Kilagi Nielsen

I attended a workshop with Kilagi Nielsen, a PNG lady now living in Australia (Pomona). She shared her traditional knowledge of a few plants including taro, banana, papaya, cassava and a few others. The important points I gleaned from the talk are summarised below:

Taro
The leaf is medicinal and can be pulped up and used as a poultice (for no more than four hours). It is a good pain killer and anti-inflammatory. It helped Kilagi get over tennis elbow.
The leaf can be eaten when young (boil 3 times and discard the water each time). Large leaves can be used to fold into a temporary cup to drink out of.
Taro should be planted in August. To grow the new plant from bulblets, chop the roots off and cut all the leaves off except for one (can even work with no leaves). Dig a very deep hole and plant it in the bottom (taro grows up, not down). Cover with two handfuls of soil. Every 2-3 months earth up with more soil (like potatoes/ginger). This way you get more tubers. They like a bit of manure.
Even though it is commonly taught to grow taro in water, they don't really like to sit directly in the water. They will grow, but they won't produce tubers.

Another way to grow taro, especially Elephant Taro, is to grow in a big mound.
Taro needs soft soil. If there is not enough soil, the root becomes a plant rather than a tuber.

Banana
Need to move bananas every few years because the soil gets progressively poorer and the yield will decrease.
When planting baby bananas, like taro, cut the roots off.
Leaves can use (place in hot water and when change colour they are ready). Are they edible? Need to check.

Covering Bananas
It is common practice to cover bunches of bananas with plastic sleeves. This makes the bananas sweat and they ripen quicker. However, there are two better methods. The first is to use a hessian sack. But the best is to use cut banana leaves. This is more natural, and you don't need to bring in extra material, and when finished it can be used as mulch. Using banana leaves to cover the bunches results in a more natural ripening time, and the resulting fruit is much sweeter (leave them on the tree until yellow). The method is as follows. Use a small knife to take the spine out of a leaf. This will be used as string. Shred it a few times length-wise, and take the inside pulp out. Then take the leaf, partially snap what is left of the spine a few times along the length so it is easier to wrap. Wrap it around the bunch of bananas like a skirt - wind it around many times, overlapping half way each time. At the end make sure there is a little bare spine which can then be tied to the next leaf, and so on. The string you made earlier can be used to tie around the leaves (around the bunch) to secure them, and also to tie the top leaf to the stem of the banana bunch.

When to cut the bell flower off - when the banans as the bottom are getting much smaller and not growing much, cut them off along with the flower. Then wrap the remaining bananas as above.

Cooking bananas need to be harvested and cooked green. Red Dacca needs to be cooked.

Cassave
Plant at an angle (almost horizontal). This means there is a lot of stem contact with the soil and therefore produces lots of tubers.
Must be harvested every year (if left loo long the tubers become woody)

Arrowroot
Grow in a mound to get tubers. Don't let it sit in water.
Leaves can be eaten (I think). Boil them and when the colour changes they are ready.
Old bulbs are much sweeter than young ones. Boil or steam them for a long time and grate them up.

Sweet Potato
Make a big mound. Plant the sweet potato next to the mound. Spread the vine on the ground and on the soil. Keep mounding it up as big as possible. The soil will crack when the tubers are ready.

Yams
Must harvest every year otherwise they keep growing and producing plants but not tubers. Can store for 6 months in a dark room. After storage they sweeten up (as does sweet potato).
Plant towards the end of August and grow for about 10 months.

Bamboo
Can use to put food in and cook it.

Pigeon Pea
Very good at breaking up hard soil.

Abika - Tree Spinach
Cook with coconut cream, garlic and ginger. Called something like "hygiri" (?sp)

Pumpkin
Pumpkin leaf tips can be eaten. Need to strip out the fibre with a small knife and then cook.

Papaya
Pulp the leaves with coconut oil and use on the skin for acne.
To stimulate to produce fruit, use the back of a knife (i.e. blunt side) and tap on the stalk. Can do with other fruit trees too. I imagine this may have a similar effect to cincturing, i.e. it slows down the sap.
For snake bite, pound up papaya leaf and drink it.
Leaf stems can also be used as a straw.

Sea shells
Pounded up, it is good on shingles and cuts.

End of January

Poinciana: Using old disposable coffee cups, I sowed 10 seeds that I gathered from a park. Poincianas are great shade trees, and legumes to boot, so are good for the soil.
Kumara: As mentioned in a previous post, they are growing well, however I've noticed the soil level has sunk down by about 25%, so fearing I may not get any tubers I've added a thick layer of mulch. Theory being these are like potatoes and have to have their vines in soil to produce the tubers.
Bitter Melon: Suffering a bit from lack of water. The fruit are small and quickly turning yellow. They've been producing for 2-3 months now so it may be the end of them.

The Heat

It is the middle of the January and the days are all over 30, with high humidity. In these conditions, the following plants are thriving:
- okra (the cutting back and potashing seems to have helped, though they take a few weeks to start producing after the cut-back.
- bitter melon
- malabar spinach (this had been struggling for a long time, but has finally decided to start growing).
- kumara (vines going everywhere)

Plants that aren't doing so well:
- bok-choy
- lettuce
- lagos spinach: this never took off (even though planted before the extreme heat)

On an unrelated note, my corn germinated well in disposable coffee cups, which I placed directly in the ground. The theory was that the cardboard would break down and the roots would go through. However, they've been going downhill since they were planted so I decided to pull them up. It turns out disposable coffee cups have a layer of plastic which doesn't break down, and the corn were getting root-bound. I have since unpacked them from the coffee cups and replanted. Fingers crossed they will spring back.