m horizontal bamboo or other sturdy material Planting depth: 25mm Germination time: 7-14 days Spacing: Beds: In rows 60cm apart, 60cm between plants Ridges: In ridges 1m apart, 60cm between plants Mounds: In mounds 80-90cm apart, 1 plant per mound Harvest: When vines have dried. Can be stored 3-4 months Problems: Tuber rot can be avoided by drying tuber pieces and/or applying wood ash before planting.

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Chapter Fifteen

Spices Arugula

Dill

Parsley

Basil

Fenugreek

Sage

Chives

Ginger

Thyme

Coriander

Mint

Turmeric

Oregano Spices as a group are not particularly related to each other; it is more a group in how we use them. We use spices not so much as food, with perhaps the exception of arugula, but to make our food taste better. They do a nice job. Spices are often easy to grow and many are perennial, which means that you only need to plant them once to enjoy them for at least a couple of years. Spices taste good because they produce aromatic compounds that the insects don’t like, being poisonous to them. We, on the other hand, love them. If we ate those aromatic compounds in the relative amounts that insects consume them, given their size, we wouldn’t like them either. Point being, spices are a wonderful natural barrier to insects. Not only are most spices free of significant pests, by planting spices with your more susceptible crops, you can use spices to keep bugs away from them. Many also do well in pots and it is always a good idea to have a little spice garden close to your kitchen to just reach out and grab a sprig of parsley or a handful of basil. Since most spices come from drier areas than Fiji, they often need little watering. That also means that spices, as a rule, aren’t native to Fiji and so aren’t used in traditional cooking in Fiji. Your spices will be a great curiosity among the Fijians. Since spices don’t have many pests, tropical varieties have rarely been developed. Spices are the rare example of when buying the cheap commercial seed packs will do just fine, especially since you don’t have a choice. 82

Arugula (Eruca sativa) Salad Rocket Arugula is originally from the Mediterranean region, hence its common usage in Greek salads. It is an annual plant which will produce the entire cool season in Fiji, only becoming bitter at the very end. Interestingly enough, arugula wasn’t really cultivated on a large scale until the 1990s as it was mostly just collected wild before then. Since Greek food made it mainstream, no garden is complete without arugula. It can be used in pastas, on meat, or eaten raw in salads. It does require partial shade as planting in full sun will cause it to bolt and become bitter prematurely. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Plant March - October Cultivating: Sow directly Planting depth: Surface to 3mm Germination time: 7-10 days Spacing: Sow 1 seed per 15cm, later thin to 1 plant per 30cm Harvest: As soon as two weeks after sowing, harvest leaves as needed Problems: None serious

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Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

Basil is a member of the mint family, as are a number of spices (such as, well, mint). It is native from India to Iran but spread to the Mediterranean region and Southeast Asia long ago. In different regions, different varieties have been bred from Sweet Basil to Thai basil and everything in between. In Italy it is a symbol of love, in Greece, a symbol of hate. It has often been used as a symbol for Satan in European lore and one English botanist (Culpepper) affirmed it as common knowledge that smelling too much basil would breed scorpions in the brain. Basil is mostly an annual although some perennial varieties are out there. It is especially good at repelling insects so intercropping basil is a great idea. When using basil, it is typically added at the last minute since cooking basil destroys most of the aromatic compounds that give basil its flavor. Dried basil is essentially useless. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Direct sow Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 7-10 days Spacing: 10cm between plants Harvest: Harvest leaves as needed after 4 weeks Problems: None serious

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Chives (Allium choenoprasum) The smallest member of the onion family, chives are native to a wide swath including Europe, Asia, and North America. They are a perennial crop and are great for pest control when intercropped with other vegetables. Chives are a wonderful addition to soups, stews, in salads, or on sandwiches. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Year round, best to plant in cool season Cultivating: Sow 5-10 seeds in a starter pot, transplant when 10-20cm long Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 15 days Spacing: Plant in groups Harvest: After 55 days by cutting leaves from the base. After 1 season, divide bulbs to plant somewhere else Problems: None serious

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Coriander (Coriandum sativum) Fijian, Hindi: Dhania Also known as cilantro, coriander is native to southern Europe. I can imagine the scene when the first Europeans showed up with cilantro and garlic and the Native Americans met them with tomatoes and chili. Forget Thanksgiving and its resultant turkey and stuffing. The real Thanksgiving is wherever they first made SALSA!! The world was saved. Both the leaves and the seeds are used as a spice, although in very different ways. The roots can also be used as a spice and has a flavor similar to the leaves. The dried seeds are pounded into a spice that is the central ingredient in masala. Since this spice has a tendency to go to flower early in the warm season, it is best to plant in partial shade during then. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Year round, best in cool season Cultivating: Sow direct Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 7-10 days Spacing: Plant in rows 5cm apart, 1 seed every 1cm Harvest: Harvest leaves as needed, pull plant at first sign of bolting Problems: Early bolting in warm season is dealt with by planting in partial shade.

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Dill (Anethum graveolens) Mmmm, pickles. Where would the world be without dill? Well, it would be without tasty pickles, that’s for sure. (Some of you reading this may call them gherkins—same idea, but better name.) Dill is a perennial spice that is closely related to the carrot. In Biblical times, the Jesus-scorned Pharisees often paid their tithes in dill, but Jesus gave them a good tongue lashing about paying tithes but forgetting about things like justice and mercy. Sorry, dill; it wasn’t your fault. Since then, it has been used as a cure for hiccups, in love potions, and to keep witches away, although that last one is an old wives’ tale—I have planted plenty of dill and continue to be plagued by witches. The leaves can be used fresh or dried, in which case the spice is called dill weed. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Plant February - September Cultivating: Start in starter pots, planting 3 per pot Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 10 days Spacing: Plant with 20cm between plants Harvest: After 55 days Problems: Do not plant near fennel as the two will hybridize if you plan to replant dill seeds

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Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) Hindi: Methi Fenugreek is a spice from southern Europe and Asia and is used mostly in making curry. It is often used in making sprouts as well as the seeds can be broadcast-seeded and then the sprouts harvested before true leaves appear. Fenugreek seeds are a galactagogue (new word for the day!), which means that it can be used to increase milk supply in lactating women. The added bonus is that if you take enough to be effective, your skin starts to smell like maple syrup. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Plant February - October Cultivating: Sow direct Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 7-10 days Spacing: Plant 2 seeds every 10cm, later thin to 1 Harvest: Harvest and dry seed pods at 12-16 weeks Problems: None serious

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Ginger (Zangiber officinale) Hindi: Aardrak Ginger is a tuber native to south Asia that is eaten either fresh or dried in cuisine around the world. Not only does it do wonders for food, it is a beautiful plant aesthetically and is often used in subtropical and tropical landscaping all over the world. It has truly amazing properties in that it has been shown to aid in digestion, it has antibacterial and antipyretic properties, it is a mild sedative, and compounds in ginger have been shown to prevent skin cancer and also to kill ovarian cancer cells. Using just ginger, sugar, lemon, and water, it also makes a delicious alcoholic or nonalcoholic carbonated ginger beer. Recommended varieties: Fijian local, Red ginger Recommended season: Plant September - October Cultivating: Plant tuber pieces with growing tip up Planting depth: 25cm Germination time: 14-21 days until it breaks the surface Spacing: Plant in rows 90cm apart, 15cm between plants Harvest: As young sprouts appear, dig up and use or replant tuber piece. Harvest entire plant after 10 months Problems: None serious

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Mint (Mentha spicata, Mentha piperita) Hindi: Pudina After inventing the binomial system of nomenclature, Linnaeus went about naming as many species as he could find. Peppermint, being indigenous to Europe, made that list and was named by the great namer himself. The only problem is that peppermint doesn’t actually exist in nature as a species unto itself; we now know that it is a hybrid of two other mints: spearmint and watermint. As a hybrid, peppermint is sterile and doesn’t produce viable seeds. That means that it can only be planted vegetatively from someone else’s root stock. Spearmint, being a legitimate species, does produce seed and that can be planted, but since mints hybridize so easily, you never know what you are going to get when you plant mint from seed. Unfortunately for us, most of the great uses, like tea, mojitos, and on curries, usually use peppermint. So, hopefully you can find a friend growing some peppermint that you can kerekere. If you do plant either spearmint from seed or peppermint vegetatively, you must put it in a pot or some other contained area. All of the mints expand extremely quickly and will quickly take over, not only your garden, but your corner of Fiji as well. In fact, at writing, the legality of planting mint is in question. Mint particularly likes moist, shady spots so unless you want to be your local riparian habitat’s mortal enemy, put your mint in a pot and keep that pot off the soil.

Recommended varieties: Spearmint, Peppermint Recommended season: Any, best in the cool season Cultivating: Plant root cutting or sow into pot Planting depth: Plant cutting 20cm deep, seeds 5mm deep Germination time: 10-15 days Spacing: Plant 1 root cutting per pot or sow many seeds per pot and thin later Harvest: Harvest leaves as soon as they are available Problems: None with pests. Mint spreads like crazy so plant it in a pot and keep that pot away from soil. Mint roots can grow out of the holes in the pot and into the soil. Once the root stock is established in the soil, it is nearly impossible to eradicate.

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Oregano (Origanum vulgare) Oregano is a member of the mint family, along with a number of spices. It is very closely related to marjoram, which is really just a milder variety of oregano. It is a perennial herb native to the Mediterranean region, which is why it is a staple in pasta, pizza sauces, and other cuisine throughout the region. Interestingly enough, eaten in large doses, it is a strong sedative and can even cause sexual problems in men. (Don’t tell the Italians.) Recommended varieties: Any including marjoram Recommended season: Plant February – November Cultivating: Sow in starter pots or in seedbeds, 4 seeds per pot Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 8-10 days Spacing: Do not thin. Plant entire pot or start 50cm apart Harvest: 8-12 weeks after planting Problems: None serious

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Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) A member of the carrot family, parsley is native to Europe and has never really been used outside of the western world in cooking. It is very slow to germinate and a bit finicky at first, but is prolific once established. Parsley is a biennial plant which means that it will not flower until the second year. It is useful as a companion plant because it will attract insects to it and away from your vegetables, even though the insects are not a problem for parsley. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Plant February - October Cultivating: Soak seeds overnight. Sow in seedbeds. Transplant after 1 month Planting depth: Surface to 3mm Germination time: 15-40 days Spacing: Plant 15cm between plants Harvest: Harvest few leaves at a time after the first month Problems: None serious

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Sage (Salvia officianlis) Yet another member of the mint family, culinary sage is native to the Mediterranean region. There are many different sages native to regions all over the world of the genus Salvia, but this is the most common of the edible sages. It is the archetypal savory flavoring for meats, stuffing, sauces, and has been instrumental in Simon and Garfunkel songs (which was a folk song about the spices parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme which were used in dressing the dead). It was one of the 4 ingredients in Four Thieves Vinegar that was said to ward off the plague. Its success is in question. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Plant February - October Cultivating: Sow in starter pots, 4 per pot Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 15 days Spacing: In rows 45cm apart, 25cm between plants Harvest: Harvest leaves as needed after 1 month. Mature at 60 days Problems: None serious

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Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) Thyme is a perennial herb, probably from the Mediterranean and western Asia areas, although it has been in widespread use for thousands of years. Used with other savory spices, it is an excellent spice in soups, stews, in meats, and in pasta sauces. Thyme produces large amounts of thymol, a compound that is the main active ingredient in Listerine mouthwash and was also used to dress bandages before the advent of antibiotics. In Egypt, thyme was a main ingredient in mummification and in European Middle Ages, women gave warriors gifts of thyme as it gave courage to the bearer, or at least would preserve them should they succumb. Recommended varieties: Any Recommended season: Plant February - November Cultivating: Sow in starter pots, 4 seeds per pot. Transplant after 1 month Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 14 days and grows very slowly Spacing: Densely in herb garden or 25cm between plants Harvest: Begin harvesting after 70 days. Keep as a perennial Problems: None serious

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Turmeric (Curcuma longa) Hindi: Haldi Turmeric is native to Southeast Asia and is still found growing wild throughout the region. It is closely related to ginger and grows in much the same way. Turmeric can be used both fresh and dried and, strangely, to deter ants (the jury is still out as to why this is). Be careful with dried, ground turmeric as it stains clothes, counters, and fingers. Recommended varieties: White, Yellow Recommended season: Plant September - October Cultivating: Plant tuber pieces with growing tip up Planting depth: 25cm Germination time: 14-21 days until it breaks the surface Spacing: Plant in rows 60cm apart, 40cm between plants Harvest: Entire plant after 10 months Problems: None serious

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Chapter Sixteen

Other Fruits and Things Banana Papaya Passion fruit Pineapple Basically any tropical fruit can and does grow in Fiji and those discussed in this book are just a few examples of fruit that can be grown. I have chosen these fruits because they are the only ones that may need a little extra attention or at least you will be able to use in your backyard garden. Some of the larger fruit trees, like mango and citrus, grow very well in Fiji but may take up your entire garden and will take years before bearing fruit. They are also easy to grow by simply putting seeds into the ground and watering. These fruits that I will discuss in more detail are the most common in Fiji. They grow very quickly and may take just a little more effort and how they are planted may not be quite as intuitive.

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Banana (Musa sapientum) Fijian: Jiana

Hindi: Kelaa

The banana tree is native to tropical Southeast Asia and the native variety has large, hard seeds. It is not actually a tree but is instead the world’s largest herbaceous flowering plant. Each banana ―tree‖ produces one bunch of bananas and then dies, however from the roots will raise genetically identical suckers like the Phoenix from the ashes. The leaves are waterproof and can be used for a variety of plate and bowl purposes, and comedy would have died as an art form 150 years ago without the banana peel. There are multiple varieties of banana that can be grown such as lady fingers, plantains, and vudi. Lady fingers are a smaller banana that has is sweeter and stronger than common bananas. Vudi is a larger banana that can be cooked like a starch when unripe or eaten like a very large, sweet banana when mature. Since the banana has been bred to essentially not have seeds, it is propagated solely by planting suckers. This means that there is very little genetic diversity in bananas and diseases spread rapidly through banana stands. There is some world-wide concern of the lack of banana diversity and pandemic, but until then, enjoy! Nutritional Value: Potassium, Vitamin C, Vitamin A Recommended varieties: Local Recommended season: Year round but best planted October - March Cultivating: Dig suckers from parent plant, plant in a hole that is big enough to accommodate root system and bury Spacing: Plant in rows 3.3m apart, 1.8m between plants Harvest: Fruit appears 36-48 weeks after planting and takes 3 weeks to ripen Problems: Black Sigatoka wiped out bananas in 1963 and may again rear its ugly head one day.

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Papaya, Pawpaw (Carica papaya) Fijian: weleti

Hindi: Papita

Papaya is often called Pawpaw outside of the US, where there is an unrelated tree that shares the Pawpaw name. It is native to the Central American and Caribbean region and is a tree-like plant that grows up to 10m tall. The fruit is usually eaten raw when mature, but it can also be cooked like squash when unripe. Women throughout South Asia have longed used Papaya as a contraceptive, but a couple of billion people later, it might be time to try something else. Papaya has a high amount of natural pectin which makes it a great jam fruit. Nutritional Value: Vitamin A, Vitamin C Recommended varieties: Waimanalo, Sunrise solo Recommended season: Year round Cultivating: Accidentally drop some seeds somewhere, watch them grow Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 5-10 days Spacing: 3-4m apart Harvest: Flowers and fruit set after 20-28 weeks. Fruit ripens at 9-10 months. Plant lasts up to 3 years or until the next cyclone Problems: None serious

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Passionfruit (Passiflora edulis)

The passionfruit is a vine native to South America but is now grown anywhere in the world where there it doesn’t freeze in the winter. It can be eaten as a fruit and is often made into a delicious juice. It was given the name passion fruit by Catholic missionaries who thought that the fruit bore some now unknown relation to the suffering and death of Jesus (as in The Passion). There are two types: a large yellow variety and smaller purple variety. Both are best eaten after it is a little wrinkled when they are sweeter. Nutritional Value: Iron, Vitamin C, protein Recommended varieties: Hawaiian yellow Recommended season: Plant April - September Cultivating: Sow direct or start in pots or seedbeds, trellis fast-growing vine. Transplant at 6-8 weeks Planting depth: 5mm Germination time: 10 days Spacing: Plant in rows 3m apart, 4.5m between vines Harvest: Produces various times after maturity Problems: None serious

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Pineapple (Ananas comosus) Fijian: Pinapiu

Hindi: Annanas

Native to Paraguay in South America, the pineapple was named after an old English word for pine cone since it bears a fleeting, superficial resemblance to a pine cone. We have that namer to thank for the piña colada (piña is Spanish for pine) and the pineapple itself for the statehood of Hawaii. Without the efforts of James Dole and his riches made from the pineapple, Hawaii would almost certainly share Guam’s territorial status and the US flag would lack the symmetry of 50 stars! What appears to a single fruit in pineapple is actually many fruits smashed together as they grow. Nutritional Value: Vitamin C, Vitamin B1 Recommended varieties: Smooth cayenne, Ripley queen Recommended season: Plant suckers April - July Cultivating: Take suckers from parent plants and plant. Pineapple tops can also be removed and planted but will take 2 years to produce fruit. Planting depth: Cover the base of the sucker Spacing: Plant in rows 1m apart, .5m between plants Harvest: Harvest in November – January and again in May - July Problems: None serious

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Chapter Seventeen

Aromatics as Pesticide When gardening on a small scale, the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides is reduced by a large degree. When commercial farming, it is very difficult to pay enough attention to your vegetables to keep them weed and pest free without the help of chemicals. The home gardener doesn’t need expensive and environmentally harmful chemicals though since by spending just a few hours a week tending to your garden, weeding and pest control can be done by hand. Another way that pests can be controlled is by using the natural ability of certain plants to naturally repel pests. There are many of these plants that produce what are called aromatics due to the natural compounds that they make, often as a natural pest repellant. These often have the added bonus of smelling good to us. We use many of these plants as herbs and spices and some others as teas. While keeping insects away, they also do a nice job of making our food taste better. Others just happen to look nice. There are a couple of ways to use aromatics to reduce pests. The first is to surround your plots with aromatics. Making a border or fence with aromatics looks nice, and creates somewhat of a barrier. The only problem here is that many pests tend to take to flight pretty well and find their way to your cabbage anyway. Another way to use aromatics is to put them in pots so that they are portable around your garden. For aromatics like mint, this has the added bonus of keeping it check, since mint would have no problem taking over your garden in short order. Usually, the best way to use aromatics for pest control is to intersperse them with your garden crops, planting them between rows. Some of the more common aromatics that are especially useful in Fiji are listed below, although you don’t need to be limited to this list. The list here is just the easiest and most useful to work with, but really anything that has a strong odor, or most spices, will usually be a good deterrent. Plants like oregano, thyme, parsley, dill, and sage also make great aromatic pest control plants. The best are the following: Basil: I am not sure if basil actually does the best job at controlling pests (it might) but it certainly tastes the best! I plant basil everywhere. It is an 101

amazingly versatile spice and does a wonderful job of keeping the bugs at bay. It grows from seed up to about 1m high so makes a great boundary aromatic, but can also be potted or interspersed. Marigold: This annual herb is not a food or a spice crop, but it does a great job at keeping insects at bay. It grows from seed up to a height of about 15-60cm, making it a great aromatic to be interspersed with your garden crops. It has yellow to maroon flowers and produces a wonderfully strong smell. Lemongrass: This aromatic grass grows high and wide so will eventually try to take over your garden. It is best planted from the side shoots of its parent plant on the boundaries of your garden, or you can plant it in a large pot to try to limit its size. It has a lemon aroma and is widely used as a delicious tea. Lemon balm: This is a sprawling annual plant that grows up to about 1m high. That makes it a pretty good boundary aromatic. Lemon balm is usually grown from cuttings of the parent plant and produces a citrus aroma. It is most often used as a tea. Mint: Mint is a biennial herb, which means it will live for two seasons before flowering and dying back. Its root stock, however, is basically immortal and will continue to spread and put up new shoots. Its uses are many from tea, in curries, drinks (mojitos!), or eaten raw. It can be grown from runners or seeds, but should be kept in a pot. Because its roots spread very quickly, mint will eventually take over your garden. It is best to keep it contained.

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Chapter Eighteen

Composting and Mulching The most important thing that you can do with your garden is to compost and mulch. Keeping in mind that your garden is only as healthy as your soil, any time that you can add nutrients to your soil (without also destroying your local environment) you should do it. The idea behind both mulching and composting is that over time the vital nutrients in your soil are depleted. Your garden soil will become depleted for a couple of reasons. The first is your fault. Vegetables are sponges for nutrients which is why you eat them—they provide you with those nutrients. But, that depletes the soil. The other way soil is depleted is also your fault. By clearing the soil for your garden, that soil no longer has those weeds to anchor the soil in place. Therefore leeching and erosion become accelerated. So, if you want to continue planting on that plot you painstakingly cleared, adding nutrient to that soil is a requirement. When we talk about mulching and composting, we are really talking about ways of improving soil health and dealing with waste. When land is cleared or when you are weeding, there are a couple of options. The first is burn it and turn the ash into the soil. This has the benefit of getting rid of your waste quickly and some nutrients are returned to the soil, but the vast majority of the volume is consumed and almost all of the carbon ends up as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, contributing to air pollution and climate change. The second, and best, way to deal with waste and get a useable soil amendment is to put that waste through an animal. Ruminant animals, such as horses, cows, goat, and sheep, are essentially really efficient composting machines. In half a day, living grass can be turned into the best soil you will find. If you have an animal, collecting its manure and turning it into the soil will far outweigh any of the negatives associated with picking up poop. Throwing that waste into the compost and letting it further break down there for a few weeks will eliminate any contamination concerns.

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The third way to deal with waste is to compost it. Composting itself can be done many different ways. One way, we call mulching, which is the simplest way to compost. Mulching Mulching is simply collecting organic waste and placing it directly on the soil beneath your garden plants. This can be done with both plant and animal wastes. This has a number of benefits, the most significant having to do with moisture. Providing a barrier between the soil and the hot sun keeps the moisture in soil, where you want it. Mulch also provides a great medium for beneficial bacteria, fungi, insects, and worms that add nutrients to the soil and keep it aerated. As the mulch decays it leeches its nutrients into the soil slowly which can then be absorbed by your vegetables. Any plant or animal waste makes great mulch, but leaves or grass make the best. Composting If you, instead of spreading the waste on the garden, put that waste into a pile, the breakdown of that material into nutrient-rich soil is greatly accelerated. The reasons for this have to with the pile itself. When piled up, plant and animal wastes will become active hosts for an entire economy bacteria, fungi, insects, and worms and all of that action causes the pile to heat up. This heat allows these critters to work even faster. If you want to see this, pile up some grass clippings some time and lift up the pile after a couple of days. It will be toasty warm in there, even if it is cool out. Those compost critters are hard at work. That pile does need a little bit of attention. After a few weeks, the oxygen in the pile can become depleted. This can happen even faster if the compost pile gets too wet. Without oxygen, the compost critters aren’t able to do their job and they are taken over by anaerobic bacteria that will continue to break down the compost pile. The problem is that these critters are much slower than what we want and their byproduct is methane, another harmful gas in terms of global climate change. (If you are making a methane digester to use the methane byproduct as cooking or lighting fuel, that is another thing altogether and is a great idea!) By mixing your pile every couple of weeks, you make sure that there is plenty of oxygen in there and that the good critters continue fighting the good fight. 104

One doesn’t need to be too picky about what goes into your compost pile. Really, anything living can go in there, but some things cause as many problems as they solve. The first that many say to not add to your pile is anything citrus. They say this for a couple of reason surrounding compost acidity and attraction of maggots. As long as you are not dumping crates of old lemons into your pile, these issues are negligible. Unless you eat enough oranges to prevent scurvy for the entire boat, your household citrus waste is fine. Meat is another debatable addition to your compost bin. Most say don’t do it. Bones won’t really compost anyway, so don’t waste your time. Meat itself will compost but it won’t smell nice and will attract more attention to your bin from animals than you probably want. If you can deal with those things, go for it! Finally, I would avoid putting papaya seeds in your compost as they will not be killed and they will sprout everywhere in your garden once you use your compost. Large sticks and wood will take far too long to compost and should be avoided. Other than that, all of your kitchen waste, garden waste, and animal waste can and should be thrown in and composted, including egg shells, peels, scrapings, food gone bad, cooking accidents, leaves, grass clippings, diseased plants, and manure. The heat that is generated in the compost pile does a great job of producing sterile soil. The vast majority of the plant pathogens that may have come into the pile with your diseased crops will be killed making it safe to add to any soil. So, how do you do it? The Compost “Bin” The first thing that you need to compost is a place to do it. Many will tell you that you need a compost bin, which is a plastic thing that keeps your decaying waste mixture organized. They have their place, and mine is in a heap out of the way of my real compost pile. The only thing that you need for a compost bin is a way to keep animals and rain out and moving air in. There are many designs for effective compost bins, but the only real requirements are that it is at least a cubic meter in size and that it has a cover. The reason for the size is that you need that critical mass to get enough heat to compost effectively. The cover is to keep both the drying sun and the abundant rain out.

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You want your composting waste to have the water content of a wrung out damp rag. Any drier and the critters can’t live in there and any wetter and there isn’t enough oxygen for aerobic respiration. Your compost will end up a methane factory. Usually, the amount of water that you have in your garden and kitchen waste is enough water to keep it damp. If your compost is too dry, your compost will have an ashy appearance. Simply add some water to your compost if that is the case. If animals (dogs, chickens, pigs, children, etc) aren’t a problem, you can stop with a covered compost pile. For a cover, sink 4 posts around where you will compost that give you at least 1 square meter inside the posts. Connecting these posts in pairs at the top will give you a horizontal surface on which to put a cover of whatever you use. Used corrugated roofing metal is a good option. If it has some holes in it, ever better. If there are dogs, chickens or pigs around, you will need something to keep them out. Assuming that you erected something to keep a cover over your compost bin, simply wrapping something like chicken wire around your posts is a great solution. Alternatively, nailing slats of waste lumber, bush sticks, or bamboo slats is great as well. You don’t want to close up the sides completely, as the compost critters like a steady supply of fresh air. If you want to get really creative, add a door to one side to make mixing and removing compost easier on yourself. This is the simplest compost pile and may be all that you need to successfully make compost. However, if you want to get more creative with your bins, you can significantly increase your composting speed and capacity. A two or three bin compost system allows for sequential composting so that you can process your compost much faster. The theory there is that you can use the first bin for your first batch, adding your garden waste and kitchen waste until it is full. Once it is full, it will probably be about time to mix things up a little. So, you can turn the compost from the first bin over into the second bin, where it can finish composting. This frees up the first bin where you can start adding new wastes. Once it is time to move your compost again, the oldest pile can go to the garden, freeing up a space. Adding a third bin allows you to either organize your garden waste and to keep it dry. You can also use it to turn your compost a third time for continued composting. You can go crazy after that in terms of numbers of bins and what you do with them. 106

Making Compost Actual composting doesn’t require much in the way of specialized knowledge, but there are some things to pay attention to. The ideal mixture for your compost bin is a carbon: nitrogen ratio of 30:1. That means that you should have 30 times the amount of carbon in your compost pile than nitrogen. Now, outside of buying a mass spectrometer and measuring the chemical composition of everything that goes in your pile, you can’t do much to know what your actual ratio is. There are some good guidelines however. Usually, brown garden wastes, like leaves and grass clippings, are high in carbon. Kitchen wastes are usually higher in nitrogen, although there is still plenty of carbon in kitchen waste. The easiest way to get this right is to layer your compost pile. Having a pile of garden waste near your compost makes this much easier. Keep a container in your kitchen that you can fill up with kitchen waste. Every few days when that fills up, empty it in your compost bin. Then cover the kitchen waste with plenty of the pre-piled garden waste. This will both make sure that there is enough carbon and keep the bugs down. If you screw up this ratio and add too much nitrogen, don’t worry. The extra nitrogen will just leech out until the ratio of 30:1 is reached anyway. If you get it wrong the other way and add too much carbon, your golden soil will be just slightly less wonderful. Continue layering kitchen waste and garden waste until your bin is full. Every 12 weeks or so, make sure that you turn your compost to get oxygen in there. Once the bin is full or after two months have passed, your compost is ready to move. Remove it from the bin. At this point, it should have the consistency of soil with lots of decaying vegetation in it. There should be no trace of kitchen wastes in the compost and it should smell like rich soil. If there are kitchen waste pieces or it still smells like decaying matter, mix it again, make sure it is moist, and allow it compost a little longer. At this point, you can either use the compost or let it sit a little longer. Letting it sit is a good idea if there are a lot of weed seeds in your compost, which may be the case if you used grass clippings for your yard waste. Setting the pile out in the open will allow those weed seeds to germinate in the pile instead of in your garden. Then you can just turn the pile every once in a while to kill the seeds and to keep it composting. Once you do use it, it is best to use compost like mulch or to mix it into your soil before planting. It also makes a great soil for starter pots either by itself or mixed in equal parts with soil. 107

Chapter Nineteen

Hot Season Farming Gardening in Fiji during the hot, wet season is a new challenge all unto itself. When we talk about the hot, wet season in Fiji, we are talking about the austral summer or essentially between the months November and March. During this period, Fiji turns from Garden of Eden to something more akin to where the serpent came from. The tropical sun hits full force which brings with it a good amount of rain. The combination of intense sun and buckets of rain make vegetable gardening slightly difficult. The problem is that most of the vegetables that we grow are native to the temperate regions around the world, and even if they weren’t originally, we have genetically selected them to thrive in the temperate regions. Over the last 100 years or so, botanists have done a great job of developing varieties that thrive in the tropics, but it is a slow process and there is a ways to go. Try as we might, there isn’t a tomato out there that can tolerate the amount of rain and heat that Fiji receives in January. Even if the agricultural scientists pull out all of the stops and bring tropical varieties to us, the problems don’t end there. Garden preparation is a whole new game in the wet season. Erosion can wash away the entirety of your topsoil if left exposed and heavy rains can leach all of the nutrients from the soil. Finally, the shear size of the rain drops that fall during this period can kill shoots and even young plants. It is a tough time to be a tomato. That is the bad news. The good news is that there are many things that you can do to keep the veggies coming during the hot months. The first is to focus your efforts on crops that are better able to handle the heat and moisture. These include bele, dalo leaves, spinach, okra, long bean, pumpkin, chili peppers, cow peas, cucumber, and eggplant among others. Many of these are native to tropical areas and some of them do even better during the hot months. The simplest thing that a gardener can do is to space one’s plants correctly. When crops are planted with the correct amount of spacing, and once they grow a little bit, the leaves will do their own job of protecting the soil from direct 108

sunshine and falling rain. Crops with too much space between them will allow for rapid erosion and drying from the sun. Along the same lines, MULCH! This can’t be stressed enough. The benefits of mulching an area in protecting from the sun and eroding rain will go a long ways.

A shade structure made of bamboo supports cut to a point or bush timber with a trimmed Y branch cradle the horizontal poles and covered with coconut or banana leaves keeps out sun and hard rain. Ensuring good drainage is very important as well. If soil is compacted or below grade level, water will tend to pool around your crops’ roots, which will breed fungi like rabbits in Australia. The solution to this is to make sure that when you plant your plot, the soil has been thoroughly turned and loosened and that the bed is raised at least 30cm above the surrounding area. Water runs downhill so if your plot is up even a little, the water will hit it and just keep moving down. Adding compost to your plot’s soil is magic in that it both increases your soil’s moisture capacity while improving drainage. Magic, see? In a bit of an anomaly, the wet season in Fiji isn’t always that wet. In fact, it can be quite dry and when it is, the sun becomes an inferno, on the hunt to kill your plants. When this happens, you will need to water once or sometimes twice a day. For this reason, crop protection is highly recommended during this period. There are many ways to protect your crops. One of the simplest is to make a little shelter out of local materials: bamboo, bush poles, and coconut fronds or banana leaves. Before planting an area, cut some large bamboo into about 4 lengths, each about 1.5m in length for supports. Cut each side of the top of the piece into a point, creating a nest where you can place a bamboo or bush timber 109

pole. Alternatively, you can use a piece of bush timber for the support that has a branch you can cut into a Y. Sink the supports, one on each of the corners so that the tops of the poles are about 1m high. Then on the long sides of the square you have made with the bamboo supports, run 1 long pole on each side on the top of the bamboo supports. Across these poles, you can place coconut fronds or banana leaves to cut down on the sun and also to protect from heavy rains. Of course, this will not reduce the amount of moisture that gets to your crops, but it will reduce the damaging effects that heavy rain can have. If you really want to grow tomatoes and other hydrophobes during the wet season, you will need to find a way to get them out of the rain. If you have an eave on your house and are able to plant along your house on the north side, growing tomatoes on trellis string against your house is a high-yielding option. This only works if your eave is large enough to keep some rain away but not too large as to keep all of the sun off your plants. You may have to irrigate this option as well. After that, you will have to build something. One idea is the build a frame of bush timber, bamboo, or timber and to cover the top with sloped UVI plastic. This basically creates a greenhouse, but it will block all water. This will have to be intensely irrigated. The benefits are wonderful. Pests will be reduced and too much water will cease to be a problem. Adding smaller coconut leaf covers under the plastic will allow you to control for sun exposure as well. It will all work wonderfully until you either have to leave for a few days or the next cyclone comes. A sheet of plastic attached to bush timber would be found in Vanuatu after a good cyclone. However, making it in such a way as to be easily removed would allow you to remove it in an absence (hoping for best) or cyclone. Finally, let’s talk about bugs. They love the wet season and they really love eating your crops during it. The other problem is disease and rot. They all love the rain and heat. The best thing that you can do for your crops is trellis anything that can be trellised. Getting your plant material, and certainly the fruit or vegetable part, off of the ground is very important. If it is lying on the wet ground, disease can get at it very quickly. This is important in covered or uncovered areas. If the area is covered, space will be at a premium and trellising will give more surface are to more crops. If the area is uncovered, you will need to trellis to keep many crops healthy. If a crop must be grown on the ground, covering the ground beneath the plant with plastic or mulch can reduce incidence of disease. 110

For the bugs, having a bottle handy with a mixture of water, soap, and chili powder is a good catch-all for bugs. It won’t kill everything, but it is a good, inexpensive, and organic way to control many pests. Other ways to control pests are with wood ash or neem oil, if you can find it. As was mentioned in a Chapter 17, planting aromatic spices and herbs alongside your garden crops will control many pests as well.

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Chapter 20

Conclusion If you are reading the conclusion of a gardening book, you are clearly procrastinating. My editor (my wife) didn’t even make it this far, explaining the multitudinous errors and sloppy layout. What I mean is, put down the book and pick up the shovel because even if you don’t know everything that there is to know about gardening yet, the best way to really learn it is by doing it. Mistakes will be made and animals will attack. Droughts, floods, and thieves will all happen; it is just part of the joys of gardening. I promise that your first bite of the tomato grown from the seed that you put in the ground will make it all worth it. Put a little salt on there, and you won’t even remember the time that kid on a horse towing a log followed by a pack of wild dogs waltzed through your garden. I also want to make it clear that this book is not the answer to all of your gardening questions. There will be many. Luckily, there are a few more resources out there. If you are interested in farming on a larger scale, you will want to head to the Ministry of Agriculture as they have a number of resources in addition to promises of updated ones. They also may be able to help financially if you are working with locals on gardening projects. So, get your hands dirty. Stop reading and start gardening. Now. Seriously, put the book down.

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Appendix 1

Pesticides: Giving up on Organic Gardening? In the worst case scenario, you may find your organic methods of pest control coming up short. Insect attacks can really wreak havoc on a garden. While organic methods of control such as crop rotation and organic home-made sprays can go a long ways towards keeping your garden weed free, the organic gardener in Fiji is a bit hamstrung by the lack of commercial organic options for pest control. In most of the developed world, there are a multitude of biological controls like predator insects and organic compounds and sprays that can be purchased and used to keep pests in check. So, while it might seem strange to include a section on chemical pesticides in an organic gardening book, I believe in having the information at hand and making informed decisions. While I am sure that the organic fundamentalists will tell you differently, some of the pesticides if used correctly can have minimal adverse effects on health and the environment and if the options to having good, fresh vegetables is to use a small amount of pesticide or to drive to a distant town, you may be able to call it an environmental wash. Don’t get me wrong, organic gardening is the goal and is certainly the best way to grow healthy vegetables, but slightly less healthy vegetables are better than no vegetables at all. There are three main groups of pesticides that are mostly found in Fiji: organophosphates, pyrethroids, and cloprids. I won’t go into too much biochemical detail about each of those here but they all each have their own nasty way of killing insects. As a rule, organophosphates are known to be the most effective, but also the most toxic to the environment and to humans. Pyrethroids have been shown to be fairly safe for humans, and we regularly put it on ourselves and our clothing to ward off mosquitos. Its effect on the environment isn’t quite so benign. Cloprids are third group and are safe in some ways and unsafe in others. If at all possible, organophosphates should be avoided entirely, only using pyrethroids or cloprids away from water and when there is no rain on the horizon. So, without further ado, here are some of the chemical pesticides that can be found in gardening centers in Fiji.

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Malathion: Malathion is an organophosphate which is widely known as the least desirable of the non-organic pesticides. They are generally the most toxic to humans and are certainly the most toxic to the environment. That being said Malathion is the least toxic of the organophosphate group. It has yet to be linked to any type of cancer in humans, but appears to be exceedingly toxic to amphibians and can affect drinking water quite adversely. It is mostly used as a wide area spray to control mosquitos, as was done over large areas during the West Nile Virus scare of the early 2000s. It is a broad spectrum insecticide that is useful for control of flying insects like fruit flies and mosquitos, neither of which are a significant threat to Fijian agriculture. Diazinon: Amazingly, this is still legal in Fiji. Due to its disastrous effects on birds in the US, this oraganophosphate was banned outright in 2004. Its effects to humans are fairly nasty as well. This is sold in Fiji and can be used as a broad spectrum pesticide in the garden, but I would recommend staying away from this one. Acephate (Orthene): Acephate is an organophosphate like Diazinon and shares some of its toxicity. It is considered moderately toxic by those who make up scales for such things. It has serious effects on honey bees and even small amounts will throw off the navigation systems of a number of migrating songbirds. While Fiji isn’t known for its migrating songbirds, these symptoms are indicative of the fact that organophosphates are nasty stuff. Acephate goes by the brand Orthene and is best at killing aphids. It can be used as a broad spectrum pesticide as well, controlling caterpillars and thrips as well. Special care should be taken with any organophosphate if there are bee hives around. Permethrin (Crop Control): In Fiji, the brand Crop Control is a solution of permethrin, which is a commonly used pyrethroid insecticide and insect repellant. It can be found in many common brands of flea and tick products for dogs and insect repellants, often impregnated into clothing for humans. (Interestingly, it is highly toxic to cats and fish. For this reason, with cats one should never use flea products that were designed for dogs. One also should not use it for fish bait. That was a joke.) Permethrin is the most common treatment for human head lice and scabies. It can 114

be used as a broad-spectrum insecticide on crops, but due to its toxicity to all cold-blooded animals (fish, amphibians, reptiles, etc) special care should be taken when using it around water. Bifenthrin (Venture): Another type of pyrethroid is Bifenthrin which sold under the brand Venture. While its toxicity is fairly low, because it is insoluble in water, it stays in the soil for a long time (up to 8 months). While it is fairly safe for humans to use and handle, it is highly toxic to fish and should be avoided around rivers or streams or during rainy periods. Bifenthrin is effective for controlling all insects.

Deltamethrin (Farmthrin, Decis Fortex, Venturel): As one of the safest of the pesticides on the market today, deltamethrin has recently become one of the most widely used insecticides in the world, especially in the developed world. It belongs to a class of pesticides known as synthetic pyrethroids that are widely known to be the safest of the group. Anyone who has lived in Fiji long enough has probably at least used deltamethrin in ant and cockroach chalk. While ingesting deltamethrin can lead to numbing and paralysis, this is temporary and can be avoided by not drinking it. Deltamethrin is quite toxic to aquatic life, especially fish, so should not be used anywhere near water. In Fiji, deltamethrin is sold as the brands Decis Fortex, Farmthrin, or Venturel. It can be used for just about anything but is most effective for caterpillar species such as corn earworm (aka tomato fruitworm) and aphids. Usage information can be found on the package and with any chemical, protective clothing should be worn when using it. Imidacloprid (Farmer’s Cloprid): Imidacloprid is an interesting pesticide in that it was modeled after nicotine, a naturally occurring substance found in many plants. It is quite specific in its toxicity to insects so has very little effect on other animals (with a few species of fish being the exception). It persists in the soil for quite a long time, so it is best that repeated application to a given area be avoided. While the jury is still out, it also may be a factor in colony collapse disorder which is having a catastrophic effect on honey bee populations in the US and in Europe. For that reason, it has been banned as a seed treatment in Germany. 115

In Fiji, Imidacloprid is sold under the brand Farmer’s Cloprid and is used for many insects such as beetles, thrips, and aphids. It is a systematic pesticide so is taken up by the roots of the plant. Insects are killed after eating the plant and thereby ingesting the toxin. For this reason, it is especially effective on sucking insects like aphids. Usage information can be found on the package and with any chemical, protective clothing should be worn when using it.

The following chart is a simplification of the information above. The information on toxicity is a general guide for comparison only. It is by no means meant to show that one pesticide is dangerous and one is safe except in a relative way. Great caution should be used when using any of these pesticides and should be avoided altogether if at all possible. Group

Organophosphate

Pyrethroids

Cloprids

Pesticide

Controls

Human Effect

Environmental Effect

Malathion

Fruit flies, mosquitos, broad spectrum

Moderately Toxic

Toxic

Diazinon

Broad spectrum

Toxic

Toxic

Acephate

aphids, broad spectrum

Moderately Toxic

Toxic

Permethrin

Broad spectrum

Fairly Safe

Toxic to aquatic life

Bifenthrin

Broad spectrum

Fairly Safe

Toxic to aquatic life

Deltamethrin

Caterpillars, aphids, broad spectrum

Fairly Safe

Toxic to aquatic life

Imidacloprid

Beetles, aphids, thrips, and others

Safe

Safe except for some fish

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Appendix 2

English to Fijian and Fiji-Hindi Gardening Vocabulary English

Fijian

Fiji-Hindi

Bucket Compost creep/climb (vb) Crop Drought Erosion Fence Fertilizer Flood Fruit Garden Harvest Herbicide Hose irrigate (vb) Pesticide Plant plant (vb) Seed Shade shovel/spade Soil starter pot Sunlight transplant (vb) Water weed (vb)

vokete maniwa sala itei dausiga/dravusiga sisi ni qele bai ivakabulabula ni qele waluvu vuanikau iteitei cavu (root crops), beti (veggies) wainimate ni co ca hosepipe suisui/sui na itei wainimate ni manumanu ca itei tei sore ni kau rurugu isivi qele kuro ni tei rarama ni siga

balti manure charho perh jhuura mithii baske tar lagao masala barh fal gadin turho grass waala dawaii hosepipe irrigation kirha ke dawaii fasal bo biiyaa chaii sabal mattii

wai wereca

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ghaam bo paanii kato

Bibliography Baselt, R (2008). Disposition of Toxic Drugs and Chemicals in Man, 8th edition. Biomedical Publications, Foster City, CA. Bonner MR, Coble J, Blair A, et al. (2007). "Malathion Exposure and the Incidence of Cancer in the Agricultural Health Study". American Journal of Epidemiology 166 (9). Bunch, Roland (1982). Two Ears of Corn: A Guide to People-Centered Agricultural Improvement. Dahlgren, Kirk (1981). Growing Vegetables in Fiji. US Peace Corps/Fiji. (Reprinted by ECHO 1989.) European Food Safety Authority conclusion regarding the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance imidacloprid EFSA Scientific Report (2008) 148. Linnett, PJ (2008). "Permethrin toxicosis in cats". Australian Veterinary Journal 86 (1-2). Ministry of Agriculture, Sugar, and Land Resettlement. Fiji Crop Farmer’s Guide: For a Better Harvest. Raiwaqa, Suva, Fiji. Ministry of Primary Industries, Department of Agriculture. Fiji Agricultural Chemistry Laboratory: Soil Sampling. Koronivia, Fiji. Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange (2003). Soil, Crops, and Fertilizer Use: A Field Manual for Development Workers. Peace Corps, Washington DC. Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange (2000). Soil Conservation Techniques for Hillside Farms. Peace Corps, Washington, DC. Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange (2000). Soil and Water Conservation for Small Farm Development in the Tropics. Peace Corps, Washington, DC. Pollan, Michael (2006). Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Books. New York, NY. R. H. Ian (1989). "Aquatic organisms and pyrethroids". Pesticide Science 27 (4). Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Plant Protection Service. Aromatic Plant in Home Gardens. National Food and Nutrition Centre. Suva, Fiji. Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Plant Protection Service. Grow Your Own Food. National Food and Nutrition Centre. Suva, Fiji. Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Plant Protection Service. Off Season Gardening. National Food and Nutrition Centre. Suva, Fiji.

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