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Topics - Frog Valley Farm

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1
Tropical Fruit Discussion / 3
« on: November 27, 2020, 08:01:44 AM »
No news here

2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Organic Fertilizers
« on: November 15, 2020, 09:15:51 AM »
No news here.

3
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Companion planting for Fruit Trees
« on: October 15, 2020, 06:42:48 AM »
No news here.

4
Tropical Fruit Discussion / JF’ Saramoyo seedlings
« on: October 09, 2020, 11:50:52 AM »
So this is not a Sugar Apple (SA), thank god.  The fruit is big 2-4 kg.  Suppose to be good, pink flesh I believe. I have been a fan of JF’ Anona collection for some time so I jumped at the chance for some of his seeds.  Fresh seed that I dried for a couple mos..  We have 1 Sarramoyo seedling and one A. purpurea from his seeds.  Annonas will grow faster when young with extra inputs like compost, manure, etc. but not required here where we focus on soil health.



JF’,  Saramoyo seedling.


JF’ , A. purpurea seedling.

5
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Rauls Giant Cherimoya X. RGC
« on: October 08, 2020, 10:27:38 AM »
A warm weather Cherimoya x? Anybody fruited this yet?  I like to plant seeds and young seedlings out, walk away and see how they do. Most do just fine.  Rauls fruit (RGC) really, really got me excited, so I planted some in the tall grass and forgot about them. No waterIng no extra compost or manure inputs.  I was looking at an old stake today and was very surprised when I found an RGC growing sideways below the cover and ready to pop out above the grass.  Surely someone has much larger flowering trees of this.







6
These are our USDA Organic and Demeter USA approved inputs that we mostly get on farm for free.  There seems to be quite a bit of confusion about what organic inputs are so I thought I would share what we use.  We mix all teas together except all the biodynamic preps and the raw manure teas

USDA ORGANIC/DEMETER USA APPROVED INPUTS FVF

Fermented multi species nitrogen fixing root teas
Farm made biochar
Worm castings
Worm casting tea
Organic Alfalfa Pellets
Verified Organic grown coastal hay
Tree logs
Wood chips
Fermented organic milk spray
Biodynamic Prep 500
Biodynamic Barrel Compost
Biodynamic preps 501-508
Organic Milk
Organic Molasses
Organic Brown Rice
Kiln dried pine shavings
Organic fed Raw Horse manure
All chop and drop and carbon litter from farm
On farm Soil
On farm soil tea spray
On farm Oak Tree Humus
Fermented vegetable, black soldier fly compost leachate and tea spray
On farm collected humus tea spray
On farm collected soil tea spray
Biodynamic compost tea spray
Farm grown Cinch weed tea spray
Farm grown Moringa tea spray
All farm grown green carbon teas
Wild yeast of multi species organic grains, tea spray
Organic fed Zebu manure tea spray
Organic fed Zebu manure
Biodynamic compost






7
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Juicy Pearl Star Apple growing experiences
« on: September 08, 2020, 05:36:11 PM »
I am a little obsessed with Star Apples. Not really sure why that is but we grow a few types.  Oscars softball size purple (OGP).  A named green variety.  Pink Star Apples from Oscar (PSA)and Juicy Pearls.  They get prime real estate so I can watch them grow. 

Our Juicy Pearl seeds were planted 1/4/20 in biodynamic compost 6 of 10 germinated 4 were planted out in June, they were about 3-4”.  They are about 1’ now. 

The PSA planted 2/15/20 had 8 seeds germinate.  They were a little slower growing and i just put them in ground about 2 months ago. They are almost 1 foot now.




OGP have been in the ground for a few years.  I’ve recently started giving them the extra attention and they are growing well.



8
Eden is possible here in Florida.  With soil biology comes healthy plants.  Building pest and disease suppressive soils  can only happen by leaving it alone and staying off of it.  The ground or soil around your Tropical Fruit Trees, houses, feeds and nourishes the tree for life.  He health of the area around your trees determines the health of your tree. The organisms living in on over and under your trees keep the tree ecosystem operating smoothly. The more life above the soil means more life below the soil.  Stable organic matter is mostly from Fungi or of insect origin.  You need lots of both to get humus or Stable Organic Matter.

Organic Carbon inputs in small amounts, alternating diversity applied ever 10 days to all areas around your trees is all that’s needed.

Peeing and or applying a milk based organic spray to the area around your trees can activate bacteria that secrete Urea.  Urea on silica secretes calcium carbonate liquid a plant available form of calcium.

A quality finished compost or raw grass fed cow manure will ad biology to speed decomposition which in turn speeds photosynthesis which is great for the tropical fruit tree.

All inputs are put on with a less is more philosophy.

No disease issues and no pest issues here.

Please help stop polluting Florida.  Please everyone stop pushing pollutants To grow Fruit Trees, it is wrong for Florida.  There’s a better way to grow food and It’s cheap and  easy and healthy. 

Florida is my Eden!


9
Tropical Fruit Discussion / *
« on: August 09, 2020, 08:57:24 AM »
*

10
I found this interesting.  The Mango seed has more nutrients than the Mango fruit? These had to have been organically grown.  It would be interesting to see the difference between the two farming practices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahkkI83G81I

11
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Fungal Compost Presentation
« on: July 09, 2020, 06:30:06 AM »
Speeds up Photosynthesis, immensely.  We have been making Biodynamic compost every month for over two years.  We have been making static compost every month for over a year now.  We have been doing a modified version of their static compost system for six months.  It works for us here in Florida.  This video starts slow but gets interesting.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO2nGHq40Xc





12
We have this 2.5 acres lagoon front property on US-1, Micco Fl. This is where we will sell all our FV fruit. Eight years ago I planted 2 Zills Mangos, 4 Sugar Apple, 1 wax Jambu, 2 lychee, 5 longan, Macadamia nut and Cashew.  All from 3 gal..  The only thing done to them since, zero outside inputs no water. Just the lawn being mowed not too regularly. There is also 1.5 acres of mixed oak hammock full of large and small Gopher Tortoises.

The only tree to fruit normally was the Sugar Apples.  The Mangos grew huge but never flowered. The Longan started to grow a little after 7 years, the wax Jambu and lychees shrunk and the Cashew grew, flowered, macadamia grew nice. We love cashew juice.

Since we decided to plant it out.  I know from here that Cashews, Mangos and others fruit abundantly.  Biological organic systems work best where there is calcium.  Plenty of that here.

I stopped mowing except paths and edges.  I applied a quality 20lbs of an anaerobic manure based Biodynamic compost 2x over two week period.  I then spent 6 hrs and planted 20 seed grown Organically, Zills Mangos 1 and 2 years 50/50.  5 Geffner Attemoya seedlings, 5 Inga Spectabilis, 3 Ross Sapote, 10 lemon from fruit of this property, 5 pomelo. 4 Pink Star Apple and 1 Juicy Pearl.  Lastly I spent 2 hours dragging rotten wood from the forest and placing around trees.

Yet to do is plant it like a syntropic forest , biodiverse and close together.  Cut and spread as needed. Spray lactobacillus spray.  Biodynamic spray 500, 501 and 508.  Water to speed things up as needed.  Just follow the 5 soil health principals.  So simple.  It works great in Florida For us.






13
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Semagenesis
« on: April 03, 2020, 06:36:29 AM »
This is plant to plant molecule signaling.  How plants signal to release pherenomes and other plant antioxidants if attacked by parasite or disesase. Molecular signaling is important for plant growth. This signaling is one of the processes and reasons syntropic farming makes sense. Growing plants and all the processes involved is so complicated and interesting.  I love it.  Molecular telepathy is real and plants know when your harming one via multiple channels. Chemical pollutants used for growing plants mess it up they are not molecular mineral nutrients. I wonder what my plants think about me?  Can the Eh ph levels at optimum for your life (food) put the living bacterial biofilm on you into the same molecular signaling sequence with plants? Could you hear them?   Is this how successful indigenous agriculture worked, Quorum Sensing? Bizzare!

https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/pdf/10.1094/MPMI-01-17-0008-R

https://www.bu.edu/synapse/2012/10/06/the-plant-horror-story/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2017.00595/full

14
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Quorum sensing
« on: April 02, 2020, 06:55:32 AM »
This subject is so interesting. My thoughts get extremely abstract when pondering this topic and the relationship between us our environment and plants.  For a universal health and intelligence for all. I believe indigenous people thru the use of holistic farming and eating foods in the proper Eh ph range could listen and fully understand natural systems for the greater good of the planet thru the electro magnetic radio signals that nature and microbiology use to promote life and health.  Being one with and literally being in tuned to the natural world.   Anybody else curious about this?


Intuition is good so is the ability to think clearly.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00379/full

15
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Redox potential
« on: February 13, 2020, 04:06:01 PM »
I found this paper fascinating.  No body talks about EH even though it’s responsible for every aspect of the life of a plant.  A visual assessment of a plants nutritional deficiencies is usually never right.  Organic matter seems to fix everything and the quality of the organic matter is important.  It is all about soil health.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11104-012-1429-7

16
Great talk on why there is no need for synthetic fertilizers.🐸

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEMNhUP-G5Y

17
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Rhizophagy cycle
« on: January 31, 2020, 05:00:31 PM »
This is a fascinating discussion on the rhizophagy cycle.  Explains how microbes and plants convert plant soil pathogens into endophytic plant beneficial microbes.  I will never remove the husk from a mango seed again.  This is why soil health is so important. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAF4dA_NU2w

18
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Patch of Heaven Sanctuary
« on: January 29, 2020, 05:03:49 PM »
First attempt at commercial Cacao plantation in the Continental U.S.  Looks like a truly beautiful spot.  It is inspiring to me to see growers in Florida thinking of nature and the environment.  We are greatly expanding our cacao planting under our old growth canopy.

https://www.patchofheavensanctuary.org/projects

19
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Panchagavya Krishi
« on: January 04, 2020, 06:47:56 AM »
I am always looking for more ways to increase life and soil fertility.  We have seen that healthy soil can fix and prevent plant disease. I am always looking for Indian natural farming recipes that use Desi cow manure, urine, milk to increase soil life, plant and human health.  They have a recipe in the attached link called Panchgavya Krishi that contains almost all plant growth hormones, macro, micro nutrients.  We just ordered some Desi cows to add to our herd of Donkeys and Mule. 

This is kinda long but it’s full of great information if your into organic practices.
https://ncof.dacnet.nic.in/Training_manuals/Training_manuals_in_English/Organic_Agriculture_in_India.pdf

http://zebu.pedigree-db.com/pedigree.cgi?horse=T-8921&HorseName=vanilla%20bean&Page=1&Sort=0

21
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Lychee Bloom 2020
« on: December 20, 2019, 07:59:25 AM »
I just noticed some bloom on a couple of our lychees.  Our trees are all over the place from new foliage, budding to dormant.  More than half have some sort of new foliage some with just one branch with new growth.  I’d love me some Demeter USA (Biodynamic) certified lychees this year.

22
Tropical Fruit Discussion / WTB Juicy Pearls
« on: December 18, 2019, 04:00:37 PM »
Anybody have seeds from this they care to sell or barter.  Looks like a winner.  Can this get moved to the for sale board.

23
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Anti Fungal from weed teas
« on: December 13, 2019, 10:15:14 AM »
I know the unlimited and undiscovered potential of microbes to combat fungal problems.  No sense killing all those frogs that reside on the leaves of your mangos  and the unknown death of billions of beneficial microbes and bacteiria with biweekly copper sprays.  Moringa Oleifera weed tea mixed with a lactobacillus, black soldier fly leachate tea for me.


https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2019/researchers-fortify-queen-of-the-forages-with-disease-defense/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

24
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Nauclea latifolia or African Peach
« on: December 11, 2019, 06:50:12 AM »
I had put this information on a post for The African Peach Gambeya lacourtiana.  That is not the African peach it is actually the African Apricot the African Peach is Nauclea Latifolia. I just got the African Peach to plant out. Just another tree to wait on forever on for fruit or maybe not.  What’s one more?.  The fruit sounds good like strawberry in nice deep red color I like.  Any tips on planting this, sun, does not like full shade, forest fringe?  Looks like it could be drought tolerant or wet conditions am I getting confused?  Sounds perfect for Florida, does good in sand, wet and dry, got that here in Florida.

This family of plants Rubiaceae is pretty amazing with wide ranging powerful herbal qualities.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/synthetic-drug-found-in-nature/6593.article

25
Tropical Fruit Discussion / What months do Garcina trees flower in Florida
« on: December 06, 2019, 08:40:54 AM »
We have a few 200-300 Garcinias.  Probably the only USDA Certified Organic Garcinias in the world.  100 plus Lucs, 80 plus Achachachiuru, 6 livingstoneii  this flowers in March  april and August Sept. for us, hombromiana 3, acuminata 3, madrono 2, garderiana 1, intermedia 10 plus, dulcis is 20 plus.  Some random others. Our Hombromiana, Achachachiuru, intermedia, gardneriana and dulcis seem to be at or near flowering size/stage.  I know some of you have flowered these, can you tell us what months you noticed flowering on these and any others not mentioned?

For us the hombromiana is far and away the fastest grower.



Our largest achachachiuru


G. intermedia

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