Subtropical and Topicals in a Cold Climate | With Steve Fawcett from Tropo

🌱 In this episode, I sit down with Steve Fawcett to explore Troppo — an urban tropical food forest in Te Puke. Yes, tropical plants… outdoors… in a place that gets frost and hail!

We dive into:
 🍌 Bananas as mineral accumulators (and why banana lollies taste the way they do)
 🌴 Air layering and how it can trigger early flowering in plants
 ❄️ Frost protection strategies and mulching like crazy
 🌳 Why food forests build deeper community resilience than veggie beds alone

Steve’s casual style hides just how much knowledge he’s built through hands-on experimenting. From Papua New Guinea childhood memories of climbing fruit trees, to creating a lush, diverse, small-space forest garden in New Zealand, this conversation is a reminder of how much joy and abundance plants bring.

📚 Recommended for: food forest dreamers, experimental gardeners, permaculture enthusiasts, anyone curious about growing the “impossible” plants in their climate.

💡 Resources & References:

Troppo
Victor Group Charitable Trust
Kai Resilience Project

🎧 Connect with me.

🎧 Connect with me.

Transcript

Tropo Conversation

[00:00:00] I came into this conversation wanting to know about how to get into growing tropical plants in a cold climate. Because Steve is growing tropical plants, not just sub-tropical plants, but tropical plants outdoors in a place that gets hail and frost. I came away learning so much more than I thought I would, and I'm excited to share this episode with you because we're talking about so much more than just growing tropical plants.

We cover air layering using bananas as mineral accumulators. Why banana lollies taste a certain way, frost protectors and mulching like crazy.

Do not be confused by Steve's humble and casual nature. This man knows his stuff, albeit self-taught, and as usual, I can't call this an. Interview because I get too excited and extroverted and want to throw in my 2 cents, but I hope that you'll love this conversation I have with Steve and his experience with Tropo as much as I did.

My name's Steve Fset and uh, I head up a charity and Toki called Victor Group Charitable Trust. And under, that charity, we have an initiative for CHI resilience. And, um, and under that. , We have a whole bunch of things.

One of 'em is called Tropo, which is basically a tropical , urban food forest here in Teki. And we've set that up as a kind of a demonstration of what you can do in a small space. , I've always. Kind of being into plants, because growing up in, in the islands in Papua New Guinea, you're surrounded by tropical plants and bananas and mangoes and staff root.

And, I guess it reminds me of where I'm from. Who I am. And it kind of like ties me back to, you know, the, the good old days when I was a kid mucking around and just climbing any kind of tree and just gorging, you know, ourselves as kids on tropical fruit. And I, I know Teki isn't a tropical, [00:02:00] town, but yeah, I guess I thought I'd try it and at the same time, uh, try it and learn from it and use that learning for other growing things and putting.

Into the community. When did you move to New Zealand? So I was, I was born and raised in Papua New Guinea, um, up until about 12 and a half years, and then moved to Australia. My mom's Australian, my father's Kiwi, um, they're missionaries in Papua New Guinea. And, spent a few years in, in, uh, Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, and then came to New Zealand Jeep is, I don't know what year that was.

It was a long time ago. Time flies when you get. You've got a QE accent. Have I? Yep. Mixed. You don't think you do weirdo accent? No, I guess, yeah, you do. I've lived here for ages, so. Growing up I had a grapefruit tree and I always think about that grapefruit tree. We'd pick the food and then we'd be on the tram and we'd be just covered in grapefruit juice.

And it's really funny you talking about growing these fruits for your childhood memories. I'm obsessed with growing a decent grapefruit tree and I haven't been able to do it yet. People keep giving me dwarf stock. I'm like, I'm in a rural valley. What are you doing? Yeah, you want a big one?

Yeah, I want a big one. Yeah. And one that can fend for itself too. Yeah. Not a little baby that needs five steaks. Yeah. And another question then with Kai Re. Why food forests in terms of chi resilience? Why not growing a vegetable bed? I think that goes back to my childhood as well. I think formation in early years is a big thing and

you know, going to photography, I saw my dad doing, um, photography and had his own room for developing and stuff like that, and so I, the interest grew there. But in regards to plants, I guess, you know, you're in a tropical jungle [00:04:00] and it's not a monoculture. It's like so much diversity. Not just animal life, but also plant life.

And, um, I guess being , in those villages and seeing all the different foods that we're eaten and, you know, like you go to supermarket here and you'll see cauliflower or broccoli or whatever. Mm-hmm. And it's just the actual head that's used, not the leaves and, but over in the islands, it's like everything gets utilized and yeah, I, I didn't want to go for that monoculture.

Um, or orchard type thing where you've got all the same types of trees. And I guess because I'm obsessed with plants and all different types of plants and rare plants, you, you can't really have a monoculture with that sort of attitude. Yeah. With that sort of like really bad obsession. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I could not agree more. The worst thing we could do is, is mono crop one plant. Like in terms of chi resilience, eh? Yeah. And even in the supermarket, even for health, I mean, it's sprayed with pesticides. We are taking one part of the plant, like you said, in the case of cauliflower. I went on to pack and save website a few months ago, and there were eight possible fruits that you could buy.

I was like, this is the middle of summer. Yeah, right. I think it must have been a few months ago now. In the middle of winter. I was like, why are there eight fruits available? Grapes was one of them and none of them were New Zealand grapes. Um, one of them was apples and it was like several different cultivators of apples.

And so, such a shame there's 50,000 plants we can eat, I've read. Wow.

I tend to think of New Zealand as temperate climate or maybe subtropical. And you are growing tropical.

You've also got some Mediterranean and tro I noticed. [00:06:00] Yeah. And sub subtropical. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, there is definitely diversity here. Uh, a lot of different plants and I guess probably too, I don't have any like formal training with plants. Um, and I haven't studied, academically or, , even had that, um, physical hands.

Hands-on experience and orchards or anything like that. So when I started here, it's kind of like, it was a blank canvas and it was like, oh, that looks like a cool plant to grow. Stick that in. And then, yeah, I guess when I started putting all the plants in and I had a really small space, um, because most of it was gravel out there.

And, um. I guess with all the plants and, and the closeness of putting all the plants in there, it's, it's kind of, it kind of follows the centropic, agroforestry, line of planting with succession and, and stuff like that. But I ha because I had done no training or any workshops or followed any centropic, agroforestry, um.

The movement, it's kind of just been a wing it moment. It ad hoc, try it. If it doesn't grow, if it fails, just try again. Just try a different method. Yeah. You were telling me and you were showing me and we went for the quick tour before long tour. Sorry. 'cause I asked a million questions. Air rooting. And you were forcing, forcing, not forcing, suggesting that your plants go into flower.

Yeah. Can you tell me a tiny bit more about that? Yes. I think it's really interesting. So the whole point of the air layering, I, I get it, was, it was, uh, I didn't set out to like set this experiment and see what would happen. It was more along the lines that I knew how to clone plants, like from a little cutting and multiply them, but I'd never tried ear layering.

And [00:08:00] um, some plants are really, really expensive. So you buy one and it might be like $250 for a little plant and then you kill it. And then, so you need to learn to be able to like multiply that plant. And put it in different areas to make sure that it's gonna survive. So I, I started getting into ear layering, but what I discovered was that, um, I think the first thing I ear relayed was, um, I variated k manzi.

And when I ear relayed it, the branch that I ear relayed, um, um, began to flower. The rest of the plant wasn't flowering. It was just that on that one branch. And I was like, oh, that's weird. Anomaly. And um, and then I tried it on the staff route and I did the same thing. And then I tried it on, uh, the Kott, tropical Apricot.

I did the same thing, and then the ina bean and did the same thing. So, and then on the OT kaba as well, um, which usually take years to flour. Um. Yeah, they all triggered and I was like, oh, that's strange. So not knowing, you know, the, the whys and the wherefores behind it, it was just an experiment that I just wanted to clone and multiply my plants.

But then I discovered that it actually also triggers early flowering. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which is pretty exciting. Do you like, like for me, with mostly Mediterranean trip or temperate plants. Should I be air layering them or is it just easier to take a cutting air? Layering is probably the most guaranteed way that you're gonna get rooted, uh, especially on, uh, it depends, like figs, there's no point because figs are really easy to, to, um, propagate.

It would be easy, like there's a lot of plants that are like easy to propagate, but things like citrus can take quite a long time. Bode car are a nightmare. Um, some plants, uh, like some [00:10:00] native plants like cofi in there, uh, they take a long time to root. Yes. So it's better to have them air layering than just taking cuttings so we can air layer native.

Yeah, I've done it with Cofi. Yeah, I've done it with Cofi. I had six kaka beak and one took, no, that's not true. I bought them the seedlings and they all grew and the snails and S came and destroyed them. And so now I've got one that I protect fiercely. Yeah. And I could air layer it. Yeah. Just scrape off the back SW bag tape.

Yep. You just remove the cambian layer. You don't go too deep. There's actually a little tool that you can get from, uh, farmlands. It looks like a pair of scissors type thing. You just clamp it together and then you just put it on the branch and you fling it around the um, branch and it, it takes a really neat cut.

Mm-hmm. The branch layer off. Mm-hmm. And then you just wrap that with soil, um, or cocoa core or, or some sort of medium that'll retain a little bit of moisture but not too much moisture and won't dry out because you don't want to ring bark it. Well, you are and you are really ring barking it. You're ring barking it, but then because there's soil there, the roots will come out rather than Yeah.

The oxygen. If, if you constantly ring bark, something like running a weed eater around the bottom of a tree, you'll like such a tree, you'll kill it. But if you do it like once, it'll repair. And, and if it's not too far apart when they ring, bark a tree to kill it, it's quite a lot of camp, um, the outside barklay that they've removed.

Right. But when you're ear layering, you're only removing like a little section because. It's the top cut that the roots actually set from. So you don't need a big cut, you just need to stop that flow of, um, whatever the heck it is that goes up and down the plant. Yeah, that maybe, yeah, that stuff. The life force.

Yeah. Cool. The non-academic version, I'm gonna, neither of us are scientists or, [00:12:00] uh, formal training. I, we just like growing things that are cool. Yeah. I'm gonna try, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna try it. Maybe I'll do it on a grapefruit tree. Yeah. So what, what is interesting is since I, since I started ear layering and found out that it, it triggers early flour, I then discovered that in the kiwi fruit industry here in Taki, they also do it, it's called girdling.

And what they do is they girdle the kiwi fruit usually to induce early flour. Hello. And then secondly, um, they do it a second time. Once the fruit's on to increases the size of the fruit because the nutrients can't flow through that cambian layer back into the roots. It's gets stuck in the fruit so the fruit become bigger.

So yeah, that was interesting little bit of learning, which I learned by toing around and experimenting. And then later out found. Found out through, you know, Google. Mm. I should have searched first. Nah, maybe Google first and then try later. You gotta do something fun. Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, what you, you, you were cloning it and then you realized also there was early fruiting.

You wouldn't have known to Google. No. If you hadn't already. I mean, I never thought that there would be a way of making a tree fruit early. Yeah. And since then, like other people on, like, on the tropical fruit page and that have said that Yeah, it can, uh, it triggers like a stressed, um, characteristic in the tree and so it's, it think it's gonna die, and so it quickly produces flour and fruit to produce seeds so that it can replicate itself.

It certainly seems to happen to my sad plants. Like I had lemon grass go to seed and someone said, if your lemon grass has gone to seed, it's dying. Oh, the tract died. It was too much frost.

Okay, so my next question then is if I'm living in a temperate climate, which most of New Zealanders, except for the far north and maybe some

[00:14:00] beach homes. What's step one? Like if I was a beginner, which I am and I want to go tropical plants, what's my first step? I. Growing indoors? Should I be growing indoors? Should I be getting a glass house? Are those my, should I start there? Yeah, I think, uh, um, number of things, one, I went with tunnels because it's cheaper.

Like you can get a tunnel from tray tested for like $240 or something, some ridiculous price, three by two. And so that was my first port call was getting a tunnel. But I found that in wintertime, they don't have, they don't hold enough heat. Um, in summertime, even with the green, you know, tinge on them, they still get way too hot.

You could have the doors open and in some cases you've gotta have fans and ex extractors as well. 'cause they just get way, way too hot. So, yeah, I, I think going greenhouse, if you've got the money, you definitely, you need a greenhouse. Especially if you want to grow tropicals or. Or anything like that, especially in their early stages.

Once they get a little bit bigger and they can handle it, they kind of get a bit resilient and they can, you can go outside, but for frost, hard frost and, and your cold weather like that, you really need over story. You need to have some sort of plant that's over the top or plant beside your house or beside a fence that's kind of like gonna give it a bit of protection.

Um, I've heard frost moves like molasses and then it kind of can sit like molasses and move down hills like molasses. Oh, Kay. B. Talks about that. I've not really studied. Yeah. Frost, I kind of, and it kind of tracks with my property where you can see it sit and then you can see it run down the hill. And if there's a barrier like a tree or even.

Even a bit of log on the ground, the frost will go and go around it. Oh, and the logs giving protection to the few meters past it that's on [00:16:00] the ground. Right. I've noticed even my small trees, there's no frost underneath. Yeah. Well, you know, all like the trampoline, right? There's no frost under the tramp, but the, the tramp itself's covered frost.

Yeah. So would you recommend if you're starting to plant tropical plants outside having a canopy first of some kind? Yeah, either living or cloth or, yeah, some sort of canopy, even if it's makeshift, like, you know, whether it's a tunnel or whether it's, um, a fast growing tree. Um, some movements, you know, like the syn, tropic agroforestry will get you to plant different tree types.

So eucalyptus and, and you know, barn grass and a whole bunch of things that grow really quickly and give you that cover in the initial stages. But for me, because I was in the urban property, there's no point growing all those, um, tropic plants because it's the, I'd have no room for anything else. No. If you're on a big property, then fine, you plant away and, and go for gold.

Um, but so I guess that's another thing I, I didn't know which trees grew quick and which didn't, and I found that out by just planting stuff out. Anga beans are super quick to grow. If they've got full sun, um, Japanese raisin trees are like supersonic, even fijis are fast. Um, and when I first started I had a row just of Fijis that were protecting my little tropicals coming up like long and then, and.

Mangoes and that sort of thing, and that worked well. Um, but gee, you definitely need canopy. Um, and another, another really good one that, so I didn't, because I didn't know what grew quick. I knew bananas grew really quick. And so I used, I put bananas everywhere. I had bananas, probably spacings of.

About five meters in between each plot, and that basically covered the whole area and [00:18:00] leaves. And when I did have cold weather, those leaves took the brunt of everything. Mm-hmm. And then everything underneath was fine. And then the, the, the banana leaves. The top leaves, die back, top leaves, get all sh. You know, shriveled up, shriveled up brown and brown and horrible, and then in spring all the new ones come out and then you just trim them back and they look fine again.

Yep. When I first started, I was like really precious about how plants looked. You know, like if a banana leaf got a little split in it from the wind, or, yeah. And you just learn that that's the, that plant's designed to. You know, shred like that. Yeah. And you know, for high wind situations and cyclones and, and that sort of thing.

So you learn to accept that the ugliness of that plant is actually like, why it survives. That's part of the goodness of the plant. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like that too. I've had to take a few ego pills for that. Where people will come to my garden and I'm thinking, man, I wish you could see it on this date. You know, when it looked so good.

Or I'll have a root crop and the garden will look like a garden full of weeds, but I know underneath it's full of yams and everything else. So yeah. And you do, if you are working with nature, you're not gonna get them on a crop log. It's not gonna look like a pretty paddock of broccoli. No. It's gonna look like nature.

Yeah. And then. And then you are working with nature and it seems like a lot easier, maybe easier is not the right word. I'm hoping it's easier. It's more sustainable one day for me. Yeah, I think the easier route too. That's another reason why I didn't go to some tropic way because I saw so much like there's some videos out there of like the amount of work that people have to do to maintain like chop and drop.

Ana grass, all that sort of thing. And because I didn't have the space, I never, never had to have it. Basically all the, all the plants out there are the ones that I actually want or are plants that are gonna bear fruit. Yeah. Um, [00:20:00] and it doesn't look pretty all year because a lot of tropicals and non tropicals drop leaves in winter and so, yeah.

Yeah, that's true. You don't have any companion plants what you hear, you know, you hear a lot in food forest or read in food forest books where you need so many companion plants for the one fruiting plant, and I've been. Following that method a little bit. But if I'm honest, I only want the fruiting plants.

I mean, if it's a cool companion plant. Sure. Um, I like the nitrogen fixes. I really like the look of cofi. Um, I've got some red dogwood, for example, which is the chop and drop, and that's kind of cool. I made a basket using that last week. Yeah. But I like the idea of just having the things you want and like you said, like the bananas are gonna die back.

They're designed to do that anyway. Um, yeah, that's food for thought. I like that idea. I think especially if you're suburban, you don't need to grow a gum tree. It's gonna take up the whole Yeah, exactly. Backyard. Yeah. Like the silk faucet I've got out there. Mm-hmm. Which, you know, when it flowers, it's gonna be pretty, but that thing will grow massive if I don't keep on top of it.

I was trying to find out the definition difference between tropical and subtropical climates, which is so. Silly. I had to google this, but tropical plants literally come from the tropics.

So tropic of cancer to Capricorn. So that middle session, so you know of earth, so you know, you know more than me. Yeah. I had to Google that and I was like, oh, that's what the lines on the globe are, the tropical lines. And then just under that says subtropical. Um, and yeah, we have subtropical climate very north of New Zealand.

Yeah, right. Maybe down to Auckland, along the coastline and other than that, it's temperate. So you are growing two climates up from, from temperate, which I think is impressive, especially to be growing them do we want to talk anymore about growing outdoors? So for a food forest tropical or subtropical guild, IE Frost hardy, upper [00:22:00] story using wind cloth, glass house, cold frame, frost manipulation, other design considerations. Is there anything else you want to add? You probably, uh, I guess I see it in a lot of people that are wanting to grow, but they put growing off for years and years 'cause they're like doing these eternal plans. The perfect plan. There ain't no perfect plan and you're gonna, you're gonna have a lot of plants die. Um, but. I think one of the biggest things I found was that a lot of the plants are actually more hardier than what um, you think they are.

And I found that plants in the ground outside did better than sometimes even slightly heated or. And tunnels like my mangoes. Mangoes can be really difficult because they get like this fungal disease and in a tunnel it is just, it's just a nightmare to try and keep the thing alive.

And I, I ear, my gosh, I like lost quite a few of them, but you know, mangoes outside are doing fine here, which is really surprising. And a lot of plants are actually doing really well, like flax. And, and all these plants. I didn't realize, you know, at the time when I got them that they'd actually handle quite cold, um, temperatures.

It's just that frost as the frost is, is the not good one that like a lot of plants can handle cold, but when it gets Yeah. Frosty and. And then the sun in the morning, it's not good because the frost, am I right in thinking the frost is in the plant and then when it heats up, it expands and that's how it damages the plant?

Yeah. I don't actually know. I've not actually researched it. I just try and keep that frost away. Here we go. Frost freezes the water inside plants, which expands, ruptures the cell walls and leaves. Plants limp [00:24:00] and blackened. Once they thaw, they're not a problem for Mediterranean plants or temperate plants because they've evolved to, right?

They've adapted by losing their leaves or whatever they do. Sub tropicals hate them, and tropicals surely just kill over and die, right. Was what I thought. And I noticed, so with your bananas, you are not too phased because do bananas die back every year. Anyway, bananas. Once they flour that after they're floured and fruited,

if you leave the stem, it'll get reabsorbed into the actual banana plot. But yeah, basically they're replenishing, replenishing themselves. So like it's not like a palm tree, for example, if the palm tree dies in the center. It's history. Yeah. Because it's, yeah, it's not gonna reproduce. Mm-hmm. Um, another puff or anything like that.

Whereas bananas are fine. They're always like pumping out more pups or more, more leaves. As long as it hasn't flowered yet, it'll keep pumping out fresh leaves for spring and summer. Yeah. Yeah. So, and if it has flowered, you might as well leave it there to protect the plant, the plants underneath. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, once it, once it flowers and fruits, you still got all those leaves on there. And, um, the thing is, is that it acts as a frost cover, but it's also giving you fruit. Yeah. Whereas, and the bonus of the banana as well is that it's full of potassium. The whole plant is. And so when you chop that thing down and, and for your chop and drop it, it's just, it's a really good feeder anyway.

So a good feeder for flowering potassium is really good for flowering. Yeah. Um, and for fruit set, is potassium good for fruit set? Yeah. Yeah. Flowering and fruit.

Brilliant. You did a post recently that said the holy grail of the subtropical food Forest growing the truly tropical poor PO, as it's known in New Zealand and Australia, or papaya elsewhere.

Kerik papaya, is that what you'd call? Yeah. And not to be confused with the Mountain PPO [00:26:00] tobacco or American ppo. I can see the appeal in having fruit that is beyond the supermarket spray free groan to ripeness. And my question to you, what are your most pro prized possessions or the hardest to grow?

What are you most proud of? Firstly, I know that this isn't what you trained in. Or you're not a scientist, but you know a lot about the plants. Like even to know that, I mean, even just to identify all the plants to start with, let alone knowing, well, you know, you can let the middle of the banana tree die, but you can't let the middle, middle of a palm tree die.

So I'm gonna put a blanket over in the middle of the night, um, or when the frost's gonna hit, you know, a lot. So you've obviously just what you've grown up with them, you've done some Googling. And then you've just learnt on the way. Yeah, well, like across the road, the neighbor had this palm tree that he treasured and yeah, it got hit, uh, last year I think it was, and the center rod it, and that was the end of it.

And it was, it was a big palm. A cool looking palm. Yeah. But um, yeah, he lost it. And that could have been saved just from one blanket or, you know, and so I've not just learned from Googling, I've also learned from other people by observing. And seeing. Um, and I guess that's why I'm really precious with my coconut.

Like if I know I've had so many coconuts that this, the center FFR has like rotted out and then I've lost it. Once that center goes your history. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Whereas Banana, that whole thing can rot like disappear into nothingness, but below the soil. It's the corns and those things are just waiting.

Waiting for spring and summer. Yeah. Waiting for for some heat and then they'll be like taken off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So learning from community. Yeah. Learning from your neighbor, but also other people that are growing some more things. Yeah. What's your favorite plant?[00:28:00] 

Probably a favorite fruiting plant. Two of them probably. Ware and otti. Yeah. Um. My favorite looking plant, probably my rarest one would be my Moss Nano, which is a um varied banana. And I'm really interested to see the fruit on that, whether it's gonna be pink and green variated as well. 'Cause I've got pink bananas. That would be so cool.

Also, just pink bananas are cool. Yeah. I've got the, like, the dwarf, the, um, Musa Valentino, which is a dwarf pink banana, which is like little hairy fury. Velvety. It's called the ve pink Velvet banana. Right? Yeah. Because the skin is quite velvety. Yeah. Is it yummy? No, it's full of seed and tastes horrible.

It's, it looks cold. It's, it's classed. They say it's edible, it's classed, ornamental, but they say it's edible, but it really is not. That means it's not toxic. It doesn't taste that great. Mm-hmm. You know, the, um, the banana pith, the white stuff that's down the side of a banana, that, and it kind of leaves it, well, basically the whole banana of the pink velvet tastes like that.

It is no sweetness. Just that taste. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, not toxic, but not particularly, but so many seeds. Oh my gosh. That's like, yeah, those things like pop prolifically and seed prolifically. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you know I listened to an entire podcast once on there, the banana lolly, you know, like banana lollies.

Oh, right, yeah. Yeah. Actually, were based on a previous cultivator that used to be worldwide. Oh. And then it got wiped out by a disease. And now we have the cavalier, what is it now? Banana, lolly, you know the banana lollies? Like every time you eat a banana lolly, you know what it's gonna taste like. Yeah.

Horrible banana candy. But it doesn't actually taste like banana that you'd get from the supermarket. Yeah. Right. Well, the flavor apparently is based on a previous cultivator that people were, that people would still be able to recognize now, but it got wiped out by disease. I have to fact stand that.[00:30:00] 

Well, that banana lolly kind of, it's got that kind of flowery taste to it, eh? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. I like those little yellow bananas that you buy in a lolly packet. Yes. But also, fruit bursts, banana lollies or Right. Anything banana flavored Oh, right. Has a flavor to it that doesn't taste like the cultivator of bananas you get from supermarket.

Now are they called cavalier? Cavendish or Cavendish. Thank you. All my mistakes. I'm gonna edit it out in all your ones. I'll leave in. Alright. , This is what someone asked. Okay. If I struggle with radiant frosts rather than legit Sub-Zero frost. So that is the hot ground swaps with cold air too quickly and the condensation settles on the leaves. Then would things like stones and rocks under my trees to try and retain the heat of the day.

Be counterproductive. So do we want to use things like stones, et cetera? Yeah, so I've got a coconut, you sort of coconut out there and I've got like, so I had this idea of like putting big river stones around it just to as an extra heat absorption. Um, and I put stones around, like rocks around a lot of my tropicals when I first began, I think.

Um. I think it, it's gotta, it's gotta work. It's gotta do something, right? 'cause it's causing, it's causing more spatial, um, like distance between say cold air and the bottom of the rock, you know? So it's like, it's creating more distance from the roots. Up, up the, um, plant. Um, secondly it absorbs heat and some sort of heat.

It's gotta, even if it's like minimal, it's absorbing something, right? Mm-hmm. It's gotta be. Um, I think mulching was a really good one. Like I mulched that whole line really thickly and that helped. But having a lot of plants, um, over [00:32:00] story and also under, uh, like for example, a lot of tropicals don't like having wet feet when it's cold.

Like they can handle wet feet in the, in the islands, right? 'cause it's tropical. It's like raining constantly for like half the year. Yeah. They can handle wet feet. Yeah. But they just can't handle it when it's cold. And so I've put a lot of, um, even indoor plants like, um, monasteries and variated monies, plants that I like.

Um, uh, and I've put them like even, even indoor plants that you might get from MI 10, you put them along the bottom and what that does is it helps the draw. Uh, the moisture out of the soil around, you know, during winter time. Um, I, I guess everything's been an experiment. Yeah. Just trying multiple things.

Yeah. Multiple ways of doing things, but I think mulch is a big one. My banana's definitely helped. Yeah. What do you use to mulch? Uh, when I first mulched that, because that basically, that that line out, that whole area out there was just grass with grass gr in it. And, uh, I just got mulch from the landscape supplies.

And it was just basically bark, right? It was a lot of bark. Yeah. There was so much bark ridiculous. Um, and, uh, that, that was another mistake I did. What I did was I did this big long line and I used, uh, sheets of black polythene plastic. I didn't run a whole full sheet. 'cause then you've gotta like cut holes in it, right?

And put your plants around it. So I did like segments of say like 60 centimeters long and then I put them down and then I put a plant and then I put another sheet down and put a plant. And so I did that and I mulched the whole lot really thick, like probably. Oh my gosh. Probably 20 to 30 centimeters thick of, of mulch On top of the plastic.

On top of the plastic. Right. 'cause I wanted, I wanted it to retain moisture and also create like, um, you know, when [00:34:00] mulch breaks down, it creates some heat. Mm-hmm. Um, especially fresh. Um, yeah, fresh mulch. And so I wanted to create heat and all that kind of stuff. But then, then I, after doing it all, and.

Thinking it was a great idea. I realized, oh, the plastic, it's not gonna let water through into the roots. No. Right. Yeah. But lucky. But, but it was a mistake I made, but lucky, um, I chopped the plastic into like pieces because then I was able to just pull the plastic out and the mulch stayed there. Yeah. And so I ended up, and, which was good because what the plastic had done, it had, I didn't actually cultivate any of that dirt.

Like it was just crappy lawn. Right. But when I pulled the mulch out, all the grass was dead. And the mulch just fell down. You know where the plastic Yeah. Had been. And then it's, it's ended up like you can, like where all those pineapples and all that were along that line, you could see there was no weeds

that was done like three years ago. Yeah. Yeah. So great. What I've done at my place is lay down the black plastic and then once the grass is dead, because I've got ku. Moved it and then done the cardboard and mulch.

Yeah. I don't know why the cardboard, I think just for an extra level, like another six months of protection, you know? Yeah. Right.. And you don't have to go phosphate, you don't have to spray everything. Yeah. Yeah. So like, even though it was a big mistake of putting plastic down, right. Yeah. And it was a, it was a big fail in terms of No, in terms of the, like the plants not getting water when it rained.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, it was, it, that was another thing that I discovered that, oh man, that really annihilated that grass in that area. Yeah. And then, um, the mulch just went down and I've not, didn't use any cardboard in there at all, and I was, yeah, it's worked out fine. I wonder if I could get away without using cardboard.

'cause it's kind of a pain. I go to the bike shops or I go to like farmlands or Fallons up our way and get the big sheets they put on the, on the pallets. Right? 'cause there's no plastic Tate or Yeah, right. Staples or anything on them. Um, [00:36:00] but it's a lot of trips, you know, maybe I can just get rid of the cardboard.

But yeah, an example of a try something kind of failed a little bit at one side, one, one end. But you learn something. Yeah. Yeah

alright. One more. If my supposedly cold tolerant tropos, like my Hardy Harry OSes lose all their leaves during the winter cold, is it okay, are they going to bounce back and will they still be able to bear fruit even with their leaves gone?

So I guess the answer here is it depends on the plant. Tamarillos. Yeah. Tamarillos. I would recommend getting a, a, um, flame thrower and burning them things to the really not frost tolerant. Then. You don't like tamarillos Tamarillos? Uh, they're a night shade and oh my gosh, they are really problematic plants.

They attract everything. They're stinky. They're stinky as well. They're like the woolly nightshade plant. That is the weed that grows all over New Zealand.

Mm-hmm. Same family. Mm. Oh, so tomatoes I know, but they're smelly as well. And they, they're prone, they're prone to the same thing. Same with potatoes, um, saute and whitely. Um, tamarillos are usually lose leaves in winter, like a cold winter anyway, and they'll come back. Yeah. Um, they're really easy to propagate if you just chop, chop the stem and plop them somewhere else.

You could just chop the stem. Yeah. They just need a bit of heat. . Like spring is the best time to propagate. Unless you've got like grow tents or you've got heated areas. Yeah. Which costs money to run and yeah. You want try avoid that.

What is something that I haven't asked you that you think, oh, I wish she'd asked me that. I wish we could talk about this. Anything come to mind? Oh, there's so much. My goodness.

I think, I think, uh, probably, yeah, don't be fear of don't fear failure, um, and experiment and, and don't fear like, um, somebody. [00:38:00] Observing you and going, ah, look at him. He failed doing that, or whatever. Um, I think like, probably one of the biggest things that I've, I've recognized when having like food forest events and gatherings is that people are really scared.

It, it's like this fear, um, of a big one is fear of failure. Fear of the unknown, fear of not. Doing something the most perfect way, um, killing plants and all that kinda stuff. And I've seen people that have been like going along to workshops and, and stuff like that for like years, like three, four or five years before they've even planted anything out.

And they spend so much time planning and planning and don't actually get anything in the ground. Just get stuff in the ground. And if it's not growing that good, then just dig it up and put it somewhere else like. That's what I've had to do. And I guess you could, I think with like growing a monoculture, you, you know, exactly like that one plant, that one particular citrus or that one particular plum, you know exactly what it needs.

You know, the soil needs the drainage, it needs the temperatures, all that. But when you, when you've got a garden that's so diverse. Like some things hate heat, some things love it. Some things hate hot. You know, like you've got so many different plants and they're all like, you know, like trying to survive together.

I think it's really hard to plan something like that out. Yeah. So, yeah, don't, don't be scared. Don't be shy to try something. Just try it. And like a lot of my knowledge has come from like failure. You know, like failure at cuttings, taking cuttings of certain things like citrus and cofi and then, oh, why is this not, why is this not successful?

So, oh, let's try e layering. Yeah. You know, [00:40:00] and then, you know, trying hydro hydroponics and then try D WC and then RDWC and then, um, auto pots with cocoa. And you know, like, I've tried everything and I guess you gotta try. And that's, that's how you learn. Well, that's how I learn. Yeah. I learn by trial and trial and error.

Yeah. There's only so much textbook and pen to paper and conferences and workshops you can go to before you actually have to put something in the soil. Yeah. And observe it and be with it. Yeah. And you might know everything. You know, theoretically, but then when it comes to, I guess, I guess it comes down to the, the whole movement of permaculture as well.

Um, they were really dubious, um, about the academic side where it seemed that there was no practicality or, or practical and, you know, like, yeah, it's all theory, but you've never planted a tomato plant. Yeah, and I, I think that there's, like, I think there's room for both academia and also, um, non, but yeah, it, I guess it depends on your learning style as well.

And I, I don't like reading instructions, like I'm the sort of guy that will just try it and then if I fail, I'll read the instructions. Right. Yeah. Like, where did I put them? Right at the end or Google right at the end. Yeah. Um. Yeah, I'll try something first. But other people will, like, they'll read the instructions and they'll get it right the first time.

Yeah. You know, and I'll be like, damn, but I should have read those instructions. Yeah. Yeah. But my learning style is like that. I just, yeah. Try something and learn that way. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Good advice. I think. I think it's great advice, and I like what you said about it's gonna look, it won't look perfect necessarily, but it could be.

Yeah, that's been a huge thing for me is this isn't gonna look a certain [00:42:00] way. I mean, obviously a happy plant looks a certain way, but if you're growing for nutrient dense food, you're growing to enjoy the plant, eat from the plant. Okay. If it's sad in the winter for a couple months, but it's nutrients are in the.

Roots and it's gonna come back up again and it's happy. And it's not really about, is it photo worthy today? Yeah. And like, kind of losing the idea of perfection. 'cause nature's not perfect. There's always something dying. Something that's something that's little, growing something in the middle and something that's happy.

Yeah. It's always a mixture of all the things if people want to follow you. If they want to buy from you, if they want to support your charity, what should they do? Um, well they can just do a Google search And Of Chop? Yeah. Of Chop or Victor Group Charitable trust or just search, um, yeah, plant stuff in Taki, or My name Steve Fset.

And I'll come up. Okay. Hopefully there's not too much bad stuff out there of being online. Maybe there will be after this podcast release. Yeah, maybe. And I'll put some links into the show notes as well. Yeah. Cool. Thanks Steve. No worries.

I said I would fact stamp my story about banana candy, and yes, many banana lollies,, are based on a banana cultivator that was sold worldwide up until the 1950s. The gross Michael Hill, had a high concentration of is acetate, which is the chemical compound used to flavor banana candy. Then Panama Disease spread through plantations, and growers switch to Cavendish bananas. This is ironic because Cavendish bananas are currently under threat from a different strain. Which the gross Michael didn't face. So now you know A, why they taste the way they do, and B, why we need to save heritage, variety of seeds and not rely on monocropping.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a Friend, because it helps deliver our message of living and harmony [00:44:00] with natur