Growing Food On A Pacific Atoll

How can I grow food more successfully and sustainably on a tropical atoll in the Pacific? The high rate of evaporation negates our all year round rainfall. Our ‘soil’ is mostly hungry sand and decomposed coral which is highly alkaline.

Potassium permanganate, a fungicide best used on animals

Question: “Have you heard of Condy’s Crystals as a fungicide?”, asks T.W., a school head gardener in Brisbane. Potassium permanganate was created 1659 by Johann Glauber. To make it, he combined manganese oxide ore with potassium hydroxide forming the compound KMnO4. At school I was taught this is a reducing agent, meaning potassium permanganate loses electrons and…