Almost all of my trees have come from seed.
I am a seed collecting addict and have brought home seeds from all over the world.
Half the vacation pictures my husband has taken of me consist of me either looking up in trees, down at the ground, or eating some local fruit and picking out the seeds.

Carolyn

It was very delicious, sweet and a little tangy.
SOMEBODY must know what this is!

It is not star apple (caimito), as I bought some of those also, and the seeds and plants looked way different. 
The seeds from this fruit were definitely like tomato seeds, that is why I bought the "Cocona" i.d. from the fruit seller.
Here is a pic of the plant.

I got some fruit at a fruit stand in Colombia and planted the seeds.
One is definitely Lulo (Solanum quitoense).
The other one, pictured below, with my extremely limited Spanish, I thought the vendor told me was Cocona ( I even had her write it down to make sure).
The Lulo thrived, but the Cocona plants died, so when I started looking for replacement seeds, nothing looked like what I had brought back.
So is this some sort of weird purple Cocona (Solanum sessiliflorum), or something else? The fruit was about two inches across and smooth. The leaves of the plant were large, and looked very similar to the Lulo leaves, without the purple spines.
I would love to find seeds of the purple fleshed variety, as it was very creamy and tasty!

Thanks!  Carolyn

I use Kellogg organic potting mix with lots of extra perlite. The soil is not compacted, and moist clear through. It is fast draining though. I have repotted it since I got it, thinking that was the problem but it didnt help.
The soil pH tests at about 6.5 and I acidify my water down to aout 6.
The roots could be damaged from before I got it.  I have been afraid of overwtaer8ng it, but extra water doesn't perk it up at all.
Maybe I will try tenting it to up the humidity.

I posted this on the citrus forum, but it seems to be infected with some sort of spam, so I am posting it here also, to see if anyone can help.

I cannot figure out what this guy needs. It has looked this way since I got it last summer.  Soil is not overly dry or sopping wet. I have checked the roots, they are fine. It gets the same treatment as all my other greenhouse citrus that are blooming now.  It is not dropping leaves, but has never put on a new leaf, and these leaves wont perk up. The leaves feel normal, noat wilted or dried out. It gets Osmocote, MiracelGro and foliar citrus nitritional spray just like all the others.
I am stumped...




 Thanks, Carolyn

I have a bunch of Malabar Chestnut seedlings, and am wondering - if I braid three together, will the roots get too crowded together?  They will eventually wind up in a 25 gallon pot.  I am hoping they will bloom/fruit in my greenhouse. Most of my fruit trees are in that size of pot, but there is only one per pot.

Thanks!
Carolyn

Hi All, I also posted this in citrus buy/sell, but thought I would try here also for maximum coverage. We are visiting in Australia, and I thought I would bring back some small finger lime trees in my hand baggage. Among othe restrictions, they have to have a phytosanitary certificate. Anyone know of a nursery in the Sydney area that could help me?

Thanks!
Carolyn

So, I have a bunch of theobroma cacao seedlings coming along, and some of them are about a third the height of the others. 
They are NOT stunted - they have good thick trunks, big healthy leaves and they are branching normally.  They just have very short internode distance. The cotyledons on the sprouts were only about 1/4 inch above the soil line, whereas the others were about 1 1/2 inches off the ground. They have all gotten EXACTLY the same sun, water and food as the normal ones. I even rotate them all to make sure they don't lean, etc.

I am cautiously excited.  They are only two months old though.
Could I have some true dwarf cacao trees?  Or is it too early to tell?
Has anybody else experienced this???

Carolyn

I have a real healthy one in a pot in my zone 12 greenhouse.  It is about 5 ft tall and 5 yrs old.  Mine does not like a lot of water, and it almost keeled over when I fertilized it.  Now, it just gets a little Osmocote Plus twice a year. I let it totally dry out before watering, and it is in the sunniest spot in the greenhouse.

Good luck!

Carolyn

In looking at my "100 Tropical Fruits, Nuts and Spices for the Central African Home Garden", the authors say that the "trees are male-female dominant, meaning that some trees produce mostly male flowers and are low producers, while others produce mostly female flowers and are high producers".

I am taking this to mean that they are not strictly dioecious, which is good news for those of us who only have a few trees.

Cheers,
Carolyn

I didn't realize there were mites so  small I couldn't see them. Dang!

Thanks!!

Carolyn