.... and after only two years in the ground, the line of Guava Trees were mostly now above head height, some were even showing flower buds. Our tree staking experiment using UPVC
tubes had been successful in the initial stages of growth, but .. with the extra weight of the top growth ..
had begun to bend when the wind blew. Neither the tree stems nor the stakes were sturdy enough to return to
the upright, so after a failing in an experiment of filling the tubes with sand ..
a more permanent method was needed. Finally, we used strong 1/4 inch box steel tubing
suitably covered in tarred paint. These will
again foil the wooden-post-eating termites and keep the trees upright for as long as it takes for their stems to broaden and become self supporting.
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Needing something soft
to protect the stems from the tying wires, strips of sacking cut from rice sacks was the solution we arrived at. But it took a great deal of searching to find any original rice sacks that were not woven out of the
modern plastic material that is currently in use.
In the end, the local village shopkeeper, surrounded by the modern plastic-type sacks, kindly donated the only two old style sacks that he had - in use as mats for
people to wipe their feet on.
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Where there are flower buds, there should be flowers, followed with any luck by fruit.
Excited that these would be the first fruiting plants that we had planted to produce any fruit ..
I was glad that the trees had grown tall enough to be out of reach of visiting local children ! |
