Dragon Fruit – the rich jewel colours and dreamy taste. You haven’t tried the best Dragon Fruit until you have tasted it directly from the farm.
Yana and Michael, WWOOF Hosts Rare Dragon Fruit are growing over 150 varieties of dragon fruit. Each variety has a different flavour profile from a blend of kiwi, pear and melon through to blueberry, lemonade, coconut or even citrus. The outside colours of the fruit are just as variable.
Dragon fruit are a rainforest cactus that requires being attached to a post for growing domestically, looking similar to prickly pear fruit without the thorns and fine prickles. Just as each of the fruits of each variety are different, flowers are also a variety of colours. Yana and Michael hand pollinate their dragon fruit by vacuuming the pollen up and transferring it to the plants by hand– bees finishing the process by vibrating the stigma to get the transferred pollen down the bottom. This is the perfect task for WWOOFers during the tropical Wet Season (November to April) as the flowers are only open during the cool of the evening. WWOOFing for a few hours in the morning and then pollinating in the evening leaves plenty of free time to visit the beach and other attractions during the middle of the day.
Yana and Michael have not limited themselves to dragon fruit (their specialty over the last 15 years), they also grow banana, jackfruit, soursop, pineapple and citrus varieties. They have Native and European honey bees (Yana is an Ambassador for Flow Hive) as well as chickens for eggs. They supply dragon fruit to the local Gelato Shop and sell at the farm gate. Their main business is preparing and selling dragon fruit cuttings. In the right conditions they will grow all over Australia. The plants take 30 days from bud to flower and then another 30 days to ripen. Both stages can occur simultaneously on the pant. You can actually have up to 7 flushes of fruit per plant, producing from November to Easter.
Dragon fruit are non-climacteric, meaning that they will not ripen once picked, making the best samples to taste, the ones picked straight from the plant. Dragon fruit growing is an emerging industry here in Australia. As a hardy and drought resistant plant you can actually find them being grown commercially in desert countries as well as in grow tunnels in New Zealand.
Yana and Michael are experienced Permaculture and Syntropic farmers. Their dragon fruit is all grown organically with wide use of companion planting. Planting other plants such as Panama berry and Pigeon Pea that the birds and kangaroos prefer to nibble at, bagging any of the more ‘precious’ fruits if required.
Yana is very active in her local community teaching beekeeping and dragon fruit growing at nearby Permaculture gardens, home schoolers, primary schools and onsite. She also holds courses at home inviting friends to teach micro green farming and chicken husbandry.
If you are looking for a hands-on farming experience in Agnes Water, check out Rare Dragon Fruit
