A Gardener’s Diary
Before I left New Providence my Buxton Spice Mango tree was fully mature and was bearing a full crop of delicious fruit. In fact when I arrived home just recently it was just finishing fruiting. Shortly before coming back home I had had a look around Manchester’s very large market, where fruit and vegetables from all over the world are delivered and sold to supermarkets and shops in the north west of England. In the early hours of the morning I saw every possible tropical fruit it was possible to see, many of which are grown in Guyana but alas not exported. Mangoes are a case in point. There were mangoes from all over South America but not one from Guyana, which was once described as the bread basket of the West Indies. Well, what a cruel title that turned out to be.
I have now lived in Guyana for over twenty-five years, and have been observing the agricultural and horticultural activities for as long as that. Walk round Bourda and Stabroek markets and you will see fruit and vegetables grown here for the local market which are of the highest quality. You will also see fruit and vegetables which would not be considered for an instant as suitable quality for sale in any European market.
For instance, the mango in this country is almost completely affected by a disfiguring fungus infection of the leaves and fruit called Anthracnose, which renders it unfit for export, although it doesn’t appear to adversely affect the taste.. It also happens to be a fungus disease which can be completely cured to make the fruit highly desirable for export to Europe, and particularly to Britain, where the supermarkets are selling mangoes which are not in the same league for flavour as our own disfigured mangoes. It amazes me that we do not have an effective agricultural advisory service that is not getting the export message across to the growers of this and many other fruit we grow in such abundance. It would be a fairly simple logistical exercise to concentrate on the mango and get this problem sorted out once and for all. There is money to be made, more particularly foreign exchange.
We need to have agricultural advisors going out with the latest equipment and actually showing growers how to spray, and how often to spray, so that they can take advantage of the demands of the temperate markets for tropical fruits. We really do need a system of doers, and not talkers to start us off seriously along a path which will go some way to helping the country lift itself out of the trough which will almost become a reality when the sugar preferences come to an end, as they most surely will. The name of the game is export, export and export. Helped by incentives, incentives and more incentives.
The Promenade Gardens has the making of being what I can only describe as a cute little garden, which could be packed full of delicious annual and perennial flowers, trees and shrubs, quite unlike anything the Botanical Garden does or should offer the visitor. Although it is centrally situated it is never packed with visitors, except of course at Easter time when the hat parade is held. It is a garden which holds dangerous memories for me, for it was there that I was nearly knocked senseless by a cannonball fruit falling from not too great a height, thank goodness. I did get something out of it, for I carted it off home.
Later when it had rotted somewhat, I extracted the seeds from it. It was repulsive work. The fruit is evil smelling, to put it mildly. I managed to germinate two of the seeds and it seems to me that I could have germinated the lot, for they are ready to grow away once the surrounding pulp has rotted away. No need for fancy seed compost or anything like that. Just bung the youngsters into the ground and they’re up and away in no time at all. Interestingly, the cannonball tree is native to the Guianas, although I haven’t seen many of them in the wilds through which I’ve travelled, but my advice for what it’s worth is don’t stand against the trunk to shelter from the rain.
