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Messages - North_Tree_Man

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: My first home grown mango!
« on: November 06, 2013, 11:11:21 AM »
Congrats, Simon. You're killing me; looking at those pictures. All of my NDM's are still on the tree...hard as rocks. I was hoping to tree ripen them, but you're description is making that very difficult!

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Need help from the mango experts
« on: October 08, 2013, 02:48:12 PM »
Thanks guys. I'll just need to bring them in sooner so they don't get too cold. For the NDM, am I looking for a yellow-orangish color to determine ripeness? Do they get that color when fully tree ripened? I guess I can always follow my nose too.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Need help from the mango experts
« on: October 08, 2013, 01:40:47 PM »
Thanks, Tim, for posting that for me.

@Zands- I did hear about them being eaten green before, but I thought it would have been a little sweeter. Thanks for the links.

Here are the rest of the pics, starting with two mallika:





They are quite small since I had four to begin with...and the rest are NDM:











In the third Pic down(NDM) you can see some yellow coloration with slight red. That mango got the most sun. I realize that exterior coloration is not the best indicator, so any input from the experts would be great.




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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Need help from the mango experts
« on: October 07, 2013, 05:38:00 PM »
@JF - Thanks for the reply, I'm not so worried about the Mallikas as I am about the NDMs.

@Harry - Hopefully it'll be dry out tomorrow, so I can take pics for you. Also, the link works fine for me(clicking from this post.) I'll try to re-post it when I post the others. Thanks.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Need help from the mango experts
« on: October 07, 2013, 04:37:00 PM »

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Need help from the mango experts
« on: October 07, 2013, 04:10:11 PM »
Hey folks,
    How is everyone doing? I need advice on determining the best time to pick mangoes for ultimate ripeness. I currently have two Mallikas that are turning light green on the tree, and I have nine Nam Doc Mais that are showing a very light yellow. I know that Mallikas are picked green and ripened in a bag...easy enough. The Nam doc Mai mangoes are stumping me though. I did a destructive test on a smaller one that was turning a blush red. When I cut to the seed, the mango was green as could be, through and through. No hint of yellow near the seed at all. It looked and tasted like a green apple. I'm pretty sure these started in late May to early June, so that puts me well over the 110 days. I'll see about getting some pics up later (currently raining cats a dogs here.) I'm a bit worried about the weather...the cold will be hitting hard pretty soon, so leaving them out isn't going to be an option. Any ideas/advice? As an aside, I also had a pickering that I plucked last week and ripened in a bag with another Mallika...it ripened up well, even though, it started later in June than the Nam Doc Mai.

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Great pics, Gerry. Everything looks like it's coming together nicely.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: how to store lychee pollen
« on: February 23, 2012, 11:40:06 PM »
I believe I read somewhere that lychee pollen can be stored in the freezer for about 3 months.

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I love passion fruit, and guava for that matter. I eat as many passion fruit and guava based things that I can whenever I visit Hawaii. Also, we drink Guava juice on a regular basis here...not orange juice. I do agree with the seeds being a pain though. I still remember hiking on some trails in Hawaii, and having the fresh scent of guava wafting around the trail from some fallen fruit nearby...heaven!

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: What tropical fruits impress normal people?
« on: February 03, 2012, 10:39:58 AM »
I've given up trying to expand the horizons of most Americans...let them live in their McDonalds nightmare. Most won't even try all of the temperate fruits, let alone tropicals/subtropicals. One time I brought a bunch of fresh, good lychees into work, and most of the "meat & tater" folk just turned up their noses. Some said they looked too much like eyeballs. So, I just went with that , and bought a couple cans of lychees in syrup for that next Halloween. I put big blueberries in the empty seed cavity, and they looked great! Just like eyeballs...and tasted alright, even though they were from a can. They were a hit at the party we went to. Sad that I had to use a gimmick to get people to try them though.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: I have arrived
« on: February 01, 2012, 11:42:37 AM »
@ Samuel - Thanks for the compliment. I live in SE Pennsylvania...finally changed the city/zone from the "location" to "custom title" box...go figure.

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Gerry, The flies most definitely pollinated your mango, I have no doubt of that. I've tried both wind and hand pollination, and they are equally unreliable. I would have been really surprised if you did it by hand.

Also, I did respond to your questions on my thread(in the thread)...you'll have to find it though. I think it's on the 3rd or 4th page by now. This forum does move through topics fast.

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I have converted half of the kitchen, and part of the living room into jungle with trees ranging in size from 4' to 8'. I also have uncovered light bulbs shining in strategic locations. Good thing it's only half of the year.

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Great pics, Gerry. Did you use flies to pollinate the mangoes, or did you do it by hand?

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Ants! Damn Ants!
« on: January 29, 2012, 12:26:58 PM »
Soap does work, but you have to hit them directly with it. The way it works is similar to hort. oil, by clogging their spiracles and suffocating them.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: This really sucks!
« on: January 29, 2012, 12:11:33 PM »
Wow! My condolences. It would have been a great plot, had it been higher on the water table. I can't help to think about this being a portent to climate change...50 years from now, that plot will be, literally, underwater...best to get out now.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: I have arrived
« on: January 27, 2012, 12:22:08 PM »
Thanks for the warm welcome Ethan (and Gerry) It's good to see that everyone has moved to a more user friendly spot.

Gerry, to answer your Qs:
- I also have a Brewster and hak ip that are just growing like weeds...not flowering though. I just re-potted the brewster into a keg tub with no holes in the bottom, and it is loving the constant supply of water...did the same with the emperor, but being a mountain lychee (vs a water lychee like brewster) it looks to be having a slightly harder time coping.

- I bought the sweetheart in 2007, and the pickering in 2010...that pickering flowers like a champ, but it's too small to let fruit set, I think.

- it was a tiny little BB fruit...I actually think one of the ferrets knocked the panicle off the the tree...#@!%$ miscreants! I saw today that another tiny mango has started on another panicle...we'll see what happens.

- I have a Mallika, and Nam Doc Mai...they are both getting very large trunks now, but at the moment, are just spider mite fodder. The mangoes tend to flower when I put them out in March/April, which is ideal.

- Yep...lychees must be hand pollinated when inside. You just use a tiny 10/0 natural brush and dust the pollen onto the pistil. I was actually able to cross pollinate this year between the emperor and sweetheart. I'm still amazed that sweethearts put out females then M2 males, then more females...opposite of emperors. They timed it nicely though.

- The lights I use are just regular 100w CFLs in the light  fixture...high color temp is necessary ~5700K or better. This is clearly not enough though; because, the leaves get huge (a sign of not enough light) and they get a ton of sunburn on the leaves when they go out.

- I wasn't expecting anything from the emperor this year, since I re-potted it, but it did shoot out some panicles after all.

Anything happening with your Mauritius?

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Lapins Cherry Tree
« on: January 27, 2012, 11:53:33 AM »
You should have no problem pruning the roots right now, or uprooting and planting it, as long as it's dormant.

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   I must protest that this thread is cruel and unusual punishment. Especially since I can only pick five from both temperate and subtropical/tropical.

1- Lychee, Mango, Sweet cherry, Peach/nectarine (plucked straight from the tree), Blueberries...this is like asking me which body part I want cut off!
2- Alpine strawberries, rambutan/pulasan, longan
3- Raspberries/blackberries, tart cherries, grapes, figs, guava, passion fruit, do nuts count? Pecan/walnut/macadamia/coconut
4- plums, apricots, pears, apples, pineapple, orange/tangerine
5- melons, banana, kiwi

unfortunately, I've never tried some of the more exotic tropicals: mangosteen, long kong, jabs, cherimoya, and others.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / I have arrived
« on: January 27, 2012, 12:14:29 AM »
Hello everyone! Lycheeluva clued me into the site, so I finally made it over here to sign up and post some 2012 pics. I'll start things off with the Kohala longan. This is the first year it has flowered/fruited...I was quite surprised...and yes, that is the ceiling it is pushing against with a recessed light can in the background. I never got around to "pugging" it yet:




Next up is the Emperor. Just a small cluster this year:



The sweetheart seems to have come into it's own, and is finally mature enough to put out a large number of panicles:











My Pickering mango was flowering profusely, but none of the fruit stuck, so no pictures. Oh, I do have some fruiting citrus..of some kind. I got a 3-in-1 plant from one of the mail order nurseries. so it could be an orange, tangerine, or lemon...with my luck, it'll be the lemon. I'll see about taking some pics of it later.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Introduce Yourself
« on: January 25, 2012, 01:51:17 PM »
 Hello everyone. My name is Jeremy, and I have been growing sub-tropicals/tropicals for about 6 years now. I always loved lychees from a young age, and read up on them one day, years ago, and decided that they would be ideal for growing in a greenhouse type setting here in the north. Thus the love affair was born. Years later my collection has grown to four lychees, one longan, three mangoes, one pineapple, one cinnamon, a trio of citrus (orange, tangerine, lemon), and some pitiful looking pulasan seedlings. I have successfully fruited lychees for years now, but the trees are finally coming into their prime fruiting age, so good things are expected from this time onward. Further additions to the collection are on hold until we can build a much needed greenhouse onto the back of the house (or buy a completely new/bigger plot.) Of course, I keep buying temperate fruit trees in the hopes the yard will magically expand to accommodate them.

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