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Messages - zephian

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226
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: SF Bay Area Tropical Fruit Experiment
« on: December 09, 2018, 11:28:45 AM »
Hey guys. I am way overdue for an update video. If I could sum it up, the subtropicals have done ok but nowhere near their best. I don’t think it’s worth growing trees that putter along and struggle to produce any fruit. If I were going to stay in the Bay Area I would probably keep the cherimoyas and jaboticabas and replace the rest with figs, white sapote and other proven plants. Anyway, the conclusion of the “experiment” is that I’m moving to the Big Island of Hawaii so I can grow tropical fruit for real.
Please keep up posted, I've seen you in a few of Bill's videos lately and your property sounds nice out there!

227
I have a Meyer lemon, it's about 5 feet tall and easily to keep short. Still produces 100+ lemons at a small size, though I am letting it grow up a bit now.
Effeminately a good lemon in my opinion. I make tons of lemonade when I have lemons, and you can freeze the juice too. I want to get some sugarcane going soon so I can use that for the lemonade... yum.

228
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: 'Bing' cherry blooming in fall?!
« on: November 27, 2018, 12:37:16 AM »
I wonder if it could be a fire response. Like misinterpreting smoke cover for short days.
hmm maybe. I'm right below the camp fire and we've had little to no sunlight since it started. Rain cleared it up now that the fires out but now we are getting morning fog. Weird weather man... we had 2 days frost in a row now it's in the mid 40s at night.

229
Temperate Fruit Discussion / 'Bing' cherry blooming in fall?!
« on: November 26, 2018, 05:08:23 PM »
My 'Bing' Cherry has some flowers and many new buds on it.
This tree is on it's way out (25+ years old, and has something wrong with it)
I was wondering if anyone has ever had out of season flowering like this though?

230
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Looking for Sapodilla fruit
« on: November 26, 2018, 05:01:27 PM »
Sapodilla grows well for us here but it is a slow grower. We just recently planted a tree at the orchard so it will be many years before we get a good harvest. I used to not like the taste of Sapodillas but now I’m a huge fan of them.

Simon
Simon
You are going to be surprise how quick they grow after the first year. Production should start for you after the second the only problem in SoCal is to find cultivars to extend the season year round.
I hope that's the same for me up here in NorCal. I have 4 different varieties from seed I planted in June. I have 3-4 leaves on each but they do seem to be growing, slowly. :)

231
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: White Jade Pineapple
« on: November 18, 2018, 10:52:14 PM »
Fang, yes, all my plants are from the original tissue cultured plants from Adam. They all started growing exactly the same until I changed their environment. The plants with larger pots, more fertilizer grew larger. This particular fruit has a very short stalk. I’ll try to keep track to see if it’s clones also result in short stalks.

Mark, I think I have the Peters, I just have to start using it regularly.

Simin

Citrus loves it too.  I turned Brad on to it.    Seems he's going thru bags of it like changing underwear via the Mazzei injectors I sent him.  Actually its a 25-5-15.  Has a great micros package too.

Typical this time of the year for us - we're getting some really cold nights and it never fails, I get the white, mottled cold dots on the leaves.  For some strange reason White Jade and White Sugarloaf are not affected near as much as my "twistees".

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I was actually about to ask if this was cold damage. I have a pineapple that looks very similar. Will they be ok in the cold or should I move it in?

232
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Pug a persimmon?
« on: November 18, 2018, 04:13:44 PM »
My second tree was pruned to heavily year before last (not pugged though) and didn't produce fruit that year, but it grew back and well... I've shown you a picture. :)

233
achetadomestica may still have some seeds, I'd PM him.
Seems really easy to grow so far and his seeds are low dollar high quality!

234
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Today’s Harvest from the orchard
« on: November 12, 2018, 06:32:35 PM »
Winds breaking my trees too. fortunately, it us clearing out dome smoke. (Not helping the fire though)Looks post apocalyptic here from the camp fire when they aren't blowing. I can barely breathe outside.

235
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: strawberries and blueberries
« on: November 09, 2018, 10:54:40 AM »
I have several types of strawberries growing in a shallow 4x8 raised bed near my house and I made a 5 ft tower with holes drilled in the side, backfilled with dirt and stuck small plants in last spring. They didn't produce much in spring and berries were very bland, but I got much better larger berries this last month or two. (Seascape variety mostly, so as long as temps are ok they will produce)
I believe I read somewhere they will do much better in year two...
My blueberries were bareroot in spring and produced only 5 fruit each... I believe blueberries will produce more once mature. I've thinned mine like you would a tree, no crossing branches, airflow through the middle. Hopefully they will produce alot of fruit next year..They've not stopped growing at all since spring.

236
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Planting trees grown in Gritty Mix
« on: November 09, 2018, 01:07:06 AM »
I'm in california... what is rain? lol...been in a drought for like 10 years up here. (Besides two years ago when a dam nearly broke and threatened to flood my city...)
I have water restrictions and very high water rates in the summer. Ill keep all the moisture I can.

237
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Today’s Harvest from the orchard
« on: November 08, 2018, 07:52:41 PM »
Mine lilikoi set a dozen fruits so far. I did hand pollinate most of them. They are smaller than Fredrick. Will find out if they taste better.



Nice, Did you use its own pollen?  Post pics when they are ripe.
Agreed. I just got a cutting from Brad for the wife. Please let us know how they taste!

238
Frank,

    What variety are those two fruits? Are they Dream atemoya? They look very tasty and great looking fruit to boot.

Vincent.

Hey Vince
Here in SoCal we call dream by its original name Arka Sahan....we believe they are the same variety



Hey JF, how are the dream in SoCal? I have some growing from seed right now (im in norcal) should I grow to maturity or use at root stalk in your opinion?

239
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Planting trees grown in Gritty Mix
« on: November 08, 2018, 01:55:48 PM »
Zephian - I’d be cautious with overdoing the mulch.
I went gonzo with wood chip mulch in an area for several months, then planted trees and I’m convinced the too-thick mulch suffocated and drowned the trees.
I'll keep your advice in mind and check my soil conditions come spring. I'll be mounding the soil and planting above the ground level pulling back the mulch as I go. My mulch (woodchips/tree trimmings) is very fresh and should break down a couple of inches at least.

240
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Planting trees grown in Gritty Mix
« on: November 08, 2018, 11:45:02 AM »
Remember to dig a hole three times the diameter of the rootball of the tree.  I think mixing half soil and half container mix and using that for the fill dirt is a good idea.  That way, you won't have as much of a barrier to root growth.

Quite the opposite if in clay.  You will not only have an artificially created barrier (roots will stay confined to the hole) but the tree will soon rot, drown.  Never amend backfill.  https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/soil-amendments.pdf

Any advice for soil that is completely dead? I would like to use native soil when planting but after looking at the soil I am leaning toward mixing it with worm castings at 50:50 ratio.

This is what I dug up.



Standing water after 5 days, I dug the hole even bigger and mixed native soil with cactus soil amendment.



Edit: this is to plant mango and other subtropical trees in Zone 9B.
I have an area in my yard that looks just as lifeless (Though it drains way better than that....) I tilled it (yeah yeah, soil life destroyed, etc) and layed about 8 inches of mulch on top. Even after two weeks my soil has changed dramatically. I plan on mulching heavily until spring before I even plant here.

241
went on vacation and my sister in law watered while I was away... Lost all but a few of my sprouts and they're looking pretty sad...
One yellow .. had about 10. probably down to about 5 reds :(

242
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Avocado thread
« on: October 22, 2018, 11:55:25 AM »
I wander around my yard every night so shouldn't be a problem to have fruit that fall of when ready. I'm only on about a quarter of an acre so it's not a real chore for me to check.
Rodents are bad in my fenced off garden, though not too bad lately. Think I've got them mostly exterminated. The avocado trees will go in the corner my dog likes to hang out in, hopefully that will help. 10ft is what I'll probably end up doing.

243
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Avocado thread
« on: October 22, 2018, 11:29:14 AM »
I don't have to many animals I'd be worried about eating avocados.
My Lamb Hass seems to be growing the best out of all of mine. They're all still in pots... I'm sure they're all going to take off when planted this spring.
What would you recommend for spacing for these trees? I plan on putting them all in a corner of my yard and planting them as close as possible. (Lamb-Hass, Holiday, Stewart, and the future GEM)

244
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Avocado thread
« on: October 22, 2018, 10:46:49 AM »
Nice to hear that you prefer the stewart over mexicola. I expect mine to do better than my other two trees as it's my most cold hardy variety. How heavily does it produce, and do you know if it's alternate bearing?
My wife was trying to talk me in to planting a mexicola because she had one and liked it and I don't want to plant another tree... haha.

245
Looks like your very dry soil is shedding the water. I would mix in the screened compost with the soil and water slowly over a few days to get it wet. It may take some time. Some people use hair shampoo as an additive to water as a surfactant which may help, don't use too much, maybe a spoonful per 5 gallon bucket. The shampoo ingredient list should include sodium or ammonium laurel sulphate, an anionic surfactant.

I was going to use a 5 gallon bucket of sand to loosen up the dirt, do you think it will work?
Doesn't sand + Clay (and organic material such as straw) make Adobe? I haven't tried it without compacting it but I would think that would make the soil worse.

246
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Today’s Harvest from the orchard
« on: October 19, 2018, 09:11:22 PM »
You are not going to be happy but wonderful is a really sub par pomagranite.  I have one of them.  The seeds are big and hard and leave you with a mouth of seed.  Im going to yank mine and put in a new one.  Ive got a couple other types that are keepers. 

I got my plants as little starter sleves for 20$ from the local nursery.  They were dave wilson starter plants.
Wonderful is what we are used to out here. It's a normal backyard plant out here. I can only find two types at our local nursery - Wonderful and sweet. Dave wilson website lists those two varieties at my local nursery though (Local being 45 minutes out, my town has nothing) Ill check this spring they look 'wonderful'

247
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Today’s Harvest from the orchard
« on: October 19, 2018, 05:03:52 PM »
Very nice harvest, great job guys!
I've not seen those varieties of pomegranates before. I have a 'wonderful' I purchased this year with a small fruit hanging on it, but I've always found them only OK. Do you purchase those varieties locally or are they grown from seeds or cutting? Pomegranates seem to grow very quickly with little care here and I want to add at least one more to my collection.

248
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Avocado thread
« on: October 18, 2018, 05:49:29 PM »
I was on a trip this past weekend in the Pacific Northwest (CA), and I ran into an Avocado tree in front of a local bakery in the heart of the Ocean peninsula town of Mendocino, CA.  I'm always happy to see random Avocado trees in public.  Here're a couple pics.





Oh, I think I may have seen this tree before! My wife and I go out to fort bragg and the botanical gardens frequently and have stopped and toured that area a couple of times.

249
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: Pawpaw inquiry
« on: October 18, 2018, 05:44:46 PM »
I have Atemoya, and sugar apples already in the works. Cherimoya next year. I think I would want to grow PawPaw 'just because' It would be a nice comparison if I got them all fruiting.
There are definitely some die hard pawpaw fanatics out there but I've had multiple people now tell me Cherimoya > rest.

If I had room I would grow anything and everything I could get my hands on... :)

250
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: Pawpaw inquiry
« on: October 18, 2018, 03:57:08 PM »
Awesome. I think I will try a couple and see how they do. Chilling hours are readily available for <45 in my area but I don't see anywhere listing sub 40.
My area gets anywhere from 400 at the lowest to 800-1000 chill hours average a year and summers can hit 115.

Thanks for the input, I may reach out to you again in spring. I have several species planned already and this one may get cut to make room for cherimoya or something else.

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