Gardening
in PNG
 |
A patchwork of gardens in
the highlands |
Flying in to the highlands of Papua New Guinea, one quickly
notices the patchwork of gardens that blanket both flatlands and mountainsides.
In a land with a perpetual growing season complemented by over 150 inches of
annual rainfall, gardens are the lifeline for the people of PNG. Staple crops
include kaukau (sweet potato), taro,
corn, beans, peppers, tapiok (from
which tapioca is made although here it is only used as a root), peanuts, greens, sugar cane, cabbage, peppers,
onions, bananas, and pineapples. Garden plots consist of raised beds separated
by barets (ditches) for water drainage. Men dig the barets, adding soil to the
raised beds. Women plant, rausim the weeds, and harvest. The rich volcanic soil
is very porous, and water soaks through it quickly, running off into the barets.
Crops are rotated in the beds, with multiple crops sometimes grown in the same
bed. Popo (papaya) and orange trees are abundant, and many people have coffee
trees, picking the cherries twice a year.
When
we arrived at our home here in Kudjip, we discovered a large garden in our
backyard, overgrown and in need of work. Seven of the raised beds contained
pineapple plants in all stages of growth. Without a rototiller or even a hoe, I
was clueless as to where to begin to revive the garden. We enlisted the help of
our friend Topi who would work in our garden in the afternoon after finishing
his day job at the station mowing lawns. He cleaned up the beds and dug new
barets using the only two garden tools used by all PNGer’s – a spade, and a
bush knife.
 |
No hillside is too steep
for a garden |
I took over once Topi finished the
barets and beds, and the next step was to find seed to plant. Dr. Bill, an
avid gardener, provided us with starts of pea plants, lettuce, cherry tomatoes,
and cilantro. We also began collecting and drying seed from produce we
purchased at the market. We had mixed results with this depending on the
plants. I planted a pepper seed and marked it with a dry stick. The pepper seed
never germinated, but the stick sprouted leaves! A national friend gave us
beans, and we had pole bean plants that were 8 – 10’ tall and produced an
abundance of beans. Later, we found garden seed packets at a store on our
monthly trip to Mt. Hagen. Small plants are always susceptible to being eaten
by various insects, but once they grow taller, it is not an issue. Thankfully,
there are no gophers, moles, rabbits, or deer to compete with here in PNG.
 |
| Pineapple garden in our backyard in Kudjip |
Topi showed us how to plant new
pineapples to replenish the older plants. Tops are broken from ripe pineapples,
leaves are peeled off exposing the root initials that produce roots once the
pineapple top is planted in the ground. A pineapple plant takes about 18 months
to produce a ripe pineapple.
