Growing Topicals in a Cold Climate | With Steve Fawcett

🌱 In this episode, I sit down with Steve Fawcett to explore Troppo — an urban tropical food forest in Te Puke. Yes, tropical plants… outdoors… in a place that gets frost and hail!

We dive into:
 🍌 Bananas as mineral accumulators (and why banana lollies taste the way they do)
 🌴 Air layering and how it can trigger early flowering in plants
 ❄️ Frost protection strategies and mulching like crazy
 🌳 Why food forests build deeper community resilience than veggie beds alone

Steve’s casual style hides just how much knowledge he’s built through hands-on experimenting. From Papua New Guinea childhood memories of climbing fruit trees, to creating a lush, diverse, small-space forest garden in New Zealand, this conversation is a reminder of how much joy and abundance plants bring.

📚 Recommended for: food forest dreamers, experimental gardeners, permaculture enthusiasts, anyone curious about growing the “impossible” plants in their climate.

💡 Resources & References:

Troppo
Victor Group Charitable Trust
Kai Resilience Project

🎧 Connect with me.