Cassava harvest

Last year I brought home a few sticks from a friends cassava plant and stuck them in the ground.
They have provided our back yard with a very lush screening of foliage but the plants became too big and with heavy monsoonal rains the wet leaves were dragging the plants down on top of the clothesline and other plants. So I decided it was time to harvest.

cleared space for new planting

I went through the garden ripping cutting the tops off the plants and putting them aside for replanting and then proceeded to pull the tubers out from the remaining trunk of the bushes. I couldn't believe the size and number of tubers I collected from just a small corner of the garden.

Some of the harvest. There were many more just like these

Cassava can be toxic if not prepared properly and I've not been in much mood for learning anything new or actually doing anything productive at all for that matter, so I gave the whole lot to Yolngu friends at work. My friends and colleagues from North East Arnhemland love cassava, it's been a staple in Arnhem Land ever since the Fijian missionaries arrived in the early 1900's. You can buy it at the Alpa stores across Arnhem Land but I haven't actually seen it for sale here in town so it was a welcome addition to their dinner pot.

New crop of cassava sprouting amongst the pigeon pea

All up I reckon I harvested about 20 kilos of cassava tubers and I didn't bother digging around to find any that broke off in the ground. Some of them were like elephant trunks!