New to all this

Hi all,

Hope all well ! As the topic suggested Ive never grown a bloody thing in my life until four months ago and boy am I in love with me fruit trees i.e. papayas,bananas, and basically anything I can grab my hands on.
I am based in Northern Mozambique specifically in distrito de lago.
I am hoping to make loads of new mates and learn a lot so please feel free to send ANY tips.
my idea is very simple, I am recycling plastic bags handed out in shops which are then littered around our beautiful lake and planting anything including moringa, acaia, and various other trees. If anyone has some tips please shoot me to death with them.
Thank you for allowing me into this wonderful space and hope I can be a valuable member.

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Welcome.

Iā€™ve got a couple bananas and a jaboticaba (Brazilian Grape Tree) and a Finger Lime. Thatā€™s the most unusual tropicals I have. Iā€™d love to see what youā€™ve got growing.

What are you doing with the plastic bags?

Scott

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Welcome thewezi,
Since our environments are very different,there is probably not much to be offered from me right now.
I am wondering though,how are the plastic bags being used to grow plants?Thanks,bb

There is/was one user who bought a farm in Hawaii, and another who is an American who is growing apples somewhere in Uganda. Most of us are stuck growing mostly temperate fruits in temperate climates.

If i could grow them Iā€™d start by planting mangoes, lychee, star apple, soursop, and jackfruit. I also look forward to seeing what you grow.

My wife is originally from a tropical place where these things grow but Iā€™m the one who is nuts for fruit. @mamuang grew up in a tropical country but currently lives in the cold U.Sā€¦ She may be of more help to you than most other users here.

i am not a violent person, but this is one instance i relish ā€œshootingā€ at people. Willing victims like you, or even unwilling ones, lol
anyway, you say you;re growing bananas, and papayas, yes, those are good, and we can talk about those all night , but before anything else, will adamantly recommend jackfruit and psidium guavas. Mangoes and sapodillas as well, along with that laundry list of tropical contenders
But jackfruit is the champ if youā€™re growing fruit in the tropics. Hereā€™s a stately one supposedly in your country. Prodigious food producer, and absolutely delicious, and it bears well even in challenging conditions, requiring hardly, if any, pesticides(not in its native asia, nor in the americas, so perhaps the same in africa)

it is ā€˜famine foodā€™ and ā€˜gourmetā€™ at the same time. Am sure youā€™ve heard of it, or even already tried it.

btw, youā€™re probably the first person from your patch of mother earth to declare your intentions and aspirations in this fruit forum. Many here would be delighted if youā€™d ā€œshoot backā€ with updates of your current and future projects.

Tropicana-Mozambica. An exotic and alluring catch-phrase :wink:

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The guy in Hawaii, if I think itā€™s who you meant, has quitted the forum after insulted many people whose ideology do not align with his.

The person helping people growing apples in Uganda is @applenut of Kuffelcreek nursery.

@jujubemulberry, spent many years growing tropical fruit in the Philippines. He is the one with knowledge.

I grew up in Thailand and spent all those years eating all kinds of tropical fruit (and still do). Did not pay much attention to growing fruit because it was not needed. Generally speaking, where I lived, one could stick a mango seed in the soil and watered it, it would grow. Or, one left a coconut alone long enough, it would sprout.

@thewezi may be our first member from Africa, not counting @applenutā€™s customers. All I know about Mozambique is its location. @thewezi, please let us know what your climate is like, hot, dry, humid,etc. How hot, how cold the temp is. What is the elevation? Also, what are tropical fruit people there are growing around you?

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Oh wow, TIL. I didnā€™t know! Iā€™ll have to ask him to shoot me with advice if we ever fulfill one of our dreams which is to purchase a little farm property over there.

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@Joe, and @mamuang. Thereā€™s no such thing as a monopoly of knowledge-- nobody knows everything.

we are all peers here. Or more accurately, we are all students who seek others who might give us novel ideas, information and perspectives :slight_smile:

as with many things in lifeā€“while eager to share whatever i know, just take them under consderation, and not gospel truth lol!

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Hi @mamuang

Thank you for such a lovely rsponse.Tears in my eyes nowā€¦ :joy::joy::joy::joy:

Mozambique has become my adopted country but am only from next door - Malawi. I am based in the north of the country in a small town called Metangula -Mapa - Niassa (provĆ­ncia) (Niassa Province) - MAP[N]ALL.COM . As metioned in my intro am new to all this so excuse my description of things, Ive spent the last six or so months in the wild with no internet or any form of technology.
Lago Niassa or Lake Malawi as it is known in my Country is Surrounded by three countries Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania respectively. We have a sub-tropical climate which is dry and strongly seasonal. The warm-wet season stretches from November to April, during which 95% of the annual precipitation takes place. ā€¦ A hot, dry season lasts from September to October with average temperatures varying between 25 and 37 degrees Celsius. Highest elevation . 1,836 m (6,024 ft).
Our top tropical fruits are Mangos which are just going into season now. I am also attempting to grow bananas, papaya,Masuku(indigenous to Southern Africa I think),Avocado,Guava.
The sad thing is mate that all these fruits grow well but due to western civilization if am allowed to describe it that way, we have forgotten our roots. We have high youth unemployment, raging alcoholism and vast tracts of fertile land sitting sitting unused and my idea is to get some of these young dudes on to this project. Please keep shooting with the questions, if am slow to respond, please excuse as am still trying to sort my internet access.
Grande Abracos
W

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Have me advice gun ready mate when you are and have a lovely beach for you to camp on. Trying to keep it pristine as I can while I can. Thy have just found large deposits of coal in the mountain ranges around and sadly the EI will be devastating if now done right but am here for the fight to save my lovely lake and they will over me dead body !

Preach Brother :innocent:

Hey @Chills

Please bear with me ā€¦ Am currently away from the project or garden due to many issues but back by Friday hopefully with a new smart phone with a cool Camera if I can get one this time round so will bombard(Dont know why I keep using such words) you with all me pics.
I basically collect the littered Plastic bags, shove some some soil in the their and chuck whatever seed I can find, So far , I have Moringa trees, Mangoes,Papaya, Acacia,Chillies, Tomatoes and various other things. Am in the pilot stage and so far so good, realized couldnt do it on my own after I recently contracted Malaria and various other ailments but well recovered and ready to go again but this time well prepared and now with all of you as me mates, have no excuse not to succeed.

W

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Yeah coal can be too tempting a find in a country like that. Countries that have high levels of real poverty, or high levels of corruption, would surely have a hard time resisting a coal mine. Even in the USA, with its near non-existent level of real poverty (this is a country that sets its own poverty line that is far above the international standard), we have a hard time kicking coal (though coal is losing here). This country has become increasingly corrupt, but I wouldnā€™t blame the reluctance to kick coal on any form of traditional corruption. At least not directly. I wonā€™t get further into the weeds since what Iā€™m posting is more for the lounge.

I can blab endlessly on this political stuff. Iā€™m almost as bad when it comes to fruit.

Anyways, Iā€™m glad to see you are still here. Again, welcome!

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@Joe You just might be my political soul mate :joy::joy::joy::joy: ! I looooooove politics especially your crazy ones at the moment. Though we humans are idiots(not all )
The whole world is on fire including here in Africa, people are tire of same politicians same crap, high levels of unemployment, corruption and all sorts mate.
Remember 1920ā€™s crash followed Hitler and WW2
well 2010 crash ā€¦ Orange man and his mate Boris Johnson. Funnily enough Germany seems to be on the right side of things this time.

Wez,
As a gentle reminer since you are new, Iā€™d like to let you know that growing fruit has several categories for different purposes including Politics.

You are in the General Growing Fruit. As the name states, general fruit growing is discussed here. Please feel free to create a new thread to discuss politic in the Politic category.

Also, when you post many posts, your membership level will increase. Thatā€™s when you can access another category like Lounge where many topics are allowed to be discussed as long as it is not lewd, overly aggressive or vicious.

In your profile, please add your country and/or region of your country and a zone. The info will be helpful to those who would like to help you.

Please tell us more about the purpose of your fruit growing i.e. self sustaining, commercial, helping youth have meaningful work to do,etc. How large is your land? A lot of members here including me started growing fruit because we got bitten by fruit growing love bugs. Only a few years later, weā€™ve learned that having a plan is as important as having the love for it.

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@mamuang
Thanks for the remainder. As you will note am highly excitable and will easily veer off topic.

I am just starting out and only now starting to put things down on paper to figure out what we actaully want to achieve. Initially this started as a bit of fun and then caught the bug.
Our initial plan is self-sustainance with bit of land we are currently working on, basically we want this to serve as a demo farm then who knows where that might lead us. Our land is just under a hectre (Pics to come).
As I say mate it has all been too quick and a bit muddled in terms of messaging and planning. I therefore will appreciate any tips on organising ourselves into an efficient unit.
In terms of our youth problems, am hoping I can tie that into it somehow, still working out how. I ve just managed to get a bit of funding from family and so am hopefully with the little we have now, it will inspire some of our lads that we are serious and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
How long have you been a fruity ? How did you catch the bug and do you have an end goal ?

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Hey i had a few questions if you donā€™t mind we all like to learn about what others do and suggest things we have seen help but climate and seasons really affect this
What is your precipitation yearly and do you experience long droughts?
What about high/low temps and seasonal fluctuations?
Do you have abilities to dig ponds or store water?

Hi @RichardRoundTree
Pleasure to meet you !
I reckon over the last few years I ve been in the area, our highest average would be 28 degrees celsius in October and our lowest would be 23(I know) during our winter in June. I know we are spoilt calling that winter. Look at this link below for average temps -

Do you have abilities to dig ponds or store water? Yes and no. We havent a need to as right next to a great lake, Am trying to get funding for tank as well as a solar water pump in the near future.
do you experience long droughts? no
Hope it is clear. How did you catch the bug Richard if you dont mind me asking ?

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When i was younger i would go and work in my grandpaā€™s basically organic (old style but he burned tires on frosts) orchard. I very much loved and enjoyed it and took to pruning and opening irragation ditches at times I was not supposed to. I had to work for him for (I think food) but was always there for harvest time and we had a WW1 vet friend with one leg that did a lot of cool old style farming techniques he had learned in europe after ww1. I did a ton of work for him because he had way more fruit than my grandpa did and would usually pick 3 fruits and get to keep 1 as far as his apricots, peaches and apples went. Eventually he went blind and yet could still go out and take care of his trees, I was always very impressed.

The older i get the more i realize that we keep moving the wrong direction in agriculture and it has gotten me interested in changing the way we do things!

You have an Amazing climate, it sounds like Hawaii. I love the idea of a solar pump and cisterns I do think you would need some form of water stored during your dry period (Maybe you would call that winter?) Or get more drought tolerant trees? I sadly know very little about natural gardening in a tropical climate but i know it works very well. I highly suggest the jackfruit and breadfruit trees as well as interplanting guavas and mangos and more trying to create year round harvest periods. We have some members that are from tropical areas and can suggest some great trees.

This video makes me salivate

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@thewezi,
I planted my first 6 friut trees in 2008. One would never know that I have grown fruit quite that long since I still donā€™t know much and have forgot half of what I have learned.

My dear friend talked me into growing fruit for a self sustaing purpose. I went along because I always wanted to grow fruit in the US. Where I came from, growing common fruit like papaya, bananas, mangoes, guava, takes no effort. I thought that was true with commons fruit here like apples, pears, peaches.

I was so wrong. I am in the humid east coast. So many pests from tiny ones that we canā€™t see with naked eyes (psylla, mites) to very large ones like deer. Lot of bacterial and fungal diseases.

My friends pretty much has given up. She is not interested in spraying. I have not yet. I have only a small area to grow fruit, a real backyard grower. No end goal yet. Doing it for fun. Will quit when it no longer fun.

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