The Tropical Fruit Forum

Two of the fruits on my sugar apple/sweetsop/Annona squamosa have opened up, so I assume they are ripe.  Or overripe?<br /><br /><br /><br />

They were quite sweet and delicious!  The inner sections were smooth--much less fibrous than I expected.  The fruit layer nearest the skin has a flavor and mouth feel very much like pear.

Now I've got around 20 seeds (with more to come when the next fruit ripens).  Two of them floated in water so I assume they aren't any good.  Based strictly on my experience with coffee seeds, I suspect it would not be wise to plant them here in Tennessee with winter on the way.  My sunroom can get down in the 40s F. during the coldest nights.  Young sprouts may not make it.  I've only had this tree at most a couple of years, but already it's one I can recommend for anyone with a greenhouse.  I'm sure it won't tolerate frost, but it's not so tropical it dies at the first breath of cooler air either.  It appears to need a high pH.

Is there anything I need to do to preserve these seeds for planting next spring?  How long do they remain viable?  They have a very waxy outer shell.  Maybe they need to be scarified before they sprout?

Well, after struggling for the last two years, my Pickering mango finally bit the dust.  It never was very healthy, yet early on it apparently spent what little strength it had on huge flowers instead of leaves.  The first year I foolishly left the flower stalk alone.  Last year I cut it off shortly after I identified that was what it was.  That didn't help.  The decline continued.

Despite a very well drained potting mix, it showed all the symptoms of root rot.  There were numerous sprouts of small leaves but the leaves all too soon dried up and fell off.  The inside container dimensions are 22 inch diameter by 14 inch soil depth.  It started with 17 inches, but it settled more than I expected.  Or maybe the pH was wrong...or not enough fertilizer....  I'm grasping at straws.

My cheap pH meter reads 7 on everything, even my azaleas, and I've added copious amounts of soil acidifier.

I don't think it's sheer incompetence on my part--my Kona coffee tree is producing cherries nicely.  I harvested a over a dozen very tasty satsuma oranges in October.  I've got green fruit hanging on my papaya.

I'd like to try for mangoes again, but I must solicit advice on the ideal potting mix and a variety of mango that is well suited for containers and cool temperatures.  My sunroom has unavoidably dipped below 50 degrees F on rare occasion.  I take my tropical fruit plants outside for the summer and bring them in over the winter.  Can you tell me the ideal pH for mango?

Pickett's...Pickering's...get it?  Maybe I'm channeling too much Dennis Miller.

How big does a Jackfruit tree need to be in order to bear fruit?  I've read these trees reach 40 feet tall at maturity, but at best, I've got only about 12 feet in my sunroom.  I know many plants naturally dwarf if they are grown in a container, but if I can't grow fruit in a "patio" size tree, there's not much point.  It sure wouldn't live through the winter outdoors here in Zone 7.

My wife and I took the Taste of Jamaica Tour out of Ocho Rios a couple of weeks ago.  The tour guide provided over a dozen different fruits and vegetables for us to taste.  Jackfruit was by far the sweetest and most delicious.  From what I've read, what we tasted must have been fully matured fruit and not the "young" Jackfruit.

If you get a chance, I heartily recommend this tour.  As we drove up and down the mountains, the driver/tour guide would stop the bus, point out a plant or tree, and then let us taste a sample of that fruit.  There were at least half a dozen fruits I had never even seen before, much less tasted.  Jackfruit was among the fruits that were entirely new to me.  Yummy!

I've been a big fan of dehydrated pineapple for years.  Not long ago I discovered dried mango chunks at a relative's house and tasted them for the first time.  Delicious!  Both dried pineapple and dried mango can be eaten like candy.

As with most products, I suspect there may be truly excellent brands, some that are average, and perhaps some that are not so great.  If you eat dried mango chunks, which brands do you think are better than average to excellent?  Do you buy them in your local grocery store or online?

Are there other candy-like dried fruits I need to try?  I have a sweet tooth, so I'm not as interested in sour stuff as I am in sugary fruits.

In fact, it was a double-whammy. 

My house caught fire February 5, 2016.  After the fire department put out the fire, I was able to rescue a few dozen plants from the freezing weather; mostly coffee tree sprouts.  My wife and I moved into my Mom's condo...in Gatlinburg, TN...

...Where we got burned out again in the wildfires on November 28, 2016.  This time I lost every plant except a tiny cutting of vanilla orchid which I happened to take with me when we left for Thanksgiving.

(As an aside, if you don't KNOW you have "Replacement of Contents" coverage, call your insurance agent ASAP and get it.  We had it, and they even paid on my tropical plants!)

I'm trying to remain positive, which is why I'm looking at this as an opportunity to grow some different things in addition to replacing the plants that did well in the old sunroom.  The good news is my new house has a larger sunroom with a higher ceiling than the old house did.  While we were able to salvage and reuse much of the old plate glass, it is now being used in a more efficient way.  In the old house, a foot and a half of the glass was overhang and was thus wasted for light transmission.  Now almost the whole pane is open to the sky.

Barring further delays (delays are likely because of the massive amount of reconstruction in the county--contractors are swamped) we should be able to move back in within a month.

I'm not asking for pity, but I certainly would appreciate suggestions for sources of replacement plants as well as recommendations for new plant varieties to try.  Everything must be suitable for containers because without the shades, the south-facing sunroom turns into an oven in the summer.  With the shades, the sunroom is too dark for plants.  Plus, I like to roll everything outside so it can enjoy the humidity, natural sun and rain.  (I mount my huge and large pots on casters.)

1) Coffee.  My Hawaiian seed vendor has moved to Georgia and was unable to suggest an alternative.  I would like to buy a hundred or so Kona Typica seeds from a very recent harvest, still in parchment and not too dry.  Right now there's still time to get them to sprout, but past experience has shown that August is too late.  I'd love to find some Jamaica Blue Mountain seeds or plants, but I'm not holding my breath.  By the way, my previous coffee trees were surprisingly productive, and I was able to process, roast, grind, and brew some of the best coffee I ever tasted from my own plants.  It will be 4-5 years before I'll be able to do that again, but I'm REALLY looking forward to that day.

2) Banana.  Due to the old ceiling height, the only variety I was able to grow to flower and fruit was Super Dwarf Cavendish.  I'm pretty sure I want another SDC because of previous success, but I could now also grow something a bit taller.  Can you suggest a particularly tasty banana that is under, say, 10 feet/3 meters tall?  Does anyone endorse Dwarf Jamaican Red?

3) Allspice.  I had to top my allspice tree each year to get it to fit through the old door.  That could be why it only flowered once.  The new doors are 8 feet high.  It would be so cool to get some allspice berries.  Allspice is native to Jamaica.

4) Jamaica Cherry.  I think I'd like to try this one for the first time.  Are there any opinions to the contrary?

5) June Plum.  This one was recommended in a previous thread as good for container gardening.  June Plum was introduced into Jamaica in 1782.  (Anyone sensing a theme here?)  Are there any particularly sweet varieties?

6) Mango.  I never had room for a mango before, but I had been considering a Pickering if some space ever opened up.  Space has opened up.

7) Papaya.  I had grown a TR Hovey, but it didn't fruit nearly as much as I had hoped--and the plant looked nothing like the pictures!  Try that one again or something else?  Maybe I didn't fertilize it enough.

8 ) Citrus.  I had a Meyer lemon, a Key lime, and a Satsuma orange.  All three produced well when fertilized properly, but tended to get scale over the winter.

9) Acerola.  I seem to recall having varieties named Florida Sweet and Manoa Sweet.  I have a sweet tooth, so the more sugar and less acid, the better.

10) Olive.  I think I had an Arbequina.  I've read olives must be cured, or pickled, or something before they are edible, but my wife and I love olives in marinara sauce on spaghetti.  If not Arbequina, what do you recommend?

11) Surinam cherry.  Are there any particularly sweet varieties?

12) Other spices:  I'd love to try cloves and nutmeg again.  Unfortunately, they are both incredibly tender and even moderate temperatures will kill them.  Hopefully I will have better climate control in the new sunroom.  I'll monitor the temperatures over the winter and decide next year.

Please feel free to suggest any other tasty tropical or sub-tropical fruit.

Thanks!
Andy

I'm interested in growing tropical spices and fruit in my sunroom.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to keep it warm enough out there for some of my plants.  I've lost clove, nutmeg, chocolate, coconut, all due to cold.

As we collect tropical plants, we are introducing them into environments they are not used to.  If there is any chance to breed cold tolerance into plants, it sure isn't going to happen in the tropics.

If you have non-native tropicals planted outdoors:
1)  What plants do you have outside braving the cold?
2) How far north do you live?  If you live in Hawaii, how far up the mountain do your plants grow?
3) What zone?
4) What is the coldest temperature they have survived?
5) What is the average night-time temperature in winter OUTDOORS?
6) Do they make viable seeds?

If you have tropicals in containers:
1) What plants do you have?
2) What is the coldest temperature they have survived?
3) What is the average night-time temperature in winter INDOORS?
4) Do they make viable seeds?

I'll start.

I've got a Super Dwarf Cavendish Banana, Kona Coffee Trees, Dwarf Pomegranate, and various Citrus.  All are in containers.  They survived upper 30's--40 degrees F briefly, and 45 degrees on a regular basis.  All have flowered and made fruit.

I've got a an Allspice (Pimento) tree, Barbados Cherry (Acerola), and a Surinam Cherry (Eugenia) that have flowered but not fruited.  My Jelly palms are much too young to flower.

If you think you have a more-cold-hardy clove, nutmeg, or chocolate tree, please let me know.

I've got a Meyer Lemon, a Key Lime, and a Citrus rootstock.  When I bought the rootstock, it had a navel orange twig grafted onto the top, but the twig didn't make it and the rootstock sprouted new branches below the graft.  I'm going to prune both the lemon and lime before I bring them inside for the winter, so I'll have some new twigs I could graft onto the rootstock.  The branches on the rootstock are a little under half an inch in diameter.

I've read some articles on citrus grafting, but I've never actually done it before.  Do any of you have any advice?  A technique that reliably works for you?  A grafting product (wax, tape, etc.) you can recommend?  How about any gotchas I need to avoid?

I bought a "T.R. Hovey" Papaya seedling on June 23, 2011 from Wellspring Gardens on eBay.  By the end of the year, it had flowered and three fruits were starting to develop.  I waited for the oldest fruit to fully ripen on the tree before I picked it yesterday.  It was larger than a softball; smaller than a football--a little over half the size of store-bought papaya.  The rind was a deep lemon yellow and nearly all of the green specks had faded.  I almost waited too long to pick it.  It still had significant green spots last week, but by Monday the flower end was starting to go bad.

When I cut it open, I expected red flesh, but this fruit was golden yellow through and through.  Store-bought papaya seems to be packed with seeds, but the seeds were more sparse in mine.  All the seeds appear to be fully mature.

It was delicious.  It was less stringy and much firmer than most papaya I have tasted before--easily as firm as a cantaloupe.  It was sweet, but less sweet than tropic-grown papaya, again comparable to cantaloupe.  I have no idea if this variety normally has less sugar than the red varieties I tasted before or whether this is a result of not growing it in the tropics.  I live in Tennessee, zone 6b.

Wellspring shipped this in a 1-1/2 inch pot.  I potted it up into a six inch container before transplanting it to a 24 inch diameter half-whisky-barrel liner.  I brought it inside to my sunroom last October.  By December it was blooming, but all but three flowers fell off (and they continue to drop off now).  Unfortunately, my sunroom has only a small heater, so most of my tropicals go dormant during the coldest months. The only effect I can see is the distance between leaves became shorter.  Now that the plant is warm again, this distance is lengthening again.  I use Miracle-Gro potting mix exclusively, but do not recommend the moisture control stuff.  Once the built-in fertilizer runs out, I tend to use organic fertilizers, but sometimes use osmocote to save time.

I recommend this dwarf variety and this vendor for greenhouse/sunroom growers.