Plantation Visit

We had a great afternoon out in Carnarvon yesterday. A few days ago we had morning tea on Basanti  and met  a local couple Deane & Sue Wiggins who run Hi Way Plantation and grow capsicums. They in turn kindly invited us to afternoon tea out at their plantation to see how capsicums are grown commercially.

Deane picked us up and on the way gave us a tour of the growing area here in Carnarvon. It’s not just bananas you know, they grow all sorts up here including red globe grapes, which apparently do very well in this climate. A lot of the plantations are growing undercover of shade cloth. Vast football pitch size shade houses stretch for miles along the highway.

Arriving at Hi Way Plantation we were greeted by the resident (pretending to be) guard dogs, whose names escape me, and after the obligatory bark they came over for a pat and a cuddle. They have a very healthy diet munching on capsicums as we walked around the plantation. Quite weird to see a dog eating a capsicum!

 

Deane took as for a tour of the plantation and told us all there is to know about how to grow a good capsicum.  My lips are obviously sealed on this snippet of information as I can’t give away trade secrets! I can tell you though that Deane and Sue were the first growers here to grow under shade cloth and it has been a great success for them. Wiggins capsicums are well sought after at market.

 

 

After a lovely afternoon tea of freshly baked scones, jam & cream (thank you Sue) we were then taken to the family vegie patch and told to help ourselves. For us yachties this was just paradise. We picked capsicum (of course), chillies, grapefruit, oranges, lemons, lemonades, avocado, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, eggplant, beetroot, rosemary, parsley, kaffir lime leaves, curry leaves...but no bananas! So much fresh food, we were in heaven.

 

Back to the boat to unload and then the job of dipping the citrus & some of the veg  in a Milton solution ( to kill off any bacteria and therefore aid with longer storage time), wrapping some in newspaper and stowing. We couldn’t possible fit all into our tiny fridge so a lot of effort is put into storing the fresh veg to make it last as long as possible. Of course the biggest plus here was that it was all freshly picked.

 

It was a great afternoon out and thanks to Sue and Deane for their hospitality. It really opened our eyes to vegie growing and the effort that goes into it on a commercial scale.

Now..... on another note, we came across this little train of caterpillars while out walking the along the Gascoyne River bed the other day. There were 98 of them in total, all marching along one behind each other like little soldiers. Almost joined together but not quite. They were absolutely fascinating. They were obviously on a mission but where to and why they were in this line, who knows? I thought  our friend Glen the at  maroowildliferefuge.blogspot.com in Manjimup might have the answer J

Or maybe someone else, we'd love to hear from you!!