Coffee, Lemon Guava, and I even have a lemon drop mangosteen in a shady spot.

This year my tree has done pretty well and has a number of nicely colored fruit. Last year it had one fruit but I think I picked it too late because the fruit was very dry.

So that begs the question what am I looking for to tell if the fruit is ripe. The segments are not like sugar apple which swell and soften when ripe.

Yes, I've been fertilizing but calcium dunno, they are not as firm as they have been in the past.

Ordinarily my summer carambola are better than the later crops but this year the carambola have been so very bland with near zero perceives sweetness. I have added a sprinkle of sugar or splenda to every one I ate to make them palatable.

My papaya are coming out HUGE and in great quantity but again unlike other winters they are decidedly bland.

Is anyone else having less than wonderful fruits this winter?

My soursop has been in the ground for 4 years bought as a large 7 gallon in September 2014. It has flowered with one or two blooms every year which all died. So I just kind of ignored it for the last two years, throw some fertilizer on it when I did the rest of my trees, same with water, but I didn't bother to examine it for flowers. This year there are a lot of blooms and I'm hoping it's matured enough to hold onto at least ONE fruit!

Now watch a cold snap kill all of the flowers :-(

Anyone else have a stubborn soursop?

I have no fewer than 4 papaya growing in my yard within a few feet (no doubt from fallen fruit) of two that I took down more than two years ago. What's up with that? I'm hesitant to let them get more than 1 or 2 batches of fruit because the "parents" were like sequoia trees. One was 15"+ (in diameter) at the base of the tree and over 20 feet high when I took it down.

I guess I'm perplexed on the seeds staying dormant for so long and suddenly coming alive and fruiting, has anyone else experienced such delayed germination from Paps?

PS. There are no papaya trees in my area, and if there were, I'd suspect their seeds would be located / dropped by animals in spots other than the near exact locations of my 2 long gone trees.

My GF and I found a large supply of red (colored) hot cherry peppers and we tried pickling them with mixed results. There are so many recipes out there with wildly variable ingredients and processes I thought I'd ask if any of you have a decent recipe for pickling hot cherry peppers. Nearby barrel pickle places sell them for  about 9.50 a quart, and the peppers are softish, and have all of the seeds still intact on the attached stem. These are the types we are trying to duplicate.

Here's what we tried with mixed results:

For 2 lbs of red cherry peppers(I don't care for green ones)

1 whole small to medium garlic peeled and diced
3/4 teaspoon Peppercorns
4 cups White wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups water
3 tsp of sugar
3 bay leaves
2-3 tsp of salt
3/4 tsp powdered mustard seed

We cleaned and speared the peppers to allow the brine in, and cooked the whole peppers in the brine until the peppers started to soften, then put them in canning jars.

Online some recipes call for NO cooking the peppers in the brine, using 100% vinegar (no water), bayleaf, or sugar and I don't know what to add or leave in.

I'd say compared to the barrel pickle places we're about 80% of the way there, but ours were VERY hot (A good thing) and a bit firmer, but not as flavorful as the barrel guys.

I have been pressure cleaning my roof and I am not using any chemicals to get the roof mold / fungus off. When its done I am thinking of using a light mist of coppercide in the pressure  cleaner to kill the last of the stubborn hold out and wondered.

Since there are copper strips sold to inhibit roof growth, how an annual spray of coppercide might help keep the roof clean? 

Anyone tried this?

 

I have a Kampoung mauve, geffner  and San Pablo. as well as 2 unknown sugar apples which are the two  ones doing so well. 

Seems like none so far have matured and colored fully. Its healthy is pushing new growth, leaves are dark green and  not dropping curling from stress or sunburning. 

My red lime fruits are falling off the tree at ~35% yellow colored. All three are in containers, not root bound, and have no signs of water or sun stress... all are in partial shade. Any ideas why?

Bland watery watermelon!
Take Simons offer and try some decent varieties! You won’t be disappointed! There is a lot of crap, tastless varieties out there, usually white fleshed, that are picked way too early just to supply the market. I personally won’t eat white fleshed varieties any more due to the lack of flavour depth. And home grown is the only way to go. Pick them when they are ready to eat and they are brilliant!

Yup, bland watery watermelon. I get that fruit picked too early sucks I can attest to that with my personal experience with fruit trees, but I'll deal with great flavor and seeds any day since I do not have diverticulitis and I do have a tongue :-)

Anyway, between collector tastings (I don't remember names of things I did not like) and trying them at nurseries (all were red)  I don't think I'll waste time pursuing them.  A friend has a red type (he doesn't don't know the name) and it's always sickly looking with disappearing green sections leaving behind an ugly woody core and I have on several occasions had his ripened on the plant and feel the same about the flavor.

If anyone would show me one that was at the very least as sweet as a store bought tuna (which is not IMO a particularly sweet fruit) I'd likely buy one to diversify my collection of fruits.

So far I've had 100% success rooting and growing dozens store bought tops (and am now into second generation tops from store top plants)  into producing pineapple plants. It takes from a week to ten days for them to root.