The Tropical Fruit Forum

Thank you Chandramohan! It is hot all the time here, rarely below 70F - does it need to be planted in rainy season or dry season? My issue here is always water (and poor soil)...

So grateful for all the replies here!

Wow, Dimples, thanks for that explanation - I will give it a shot! And Mango Turmeric??? Please post pics, or make a new thread or something, and educate us on the different kinds of turmeric and what draws you to each!

If you don't have any money for equipment or help, I say pick axe. The ground here is almost solid coral rock, with many huge boulders, and sand in between. I use the pick end to break it up, then flip it over and use the thick end up scoop out the soil. The pick end comes in handy again to help pry large boulders out when I find them, or to tear through roots an inch thick or less. I use the thick end to chop at thicker roots. Indestructible tool - used it to dig over 300 holes in my own yard. I am a woman who is severely ill, and yet it has helped me work through all this by hand by myself over the last 3 years. Also good to get out aggression...    I have great respect for those who built the Overseas Railroad here, without any electricity or refrigeration or A/C to retreat to after a long day covered in mosquitoes. This land is virtually murder. What they built is nothing short of miraculous, and 100 years and multiple Category 5 hurricanes later, most of it is still standing. They had a number of tools of course, but a pick axe was certainly one.

I shipped them from Top Tropicals when they were on sale. I'm not a huge fan of TT, but they didn't cost much, and it's not like I've found them anywhere else to have a choice.

Like luisport, I too have had problems growing turmeric. I planted 4 boxes of rhizomes, all over the yard in different conditions, and not a single one sprouted. I am wondering if perhaps the ones that I find in the local grocery store are irradiated. I have no other source for them though - this either works, or it doesn't. Or perhaps, the soil here is too salty, or the climate is just too dry half the year.

I am going to try one more time, this time at the beginning of the rainy season, and hope something comes of it. I have grown relatives of it semi-successfully, and also gingers - but the soil here is so fast-draining it's hard to keep it moist, and half the year we get virtually no rainfall. Water has to be piped in from 100 miles away, and is very expensive. And I doubt they like a lot of tap water anyway, which is of poor quality. So we'll see if I ever get this to work for me.

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LivingParadise
Turmeric
« on: April 25, 2015, 04:18:56 PM »

So, I have embarked on a new quest. I don't go to my local grocery store very often, since I'm trying to grow most of my own produce. But I noticed they had made a change since the last time I was there - they were selling turmeric roots in a refrigerated section next to the ginger! I'll be honest, I had never seen a turmeric root before, and it had never really even occurred to me that the spice comes from a root (rhizome), just like ginger or galangal.

For $4, I could buy about 22 little roots. They seem in decent enough shape, although since I've never seen fresh turmeric before I'm not really qualified to know. I looked up info, and in fact these sound really easy to grow, and like they might have a great deal of success in many parts of my yard here in the Keys. I read some information that sounds like people in more central US states have had some success, too, so I would assume I would have even better luck!

It looks kind of like a carrot stick, stains fingers yellow, and has a strong, peppery taste. It is renowned for its ability to aid the immune system potentially in fighting cancer among other ailments, as a powerful antioxidant. It also makes a beautiful plant, and has pretty flowers! Apparently, it can take full sun, and is pretty drought-resistant... it doesn't really need much attention (especially in a hot climate). So it seems to have endless positives to growing it, and for such a reasonable price, I decided to buy 5 packages of it!

I hope to plant them in the various areas of my yard that don't get much water, but are sunny and need a little beautification (including in between some of my fruit trees!), sometime in the next 2 weeks.

While I was researching turmeric, I also read some articles on growing ginger, as well as garlic, potatoes, and jicama. As it turns out, all should be able to be grown in Florida, and all have a shot at doing fairly well in my yard. Up until now, I have been growing pretty much all of my tropical vegetables in containers. But I decided to try to venture out into the yard with some soil amending, and see what happens. So I bought some ginger for the shady areas, plus 2 kinds of garlic, a few sweet potatoes, a bag of mixed gourmet potatoes (small red, purple, and yellow varieties), a few standard white potatoes, and 2 jicama. The potatoes and ginger one apparently cuts into chunks and plants, and the garlic is grown by planting separate cloves.

Jicama is apparently typically grown from seed as a legume, which is too bad I didn't know because I could have just bought the seeds, but nearly every article online says it also can be grown from the tuber, although none state how. So, I'm not sure if you have to plant the whole thing, or can cut it up like potatoes. Apparently, it makes a pretty vine with flowers and seed pods, but everything growing above the ground is poisonous to humans. Bigger tubers result when the flowers are cut back before they can produce pods, but one plant allowed to go to seed will allow for the next crop of jicama. Apparently the vine creates new tubers at various points where it hits the ground. I'll give it a shot and see what happens!

The store recently introduced other underground vegetables new to me. One was boniato, which is apparently a white sweet potato popular in the Caribbean. They also had malanga, which is apparently like a Caribbean version of taro. I may go back to buy both of these, too!

I'm hoping the turmeric experiment at least turns out well. From what I've read, all that needs to be done is to cut them into chunks, plant them in soil that's fairly moist at least until they sprout, and harvest eventually when the foliage starts to die back. Hopefully I'll have hundreds!


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from the sea

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2015, 10:58:58 AM »

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I have been crowing turmeric for two years and it does well here, so does jicama and ginger. The ginger from the store likes a lot of water and just dappled shade. Malanga taste great, I have it growing all over my yard. My experience with potatoes is they die off in the summer and don't set tubers same with garlic.

I have tried the growing jicama from tubers but the rotted but the grow well from seeds.
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LivingParadise

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2015, 10:00:31 PM »


Great to know! Thanks for info from a local!

Hopefully others here will be encouraged to try these out!
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stuartdaly88

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2015, 04:33:50 AM »

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Turmeric is bullet proof! Very cold sensitive upper parts and completely dies back in winter but I got -4C last year and it still came back from roots.
After first year I split and multiplied
Second year I watered more often and even got a very pretty flower:)
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Luisport

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2015, 05:34:41 PM »

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My turmeric just don't sprout... my jicama seeds too, i just don't why! 
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from the sea

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2015, 07:54:52 PM »

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Fresh tubers work better than older ones. I started with 2lbs of tubers off the web but many of them rotted. The next year the plants were better and this year they are already bigger than last.
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Luisport

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2015, 06:04:36 AM »

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Quote from: from the sea on May 27, 2015, 07:54:52 PM

    Fresh tubers work better than older ones. I started with 2lbs of tubers off the web but many of them rotted. The next year the plants were better and this year they are already bigger than last.

I buy mine from several sources and plant them in diferent places, but none sprout. I tink i will plant in big pots next time. 
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from the sea

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2015, 08:32:04 AM »

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Had the same problem, just don't give up worth the effort.
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Luisport

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #8 on: May 28, 2015, 09:50:31 AM »

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Quote from: from the sea on May 28, 2015, 08:32:04 AM

    Had the same problem, just don't give up worth the effort.

Thank's!


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Denman

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #9 on: May 28, 2015, 04:52:54 PM »

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I grow mine in a shade house here in Queensland, Aus.
They sprout out of the ground a lot later than the other ground dwellers such as yams, oca etc. I just bought rhizomes from the local store and they grew easily. I did get a little disappointed in the beginning when they took so long to sprout.....I thought they had died. Mine gets a very beautiful white flower.

We've had down to -6C while the plants were dormant and they came back in the spring with no problems.
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Luisport

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2015, 04:57:03 PM »

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Quote from: Denman on May 28, 2015, 04:52:54 PM

    I grow mine in a shade house here in Queensland, Aus.
    They sprout out of the ground a lot later than the other ground dwellers such as yams, oca etc. I just bought rhizomes from the local store and they grew easily. I did get a little disappointed in the beginning when they took so long to sprout.....I thought they had died. Mine gets a very beautiful white flower.

    We've had down to -6C while the plants were dormant and they came back in the spring with no problems.

Do you think they still can sprout? I plant them on March-April when temp wasn't cold...
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Denman

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #11 on: May 30, 2015, 10:55:09 PM »

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In Australia I plant them in Winter and spring, so that's from June to about October or even as late as November.  So whatever time of the year is winter and spring in your country should be good. Don't let them get too wet while they're dormant or they could rot. I cover the ground with plastic or tin through wet winters to stop the dormant root plants from rotting.
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from the sea

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #12 on: May 31, 2015, 02:16:30 AM »

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Mine dint sprout until summer here.
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Luisport

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #13 on: June 02, 2015, 01:40:54 PM »

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Quote from: from the sea on May 31, 2015, 02:16:30 AM

    Mine dint sprout until summer here.

That's good to know!
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stuartdaly88

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Re: Turmeric
« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2015, 02:37:13 PM »

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The Tubers can survive the cold but for me the plant declines when nights go consistently below 10C. It likes it hot and moist. When it's cold needs to stay pretty dry and wait for the the heat to come back

This is delicious! The flowers are a little slimy, but the leaves have a remarkable cranberry-tart flavor and are not slimy at all. I enjoy them plain, even without any dressing or flavoring. I could eat a ton of them, with no condiments at all. I also have put a few in some SE Asian-style soups for a sour flavoring.

I have also eaten leaves and flowers of a number of other types of hibiscus, including sabdariffa, and both a red and a yellow rosa-sinesis. But when I eat the leaves of the other ones, they are a bit slimy, and don't have quite the great flavor of the furcellatus. I don't think any of them are really known for leaf-eating, so much as for brewing tea with the flowers, but I am always on the lookout for more vegetables, and I have never had any ill effects from using them in what so far has always been fairly small amounts of maybe 5-6 leaves at a time. I hope to increase that to more now that I found a variety with a flavor and texture I really like.

**Note though that hibiscus has medicinal qualities, and can affect blood sugar, as well as lower blood pressure. Consume with caution, especially at larger doses.

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Living Paradise
« on: October 21, 2016, 01:53:46 PM »


So what's the deal with Pandan? This is new for me, I'd never heard of it before. Now I have 4 of them growing in my yard, and I'm not sure how to use it or what to expect. Apparently it is popular in SE Asia, but it's not used much in savory foods? I thought it was used in soups or stirfry, but then I read that you pound the leaves into a pulp and mix them into dessert foods.

Are you supposed to eat it raw? I tried a bit, and it tasted sweet and grassy, a lot like wheatgrass to me.

Supposedly quite good for you. Anybody know about it, or growing it themselves?

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 Hummingbird Tree
« on: October 21, 2016, 02:11:40 PM »
So I'm growing Hummingbird Tree (Sesbania grandiflora) - both in red and white varieties. So far, it is a gorgeous, and easy to grow tree. I lost 2 before this to iguanas eating them to death, so I have to keep them netted to get them to live, because they are apparently VERY desirable plant matter.

Supposedly the white flowers are better than the red for eating. I wouldn't know, because I have not had one survive long enough for me to harvest a flower yet. But, now that I am protecting my new ones, hopefully that will not be the case for long! I did taste a few of the leaves, though, which were also edible, and they had a pleasant flavor. They were a little strong probably for me to eat in abundance raw, but I'm not even sure you're supposed to eat them raw anyway...

Anyone else growing this or know about it? Recipes to share? Can you tell us how to prepare the flowers and pods? I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pick the pods, which grow easily after the flowers, when they are young and cook them, or wait until they are older and shell them to eat the seeds, or what? And do you cook the flower when it's mature and opened, or before?

Very excited about these beautiful trees, and hope I can keep them alive this time, and some day that I can enjoy them without all the netting for the stupid invasive iguanas...

My update to this incidentally is that I planted the seeds about a month ago, but not much has come up. We are in the midst of dry season here, so I'm hoping when it rains more, seedlings will start popping up. 

I have had a lot of trouble growing taro so far. It seems to need constant watering. And then, you have to work to protect them against snails.

Anyone growing taro? Been successful? Tell us about it! Better yet, show us pictures!

So far, I'm keeping my most recent plants alive through this rough dry season. Hopefully they'll start to flourish when they are most established, and it's wetter out. I also probably need to work to give them better soil, since the natural soil here is very poor.

Remember if you are new to taro that it has to be cooked thoroughly before eating.

Well, I had written a thread about this in the old forum, but it appears that forum has been deleted so I can't copy it over.

So to start off with, this is a good tropical potato, tasting very much like standard white or yellow potato, and growing pretty easily. The top greens and flowers are also edible, but as the plant is related to mint, they have a strong flavor and may not be best suited to large quantity eating like a vegetable. More like an herb. Without much help and in poor rocky soil, my experience so far is that they grow very tiny. I hope that the tubers I did leave in the ground will grow new plants in the next season. But so far, they have not sprouted in the dry season, even with supplemental water.

If you put effort into it, you'll probably have more success. This should give some idea of how to do it, and benefits:
http://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/PGR/article-issue_130-art_65-lang_en.html


This is a great plant for hot climate food security.