The Tropical Fruit Forum

Has anyone noticed their pee turning very yellowish when taking ashitaba tea? 
I think I'm just peeing out all that chalcones! Using fresh leaves (2 leaves steeped in freshly boiled water for about 8 minutes) I also steep it with some stevia leaves (half handful) just to make it more palatable.

Hi! I've been using cactus mix with lots of perlite added (50/50) and my DF cuttings (segments actually) have been treated with sulfur and the end has pretty much callused over but when I plant them they still end up getting mushy rotten within a week or two. Should I avoid watering them when I stick them into pots? I'm using 4 inch pots only for cuttings almost a foot long. Just enough to let them root? And I only watered them during planting and no more water after.


I put up a cardboard "shade" for them from 11am to 2pm but they get all the sun they before 11am and after 2pm. Daily temps in the greenhouse are a constant 28 to 35C always a few degrees warmer than outside! So don't know what the hell is happening.


I've been getting cuttings for free but I don't think my colleague would be willing to keep cutting back his DF plants everytime I need more planting material coz they keep going mushy.


So should I just skip watering until they start growing? Add sand instead of perlite? Grow in pure sand not cactus mix?

Oh Millet a little too late for my tip - aside from laying out drip tape in circles around the surface of the potting soil before covering with hay mulch - I generally adapt this:


https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1c/5a/59/1c5a59e6f852a5cf6ee9c10b02624ae4.jpg


Any pot over 15 gallons gets that PVC pipe "olla" - just fill the pipe with coarse gravel so the potting mix doesn't backflow into it? A round pot gets 3 PVC ollas and a square one gets four.


as for the temp of the potting mix in extremely cold weather my uncle went as far as modifying a parabolic solar cooker to fit around a large pot as an experiment to see if he can get tomatoes growing all throughout a Minnesota winter. It worked but wifey put a stop to a few years down the road. Said it was just too much trouble when she makes canned/dehydrated toms anyways. Plus they had  small greenhouse which ended up just having enough room for two tom vines after the whole parabolic solar thingy was set up. Yes - we do seem to be a family of oddballs.

I'm curious about arrowroot. Do you grow from seed, do you like the taste, what experiences can you share?

Yes I'm after Leren.


I have both types of arrowroot - Canna edulis (Queensland arrowroot) and Uraro (Philippine arrowroot) Maranta arundinacea. Have bought them off a random seller at the weekend market (Sidcor Sunday Market) and I've discovered as long as you have consistently moist soil, you can harvest the mature tubers by brushing off the loose soil and twisting off bigger rhizomes and both plants will just bounce back - watering with compost tea/bokashi tea might help them bounce back faster after an exploratory digging.


You can actually take rhizomes say in clumps of two/three each then replant them if you want to fill up a bigger area - doesn't matter if they're mature or not they will grow provided the weather is favourable.


Uraro starch or even the boiled (and peeled) root is actually very bland but I'm very fond uraro cookies so I keep replanting them.


Queensland arrowroot (canna) can be bitter in stir fries (or maybe it's because I used a very gnarly, old rhizome) so I'd recommend an overnight soak, peel, preboil (throw away the water you used to boil the canna rhizome in) then cut/grate and use in soups instead. 


A quick uraro growing guide:
http://www.pinoybisnes.com/agri-business/arrowroot-production-guide/

also want:


Arrachacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza)
Mauka (Mirabilis expansa)
prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta) and
Omodaka (Sagittaria trifolia)


Thanks!

Anyone have rhizomes of Lairen available for trade or sale? Please PM me. Thanks!

I am confused - haven't you already been advised to remove all dead leaves and keep it enclosed in plastic sheet to keep it humid and keep it someplace warm?


IMHO - be patient - gardening is NOT an instant gratification kind of thing. Just because you did something good for the plant today doesn't mean when you wake up tomorrow it's gone from bad to bloody blooming overnight. Please tell me you didn't put the blasted thing outside - the arctic cold front wouldn't be much a of problem if you had been keeping it inside - to quote from your post: "Hello, there is an arctic cold front right now, and my cacao tree still hasn't recovered from the horrid shock."

Please don't overwater - I'd rather you make sure it's in a free draining medium and then keep it in a saucer full of gravel and water - just make sure the bottom of the pot sits well above the water to avoid root rot and then rig up a tomato cage and put in some plastic sheeting - for humidity. Keep an eye on the temp - warm and humid preferred.


Actually if you have one of those aromatherapy gizmos - the one you put water and aromatic oils in then plug it in and as the water evaporates together with the oil the fragrance wafts around the room - I'll recommend you stick it in the tomato cage/plastic sheet tent but skip the fancy oils. Just keep topping up the water whenever required.

I can trade finger root for it! The C. Aeroginosa. I do have the mango ginger too. Anyone have black turmeric? Tried growing it but the rhizomes rotted. Will trade! Have zedoary ginger, K galangal, mango ginger, finger root, lesser and greater galangal, false cardamom, Jamaican spicy ginger, shampoo ginger, regular turmeric and ginger, amphomorphous galangal. Not all are tradable right now but for the aeroginosa or black turmeric I'll see what I can do. Think blk turmeric is C. paviflora/paviolina??? Could be wrong. Its intensely black/purple. What aeriginosa you have? The blue or lime colored?

C aeruginosa - bluish grey rhizome
My C caesia - dark charcoal grey colour? It's what I call black turmeric?
I'm also trying to chase down Curcuma purpurascens? If you have it? I'll do some googling about what I need to do to be able to do a legit swap.


Yes I can find all these on ebay but after countless throwing about money and just getting plain ginger or worse rotting rhizomes I'll take my chances with a swap.


Up for this thread - we need tips from Vernmented and bsbullie how to go about legit shipping/swapping live rhizomes from Phils to Florida.

Packing my bags, Oscar. I'll be right over to help eat those. 

Ah Oscar perhaps it's time for me to check out the visa waiver program as well    my new house is still leaking practically everywhere - blasted fixer upper and I'll head over to help Tropicaliste eat everything in your yard until we get to blimp-like proportions.

Thanks Millet - I actually was going to need less than 60 plants for rootstock and was planning to use the rest as a living barbed wire fence but I was told I can't do that - use citrus and related genera as a living fence in NT - the state has a quite a few citrus farms and they are just being careful about the spread of disease.

Just wanted to welcome all the new TFF members