Mediterranean meet the new sub tropical Geraldton.

Hi Folks

A recent visit to a friend of mine revealed some surprises in his endeavours over the years.

Read on;

Mediterranean meet the new sub tropical Geraldton.

Bert who hails originally from Sicily, shared this information with me from his office where I met him and his golden Labrador, Pussy.

He told me that back in 1982 he started growing citrus trees on his block in Wonthella. Originally he just had few vegetables there when he was prawn fishing up in the gulf and in spare time grew beetroot, which did so well he had to give them away.

Oranges, lemons, mandarins, tangelos and most citrus fruit will grow easily in Geraldton.

Get the right tree, Washington navels are about the best oranges Bert said. An Old Italian grafted a Northampton orange onto one of his trees. He felt sorry for the tree when it looked like dying, but it perked up and produced thin skinned tasty oranges in large numbers! Bert said he was keen on a bit of grafting! He uses a simple but effective technique he developed and has a go at it around September. There are apples and pears growing on one tree. Peaches, nectarines graft very well and grow vigorously here. White oil helps control pests.

When we walked through the entrance of the orchard we found ourselves underneath a trellis of ten grape vines, sheltered from the hot sun, standing in view of the orchard beyond. Bert said they have functions here which people enjoy, especially the kids who love it!

In the last five years he has used organic fertilizer made out of tuna heads and offal from Port Lincoln in South Australia. Joe an old Italian guy looks after the orchard and puts the organic fertilizer out in liquid form through the trickle irrigation.

Citrus trees like to be kept moist under the drip line in hot weather and Bert uses poly pipe circled around the root area and micro jets to spray the water out.

They used to chuck out the fallen leaves but now they are all raked up and put into raised beds, (in which garlic and veggies are grown in the winter) and covered with shade cloth or fish net. Some sheep manure is added. In these beds are compost worms that feed off the dead leaves and manure, the rich worm castings in the compost are then spread all over the property and do wonders for the trees as mulch. At each end of the property were raised metal framed boxes lined with shade cloth and covered with old carpet.


Underneath in rotting leaves and added sheep manure (once a month), worms slid about in a moving mass. Bert has a lot of worms! He feeds them with shredded paper and wheat dust as well as the other stuff. Wheat dust can be sourced for free in Geraldton.

Going tropical. Three varieties of mangoes including a Vietnamese aromatic species, macadamia nut trees, pecan nuts trees all flourished in the orchard. Paw Paws which have to be replanted after a few years, a longan tree, a relation of lychee was fruiting in one corner near a veggie patch of egg plants, sweet potatoes and tomatoes.

Mangoes are a bit susceptible to strong winds and very hot dry conditions but macadamia nut trees grew easily. Bert said he couldn’t understand why there weren’t commercial macadamia plantations in Geraldton.

It was a pleasant and relaxed visit to another Geraldton garden enterprise that thought outside the box. I shared this with Bob over a coldie at the end of another day of never ending summer heat. “What if the streets of Geraldton were lined with shady macadamia and pecan nut trees, we could stand under them in the cool and nibble at nuts!”

“You’re dreaming again.” He replied.