Gardening, Homesteading, and Growing Food in the Tropics
Gardening – tips, ideas and how-to guides from tropical food garden gardening blog. From backyard to homestead food growing!
Many types of nuts will grow well in the tropics, including coconuts, cashew nuts, macadamia nuts peanuts and almonds. While peanuts and almonds are not true nuts, most people would think of them as such, we give you the botanical definition of a nut in this post. Don’t mistake nuts for vegetables, because nuts are … Read blog
Growing bananas is relatively easy, but requires a warm, humid climate and well-draining soil. Bananas are generally grown in the tropics and are an excelled food plant to grow in a tropical climate. This post covers how to grow bananas for new gardeners who want to branch out from vegetables. Each banana plant will only … Read blog
People say that gardening is when you spend $300 to grow $1 worth of tomatoes. This can be true for some people, but if you get it right, growing your own fruit and vegetables can be a great way to save money. In these difficult times, with household expenses going through the roof and a … Read blog
Mulberries grow on trees, not bushes, so despite the popular song, it’s a tree, a deciduous tree that grows easily in seemingly any climate. The fruit, bark and leaves of a mulberry tree are all edible and there are various culinary, medicinal, and other uses of mulberry leaves. This post is about mulberry leaves and … Read blog
Yes, Mulberries do grow in the tropics. We are picking or harvesting ripe purple mulberries from our tropical garden right now, in early October, our spring. Which came as a surprise to me as I first encountered mulberries back in my home country, Wales UK, and later in the mountains of Romania, where winter temperatures … Read blog
Why won’t my plants grow? I’ve been there too. Plants not growing, seedlings not germinating, small, weak plants much smaller than they should be and taking far too long to grow. It may not be your fault, you may not have a “black thumb”. The problem could be your bought soil or compost not being … Read blog
Yes, you can grow cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) in a pot, container or raised bed so long as you provide them with good soil, adequate water, and adequate sunlight. You will need to provide a stake or trellis, in the pot or nearby if you plan to grow them vertically. A vining cucumber will trail and … Read blog
Full, deep shade isn’t the best choice, partial or dappled shade is more what we need for these shade-tolerant food plants. Shade can be very useful in summer to stop plants such as rocket and lettuces from bolting and going to seed. Shade can also reduce the rate of a plant’s growth in some instances. … Read blog
Growing bananas and banana plants is pretty easy if you have a warm-tropical environment, This post covers how to grow bananas , some important tips and tricks to produce your best banana crop, and some vital facts about growing bananas. Growing Bananas Bananas grow in bunches on a banana plant. A banana plant is not … Read blog
If you have chickens free-ranging in your garden, on your property, homestead or back yard, you’ll need to chicken proof your garden, pots, raised beds, and vegetables. These are the chicken-proofing ideas and designs that have worked for us in our garden over several years of keeping chickens in a garden or homestead, in suburbia … Read blog
You can grow lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus or Cymbopogon flexuosus) in a large pot, raised bed, or direct in your garden soil. Growing lemongrass is easy if you have a tropical climate. In cooler climates, you will likely have to overwinter your lemongrass plant indoors. Lemongrass is a fragrant large grass used in many Asian dishes, … Read blog
The list of fruits that grow in tropical climates is incredibly long. There are so many tropical and subtropical fruits you can grow in a tropical climate that you’ll never be able to taste them all. Some fruits that grow in cooler or temperate climates will also grow in the tropics. This post lists all … Read blog
Pumpkins are easy to grow and can give you a huge volume of food. But what grows well with pumpkins? What can you plant near pumpkins that will help them grow better? Are there plants that will not be happy near pumpkins and do pumpkins actually have any companion plants? Will pumpkins choke other tropical … Read blog
Growing papayas in the tropics is super easy. Or, at least, I’ve been able to grow them with no problems in a tropical climate so I think you should probably be able to too. Here in Queensland Australia, they call papayas pawpaws. Well, I’m from Europe, they’ll always be papayas to me. Pawpaw is actually … Read blog
Essential tips for new gardeners, a top 10 of things you need to know, before starting a garden or setting out to grow your own food. It doesn’t matter where you’re gardening, these 10 tips for new gardeners are great for everyone. Here are our best tips for new gardeners. The most important, is probably … Read blog
There are many, many food plants that you can grow from supermarket scraps. Don’t believe anyone who says you can’t. There are way more than I can even mention in this post, but I’ll do my best to tell you how. Once you know how, for different plant, herb, and fruit types, you can try … Read blog
How often to water a basil plant depends on many factors. Is the plant small or large and bushy with lush green leaves? Is it in a small pot and is that pot plastic or permeable like terracotta? Is the plant in good soil, rich in organic matter, or is the soil poor and hydrophobic? … Read blog
Pineapples are sweet, delicious, golden yellow fruits from tropical regions. If you love to eat pineapple but have only seen it in tins or at the grocery store, this post explains how do pineapples grow, and how to grow pineapples. Pineapples are farmed commercially in our region, field after field of rows of spiky pineapple … Read blog
If you grow chillies you’ll know that each plant produces a lot of fruit! Whether you grow chillies indoors or in the tropics, and no matter what variety, your harvest should be plentiful if you have good soil, water, and warmth. For me, chillies grow as a perennial, I have fresh chillies every day of … Read blog
In the tropics we really need to mulch. Mulching keeps weeds down, retains moisture, adds nutrients and keeps harsh rain and sun from damaging your soil. I’ve mulched with every imaginable substance, straw, hay, coconut mulch, grass clipping, and now I’ve found the best mulch for my garden. Chop and drop makes the best mulch … Read blog
Guppies should do fine in outside pots, ponds, or other containers in a tropical climate. They are very easy to keep, and depending on your set-up need almost no maintenance. Finding a suitable pot or container to keep guppies outside can be tricky, we’ll talk about that, also about maintaining water temperature, filtration, water plants, … Read blog
You can grow a lot of herbs in the tropics, including those normally associated with cooler or Mediterranean climates. There are some special tropical herbs that do particularly well, but you should be able to grow most herbs without too much difficulty. This post gives you a list of herbs that can be grown in … Read blog
Growing your own food is not just a hobby, it’s an investment. You are investing in future food supplies, in nature, in sustainability, your health, and in your soil. You can save yourself a lot of money by growing a tropical edible garden, and you’ll be helping the planet at the same time. Lets look … Read blog
There are a lot of gardening influencers, bloggers, and vloggers today making an income or even a full-time living out of sharing their gardens online. Instagram is where most garden bloggers and influencers start, sharing photos and garden-related captions of their gardens, produce, and plants. In this post we give you a list of captions … Read blog
Pigeon peas are the seeds of the pigeon pea plant and they are edible. The Latin name for the species is Cajanus Cajan or Cajanus Indicus.They are a type of lentil, pea, or seed and the pigeon pea plant is a tropical perennial legume of the family Fabaceae. This makes is a very useful, and … Read blog
It may surprise you to know that green chillies and red chillies are the same plant, just one is ripe,and one is picked early. Of course, there are many, many varieties of chilli pepper plant (chile or chili to our US friends, the double l in chilli is the British English version also used in … Read blog
June is a great month in the garden, it’s winter in the southern hemisphere and a good time to plant just about anything other than the real heat-loving plants. It’s not a good time to sew snake beans or basil, but brassicas will be much happier in winter. What are we planting and harvesting in … Read blog
The grapefruit tree (citrus pandisi) in our garden must be ten years old now and it gives us prolific grapefruit every year. This post is about growing grapefruit, caring for a grapefruit tree, types of grapefruit tree, uses for and harvesting grapefruit and as many other grapefruit tree-related facts I can come up with! The … Read blog
What’s growing, fruiting, flowering, germinating, and cropping in our tropical food garden in May? May is the last month of autumn where we are. It’s getting towards the start of the tropical dry season, our winter. We are still getting a little rain, the garden isn’t as dry as a chip, yet. At night it’s … Read blog
This post is about my experience and things I’ve learned growing tomatoes in the tropics. Yes, of course you can grow tomatoes in the tropics, but it’s a little different to growing cherry, heirloom, grape, beefsteak and slicer tomatoes in more temperate climates. I grew up growing tomatoes in a temperate environment, where winters didn’t … Read blog
The wet season of 2021 was our first wet season at home, in the tropics for 9 years. As such, it was hugely interesting to see exactly which food plants would survive the low light, intense heat, humidity, and torrential rain of the tropical summer. Not just survive, I wanted to see which vegetables, herbs, … Read blog
What’s growing, fruiting, flowering, germinating, and cropping in our tropical food garden in December? December is the first month of summer where we are. It’s also the tropical wet season This means it’s going to be super-interesting to see what effect torrential rain, less sun, and waterlogging or even soil erosion will have on what’s … Read blog
When I first started our tropical garden I wasn’t sure if you could grow pumpkins in the tropics or not. Being from the northern, temperate, hemisphere, I associated pumpkins with the autumn harvest, Thanksgiving, winter storage, and spring plantings. I decided to just plant some seeds and see what happened. Most certainly, yes, you can … Read blog
What’s going on in the tropical food garden in October? October for us, here in the Southern Hemisphere, just 16 degrees south of the equator, is still spring officially, but it feels like full summer to me .October is a month of abundance in the garden, temperatures have climbed so much that we start to … Read blog
What’s growing, fruiting, flowering, germinating, and cropping in our tropical food garden in September. That’s the first month of spring where we are. By the end of the first week of September the days were starting to get unpleasantly hot. For the first time I could feel summer coming and dreading it, honestly. There was … Read blog
May is the last month of autumn for us but already it’s getting a bit chilly at night. If you can call 20 degrees C chilly! Days are still hot and we’re still having a little rain, but the dry season is around the corner. We’re still eating tropical vegetables and fruits like aubergines (eggplant), … Read blog
In November in the southern hemisphere tropics the heat is building for us and rain is scarce at the beginning of the month. By November we’re hiding from the heat indoors and only venture outside very early or around sunset. The rains can arrive in late November but the start of the month is usually … Read blog
What’s with snake beans and green ants? As soon as the first flowers appeared on our snake bean plants the green ants were there clustered around the flowers and setting up home in the leaves. Until those flowers appeared ( in July, first bean harvest August for us) there had been no green ants at … Read blog
What’s growing, fruiting, flowering, germinating, and cropping in our tropical food garden in August. Remember, we’re in the southern hemisphere, just 16 degrees south of the Equator, you may have to flip the seasons if you’re in the tropics in the northern hemisphere. August is the last month of winter for us and we’re into … Read blog
Yes, you can make your own fertiliser for your plants at home, easily. It can even be free. Making your own fertiliser for garden plants using various methods. One of the first steps in gardening is to fix, improve, or at least understand your soil. You won’t grow much with bad soil but there are … Read blog
