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• Position a seedling off centre in a pot or planter bag so that the skewed space created is big enough to put 1 or 2 smaller pots on top.
• Stack up tubes on top of a pot or planter bag around a plant.  Stick bamboo skewers in the tubes and tie a string around the skewers to keep the tubes upright around the plant.
• Partition up a pot into halves or quarters using cut-offs from plastic bottles.  For each pot size, save one cut-off as a template for future use.  Seedlings growing inside the partitioned soil within the same pot are easily separated for transplanting or repotting in future.
• Use heavier soil at base of a pot or a planter bag to retain water.

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• Two good ones that have done well for another member here are Autumn Bliss and Heritage which both have red fruit.  Autumn Bliss tends to fruit better than Heritage.  After fruiting has finished, prune to the ground and leave only 9 stalks to the square metre.
• Take a cane from a plant and put a pot of soil on top of the cane tip and in a few days it will root below the pot. Then very easy to transplant. Alternate is to put a bit of soil on top of cane tip. Ref: Oscar in Hawaii

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Ben Waddelow says to grow Pineapple Quince as it is palatable. Cydonia oblonga lusitanica. He foliar sprays citrus with fulvic acid to bring up the brix levels.

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• Adrian  We use the seeds to make a nice snack. We simply put a little salt on them, then pan fry them with a little bit of oil till slightly brown. They are a really good crunchy snack! No need to peel them, they’re fine as is. Harvesting around 60kg of pumpkins this year means we get plenty of pre dinner snacks!
   
• Jason   I have never hulled my pumpkin seeds either when roasting them in the oven. Generally I put them on a tray after having cooked something else and just let the residual heat bake them. As for pepitas, they are from a specific kind of pumpkin I believe.
   
• Diane Moschella  I make similar but I use dukkah seasoning instead as there are many different dukkah mixes to suit every taste – enjoy them with wine/beer instead of nuts etc. They only take a short time in the oven to puff up. 
   
• Diane Moschella  Growing Pumpkins in the orchard a bit out of sight and with supposedly hungry possums, bush rats etc, we wrapped all the pumpkins in rags and only lost a few that we forgot to wrap. 
   
• You need quite a bit of room to grow them and when they start to grow, you need to pinch out the tips of the runners when they are about 3 mtrs to stimulate the growth of side shoots. If you don’t pinch out the tips, you’ll usually get all male flowers. Female flowers are identified by a swelling behind the flower. If they are not being pollinated by bees, you will need to pollinate them.

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Pummelo – In our location (Redlands) the pummelo will colour up to a sulphur-yellow sheen, the skin will smooth out and the depression at the apex will fill out and become roundish, all this being indications of ripeness and readiness for harvesting. However, the practical and ultimate test is of course tasting samples until one is satisfied. We started picking in early May, which is unusually early for us, but then again this is an unusual year. To achieve best quality and yield we pick selectively from the trees because fruit filling and maturity is a very gradual process in our location and stretches over a couple of months. Also, we will not allow any ripe fruit to hang too long on the trees since it might cause the fruit to develop “riceness” (calcification of vesicles), that is small hard lumps in the fruit flesh. (Nils Manson)

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• Secateurs  Clean blades with antiseptic or metho. Prune when plants are dormant so that sap will not ooze from the cuts.
• In Florida, nobody here keeps any grove trees over 3 – 4 M any more. The big citrus and avocado growers have them mechanically sheared and topped. The sides are angled at 15 degrees. More trees per acre and higher production. They are also less likely to go over in a hurricane. The smaller growers are following Richard Campbell’s lead and keeping their trees below 3 M. They are so much easier to maintain like that. It takes a little getting-used-to because you have to keep the trees a little “hungry”. Nitrogen is the enemy with this kind of culture.
• Pruning Deciduous Trees  When a deciduous tree is cut back heavily while it is dormant, it will make the tree grow more vigorously but by pruning in the summer, the tree will be retarded in its growth. Always leave the thin growth uncut as this also keeps the vigorous growth to a minimum and produces more fruit sooner. With a more compact tree, it is easier to place the net over it. Keep the young shoots cut off at net height so the net can be removed at the time of picking the fruit.Pruning Evergreens Trees  Harry, President of Sth Australia Rarefruit Society says to prune evergreens when they come into a growth phase ie spring and summer.

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• In Tijuana, Mexico, you’ll find big piles of these pads which they dethorn using a knife and wearing a glove. Eat only the new, very small, tender, light green ones. They also cut them into strips and mix with beans, chillies, spices etc. in a hotpot.    Ref:  Ben Waddelow
   
• Opuntia ficus-indica  I have four varieties growing: yellow, green, orange and another colour, a mixture.  The orange one – almost purple when ripe is far superior and extremely sweet.  Green tastes like a kiwi fruit and the others are quite palatable.  I have grown them for about 7 years with poor results.  About one fruit per year on one out of six plants.  Then I had a member get a pad and grow it for 1 year and send a photo of this tiny little plant covered in fruit.  Apparently the trick is to only grow paddles that have previously fruited.   Ref:  Ross Dickson

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• As used by a native plant nursery in SE Qld:
  • 85% diatomaceous earth from Maidenwell in Qld
  • 15% Pine Bark

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• According to Annette McFarlane orange balloons filled with water and hung at the bottom of ripening pawpaws, should frighten pesky possums away when the balloons explode.
• Saw this method used successfully on my trip to Mackay: To keep possums off your trees, just tangle some old fishing net around the base of the trunk and they can’t climb!!  They had it to a height of about 750mm and was a 3 or 4 layers thick. Ref: Sheryl