My friend Capt. Jermyn Fernando got me five saplings of a new variety of coconut produced by the Coconut
Research Board, Sri Lanka . The CRI claimed that they would produce fruits
within five years and five trees would provide all the coconut needed
for an average household for an year. I have a bee-hive in our garden. I
have seen the bees pollinating the flowers of the tree. They produced
fruits in abundance three years after planting. The bunches are so heavy
that one of them broke off from the tree. We drank the contents of the fallen fruits in
its 'Kurumba' stage. We have now put additional supports for the
heavy bunches of coconuts. My wife says that it was the 'evil eye' of the
neighbors which caused the bunch to break off early. The first photo
shows the tree heavy with fruits. The second picture shows the broken
bunch at the foot of the tree.
