The Tropical Fruit Forum

When I visited Colombia I think lulo was scooped out and blended with a small amount of sugar or sometimes orange juice. They drink a lot of smoothies or fresh squeezed juice (it seemed like everyone had some sort of fancy juicer on their kitchen counter) and both lulo and tamarillo (they call them Tomate de Arbol) were easily bought by the bag full on the road side.

There does seem to be a slight difference between lulo and the more common naranjilla and the Bed o' Nails garden plant even though they are all the same genus and species. To me, Bed o' Nails fruit taste like uncooked yellow squash. Naranjilla tastes fruity sour and lulo taste sweeter and the fruit is larger. My friends there explained that to them lulo is a more refined form of naranjilla. It grows best at the higher altitudes where I doubt the daytime highs are ever more than 80 and more commonly only in the 70's (nights are cold but not freezing). Cocona is grown at lower altitudes and handles heat better. Where it is native it comes in all sorts of shapes and colors and some people treat it like a fruit and others treat it like a vegetable.

The biggest problem I've had growing them is that they are confused by the long days of summer, they'll bloom but the fruit doesn't size up or ripen until days and nights are equal like they are down near the equator.

I'm in zone 7b North Carolina, half way between those of you gardening in New York and the rest of you in Florida.

I'm on one and a half acre that is an odd shape without a 90 degree corner on the entire place, so each wing of the property has its own collection of fruiting plants; veggies and herbs up near the house, cactus and succulents out by the entrance, vine crops off to one side, bush crops across the yard from vines and a small orchard down at the bottom of the land. Numerous fruiting plants, an ever changing list - if something needs too much spraying or under performs it is yanked out and replaced with something else. I've only lived on the property for two and a half years so most of the plants are young. Things are planted a little tight but the plan is to either prune heavily or remove poor performers over time.

The property also has 50 foot by 25 foot asphalt basketball court which I intend to turn into a hoophouse/greenhouse to grow my tropicals. Until I win the lottery all my citrus and various tropicals have to live in pots.

Great pics! I grow some of the same species. I may have over done it this year with yacon, I'm not sure why - last year's roots tasted like sweet carrots (which I also grow) and refused to store for more than a month. I will probably have a truck load this fall.

One trick I used last fall on my Lulo's (Solanum quitoense) was to just chop off the stems with the fruit attached and lay them on a table in the basement once the night time temps got to freezing. The stems stayed green and the fruit eventually ripened (I think it was more like December before I ate them). This year I plan on removing any flower buds and the growing tips to all the stems to encourage the plants to focus on ripening fruit earlier in the year.

No pineapple?

I have many many trees grown from seed but the only two types that have every fruited are guavas - the large Asian White kind and the small Strawberry Guava. At the Asian market where I buy a lot of my tropical fruit the guavas are rarely marked by variety so I have no idea which one gave me the seeds which now produce fruit every year. I think it took three years for both. Most of my other success with seed stories involve plants that will take way too long to reach maturity - I'm only growing them to see if I can keep them alive through a couple of winters before I spend big money and purchase air layers or grafted specimens.

While focused on tree fruits I completely overlooked smaller crops - namely Lulo and Cocona, along with all the husk tomatoes and Tamarillo. They often take more than a year of care to get big enough to fruit but I'm happy with the crop and the flavor.

I'm heading up to Philadelphia next week and usually find the strangest things at this one shop run by a couple from Thailand. If they don't have it this year they'll have it next year after I nag and beg them.

Hopefully the folks in CA will have better luck than I am having in NC with Myrica rubra. It could be that my larger tree is from Taiwan and just isn't as cold hardy as other versions of this plant.

Have you guys seen what goes on over in the non-tropical fruit plant selling? Plenty of plants getting sold with labels that have been switched just to catch the attention of the buying public when everyone knows that it will be at least a year before fruiting happens and the true identity is exposed. My cane crop area is full of 'Heritage' red raspberries while I keep buying 'Kiwi Gold'. Some day I'll find one with fruit on it and then I'll pay whatever they ask for it.

When we solve this problem we need to swing over to the Fig tree universe and solve their naming nightmare.

I have a few. One is a small bush sized plant that I have in the ground with protection. It is a rooted cutting from a seedling grown from seed stock imported from Taiwan or Okinawa. The original bush lived for 3-4 years in the ground here in Raleigh before dying (I wasn't aware of it until after it died and I believe it died in the summer). Its leaves are not like the Yamamomo you see in photos online (a bit more serrated). We are having a very mild winter and yet it is still suffering. I think it will survive but there will be winter damage.

I have three potted grafted plants that came recently from Japan. One appears to have died, one is having a few problems but looks fine. The third one is doing great with a great deal of new growth. I have no idea what the rootstock is, it is sprouting leaves and they don't look like any sort of Myrica to me. These three are being wintered over in my simple hoophouse/greenhouse where I store my citrus and large tropicals.

They were legally imported by someone that was buying and importing trees for research (not fruit tree research). He was going to Japan and I casually mentioned that I was searching for named cultivars of Yamamomo and he said if the dealers he was working with had any he would pick them up for me and send them through USDA with his stuff. He surprised me with these three. He is also the person that gave me the rooted cutting from the seed grown tree a couple of years ago. He took a lot of cuttings to be back ups in case I kill any of the ones I bought. I haven't seen him in months and haven't heard how his plants are doing.

It took me five years to track down my first plant. I've ordered seeds from China in the past and none of them sprouted and I did every trick in the book.

These trees are common roadside trees in zone 7 Japan and China but they don't fruit much that far north. Prime fruit production is in the same zones that grow Satsuma citrus.

I assume the grafted ones are females and I hope the one in the ground is male.