I have much to be thankful for this Spring. Add to my list my 4ft sugar apple, which I have mentioned in other threads as having put out nothing in contrast to a 6-mos-old seedling that put out flowers - today I saw quite a few baby flower buds starting in various places!! I would be so excited if these flowers hold and pollinate, and if the tree holds fruit. It was a rescue from a nursery that was going throw it out because it had such bad mite and scale problems, but some extra TLC and Neem oil saved it! It is a little misshapen as a tree (growing rather sideways) but I am so glad I rescued it - it is definitely large enough to hold a few fruit without breaking, and these would be my first ever sugar apples that I would have grown myself.
Additionally, I have mentioned my blackberry jam fruit/randia formosa in other threads, and have been wondering just what it will take for the larger of the two to pop out flowers, as it looked to me just about the size that should be able to bear fruit. And sure enough, I checked it out closely the other day and the very first flower had emerged! It fell and died as there were no others on that plant or the smaller one next to it to pollinate it, but still, that was very exciting and reassuring. I'm not sure how long I will have to wait to actually taste a fruit, but at least the plant should be capable of it.
My 2 pygmy date palms are also flowering for the first time ever, and they are putting out an insane number of spadices - I can't imagine these little trees carrying so many dates! They are still just palm-frond-tops more than actual trees. Granted, these are not grown for their fruit (the previous owner put them in), but as I understand it, they taste similar to the regular date palms but just have very little fruit to them. I'm excited to try them as I've never had a fresh date anyway, and as it turns out there is another palm in the yard that is bearing a horde of small red fruit (I am not 100% sure but I think it is a solitaire palm... I know for sure it's not a Manila palm as I already have several of those elsewhere) and I happened to find out that their fruit are really good - very tangy and a bit cranberry-like, despite there being very little flesh per seed. So given that I enjoy another palm's fruit that is not even really known to be edible, I have hopes that the Phoenix roebelenii will taste quite good to me... and lord knows there will be enough of them, if the bees can find their way under the crowded fronds to pollinate all the flowers!
I got to taste my first ever cocoplum fruits off my shrubs, and found them to be really good - or at least some of them were, tasting kind of like a blueberry with cotton candy inside. Some of the smaller ones appeared fully ripe, but didn't have much flavor. It may be that these plants need longer to mature before all the fruit get bigger and tastier.
My beautyberry is also putting out a bunch more fruit, which is great for such a little plant.
I have honeydew that are flowering now also, so I'm looking forward to harvesting my first melons further down the line!
I also have a Strawberry tree/Muntingia calabura that has fruit, which is exciting for me because I've owned a tree before, but never long enough for it to set fruit. I also have a Yellow Strawberry guava that has its first fruit. I have never tasted the fruits of either plant, so that's exciting! Let's hope they stay on the trees long enough to get ripe, and not get stolen by something before I can try them!
I've still got my eye on my guanabana, my 2 Vietnam pomegranates, and 2 lychees of unknown seedling origin, in hopes of first flowers arriving this year. All are looking very healthy and happy and like they could be about fruiting size at this point... Will have to wait another full year for the Maha Chanok which continues to do nothing, no new leaves, no pannicles, no apparent growth really at all... but I'm certainly glad it's still alive, although I am VERY disappointed that I do not have any mangoes growing in my yard this year at all. I hope for next year!
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Sorry, I didn't see the question about the Neem oil earlier, but since I don't have any Neem seeds that have sprouted yet, as of now I don't have any fresh Neem to make sprays out of. So I use an oil I purchased, and just follow the instructions on the bottle for mixing. I don't recall, but it's something like 2 tbsps per 32oz of water... Don't quote me, just follow the instructions on it if you've bought some. As for the Rosemary oil, that was purchased as a spray, so I didn't need to mix with water. But, I found that the strongest combo for really difficult problems was when I mixed the Neem oil/water solution with some of the Rosemary oil/organic insecticidal soap. The organic rosemary oil/soap was not that strong by itself, and did the trick but needed numerous applications - like once every 2-3 days. The Neem oil is much stronger, and fixes a wider range of plant problems - it seems to only need an application once every 1-2 wks. For really stubborn problems, the two combined were very effective, and in some cases only needed a single thorough spraying with no further applications - which given that the dry seasons here are very harsh and so the pests tend to have a field day with the plants that cling to life, is rather miraculous. I could not tell you if mixing these ingredients is safe, or creates a volatile chemical when combined - I just took the chance and mixed them anyway, hoping that since they're both organic and reasonably safe in and of themselves for living things, that they could combine safely. I can only say that I did not witness any problems with the plants from using the combination. But I don't generally know if it's a good idea to combine these oils/insecticidal soaps where they are not already purchased combined. So that's a little disclaimer before you try it. But in my experience, it seemed helpful for very difficult problems.