The Tropical Fruit Forum

It looks good strom and should be well draining too !

"Potting soil", which is basically just another word for peat moss, and adding perlite is not a good medium to grow a citrus tree in.  Peat should NEVER be the major ingredient in any growth mixture. Such a mix retains too much water, and not enough oxygen.  This is the reason that storms trees are not producing new growth.  High peat moss mixes have killed potting plants for years. Over time peat moss soon packs, restricting oxygen to the root system. The number one mixture used the world over contains three ingredients, either bark, peat and perlite, or bark peat and builders sand.  Bark, being the major portion of the mix, provides both spacing for oxygen and water flow.  Laaz uses turface, which is acting as the bark, the ingredient giving a medium good aeration.

I found a good local source for Forest Humus that is the right size since I cannot find the pone bark fines locally for Als 5-1-1 gritty mix. I also use Fox Farms Ocean Forest in my mix with equal parts of Forest Humus and Perlite.

@Bomand: I'm on a "zero lot line" property, so my neighbors house is directly due south and is what causes the spats of shade through the day in the summer, and through most of the day in the winter when the sun's arc is lower.

@containerman: For now, I'm looking to put one tree in this final opening in my ground   But yes, I would like to do a few trees in containers on my balcony which has a 3x8ft section with almost full sun spring to fall, so this could potentially house two or three smaller trees.  Trouble is, it gets rather hot there.  I'm planning on using light-colored fabric pots and incorporating some kind of shading (either companion plants of sorts or little umbrellas) over the pots to keep them from cooking the roots. 

My citrus containers are all in 1/2 wine barrels made from plastic in full sun in the Modesto Area of the Central Valley and it gets plenty of days in 100 plus. My trees stay healthy all summer. I'll post a pic of a tree in the containers I use. You can find them at Lowes, HD and Costco for $10 -$18 range on sale. Below are my Tahoe, Yosemite and Shasta Golds

My Wurtz and Mexicola produced fruit the 2nd year I had it in a these containers. it was a 4 year old tree at the time. You can get fruit from that tree and several others in a container the size of a 1/2 wine barrel. Holiday, Gem, Gwen, Reed are others that will fruit, are compact in size and will do well in containers.

Unbelievable.

Quote from: containerman on April 22, 2020, 07:16:13 PM

Dang I went to my local nursery for strawberries which they were out of and just stopped by some avocado's that just arrived and left with a Gwen tree. That makes the 5th new avocado tree this spring. I've added a Carmen, D'Arturo, Reed, Gem and Gwen to my collection. My other trees are Pinkerton, Fuerte, Bacon, Mexicola, Stewart and Wurtz.

Nice! I wish I can do the same but I have too small of a back yard.

only 3/11 are in the ground the other 8 are in containers and raised beds

Containerman, you have started a nice Lemon collection. However, you better get with it, if you ever want to ketch up with Laaz.  He is the man when it comes to collecting and growing lemon varieties.  What Laaz needs to do now is take a two week trip through Italy's lemon growing areas.

i have plenty of lemons now but I’m always a sucker for another mandarin variety

Is there much difference in taste between a variegated Eureka and a regular one ?

Ok that’s good to know Millet since my Moro is the only one out of 17 different citrus not blooming this year. I’ll give it another season to grow before making any decisions on replacing it. My Cara Cara is half it’s size and full of blooms and little fruit .

All those varietyes from the trees are hibrids? Pluots?

yes all hybrids and they taste amazing. I should get fruit on this tree from July through the end of Oct into early Nov.

Nice I just checked out your channel. I watched this vid.

Plethora of Plinias (over 35 varieties of Jabuticaba): w/ John Travis Morton (part 2 of 2)

seawalnut its a modified version of Dave Wilson Nursery Backyard Orchard Culture philosophy.

https://www.davewilson.com/home-gardens/backyard-orchard-culture

It all started about 7 years ago when i had a lawn,  a Labrador retriever and gophers. The dog would dig up the yard and the darn gophers would eat all my tomato and pepper plants right before they would ripen so the only way I could work around this problem was to grow in containers so the gophers would not eat all my plants. So my yard has kind of evolved over the years into what you see today. I didn't really plan this design it just sort of evolved into its current state lol.

Here is my yard 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWzWZv35jiA&t=21s

And here it is 2 days ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th2uh7juix4&t=115s

I have 3 other videos from the same day showing my Citrus collection , my pond and my Japanese Maple collection of 50 different varieties and bonsai