If you've tasted a riberry, you've tasted satinash. Might be ok if you're starving to death, but well, let's just say you won't find them in fruit markets for a reason.

The blue lillipilly is ok, and has very large fruit. This tastes much closer to wax jambu than any of the others.

I can easily get cryptoplebium as well as all the red/white/anything riberry types right now, they are literally fruiting everywhere in the suburbs. Throw a rock and you'll hit 4 different varieties.

Would rather send a bulk lot to somebody in the US and have that person disperse rather than send a dozen seperate packages. It gets expensive. If anybody is willing let me know, I'll send a kilo or so mix. Np payment required. If you want to be nice, send me something back 

s

Very nice video Cassandra. Those rambutans look just a tad past their prime with their splinterns starting to blacken. I'm sure they're still good, but not at their very best taste. Hawaiian hula berry? Nobody uses that name here. I saw that in an article, someone just totally recently invented that name in their head, and it only exists in that one head. Most of the rambutans commercially sold are cultivars and are non clig pulp to the seed. As BMc points out almost all rambutans still have the testa which will stick to the fruit. The testa is the outermost very thin layer of the seed. Sometime you get similar thing happening in avocados. It just a very minor nuisance in my opinion, although some ultra fussy people make a very big deal about it. I would say a great majority of people here prefer rambutan over longan. Rambutan usually fetches a slightly higher price and seems to sell a lot better than longan. But maybe that could just be because longan is available most of the year and rambutan is seasonal. By far the biggest favorite here is lychee. Pulasan most people don't even know what that is yet. Pulasan is very very rarely seen for sale at farmer's markets. It's not a commercially grown fruit here. Welcome to the world of sapindaceaes. There are some very good fruits in that family.

If I had to pick one to eat forever it would be lychee, for sure. I know pulasan are grown in Australia but I am unaware as whether or not this done commercially, probably not. I'm pretty sure Mike has grown them before, from memory. They wouldn't survive  my local climate so I guess I'll just have to go on wondering. Can grow lychees with a bit of care in Brisbane, though my record with them up til this point is fairly terrible. I'm yet to meet another person who has killed a B3. Longans are super easy to grow here compared to lychees.

S

I agree that they lack the complexity of Longan. I have never tried pulasan, which is touted as being much superior to both.

My Colombian red is doing pretty well for a year old.I presume it sets fruit better than most as it is self fertile.

A year is rocket fast for a plant that size Mike, especially considering it is fruiting already. I don't think they'd be that quick in Bris, though they are created different that's for sure. I have two which have been sitting there for months and months now and haven't done anything, while others send up new shoots pretty much a few days after being stuck in soil as cuttings. I've noticed that if a cutting has an epiphyte it tends to take longer to send a new shoot. I have read that younger cuttings grow more quickly. The yellows always grow the fastest for me, with the reds being the slowest.

First off I'd like to say I'm sorry to hear of your husband's troubles. My own father was diagnosed with prostrate cancer and beat it even though it wasn't caught early. It is beatable.

If you want to willfully inflict type A Parkinson's disease on yourself  by all means, eat plenty of soursop leaves. This is the only thing that activity has ever been proven to do. Other than that, eating soursop leaves does absolutely nothing whatsoever. It is another brand of geriatric hokum. It is the medicinal equivalent of a raindance. You might as well try and cure a bout of influenza with Voodoo.

Please do not believe the snakeoil peddlers. Soursop leaves are not a panacea. The compounds in them are mostly well understood, and there is no reason to think any of them  are a cure for anything. Annonaicin is a toxin developed by the species to deter foliar grazing by pests. That's it. No mystery, no magic.

Don't take my word for it, have a perusal of google scholar--you know, peer reviewed, impartial journals from actual scientists, rather than  anecdotal heresay and conjecture to the tune of "I think' by people people with zero formal training  who do not only have no technical understanding of what they are selling, but  are motivated to make a buck from soursop leaves and couldn't give a shit if what they are selling actually does anything or is harmful or not.It is only a matter of time until legislation catches up with these people, you can take that to the bank. If you can't access a particular journal I might be able to secure a copy of this for you at no charge, this depends on whether or not I myself am able to access it for free via my institution.

next week I am going to post a debunk relating to antioxidants, which are the greatest marketing dupe pulled off in history of mankind.


cheers
s

With dragonfruit it is best not to think of them as a cactus at all, but rather a rainforest plant which particularly dislikes wet feet. Plant in fast draining mounds with good moisture retention, and cover this with a very, very thick layer of uncomposted leaf litter and manure, if you can get it. Water all the time, keep the soil moisture at a good level, and keep adding the leaf litter. This should also be watered to help it break down.

If you have an old aluminum ladder, you can make the best type of trellis. Basically just run this between two massive posts (along the top) and that way you can get a lot more plant before pruning, which means more fruit and more cuttings in the long run. I may still do this if I can find a crappy old ladder whuch has a decent length, somewhere--but I'm not paying for one.

Don't plant them out anywhere they will get baked most of the day. The worst thing you can do is treat them like an opuntia, Totally different, with totally different sun exposure tolerances.

If you want to make them super healthy, give them a drink of mineral water.

The new trellises I am building will all have abandoned motorbike Tyre rims fixed to the top, which will help to spread out the growth and will help with weight distribution. That;s if I can't get a ladder. Remember the plant itself gets incredibly heavy in later years, so you want a very strong post that is very firmly secured in the ground. Struts are recommended also. Otherwise, it WILL fall over, and you probably won't be able to get it back up again without  using something like a block and tackle.

The only risk as far as I can see is that the husk they're made from might leech salt into the soil mixture. I'm not sure what advantages coir might give you over a regular seedling pot (apart from those tall narrow ones, which I find to be quite bad for everything but especially fig cuttings). What if the roots grew into the coir itself and became entangled? Could pose damaging issues at the moment of re-potting, which I'm sure you intend to do.

I confess that I've never tried a tree ripened calypso, my experience of these comes entirely from what is sold at the big retailers and fruit barns. I've never had one which wasn't powdery and insipid. This is must be a result of them not being sold at optimum ripeness. Are you growing Calypso?

KP is a great mango. The best Mangoes I have tasted have all been KP, or Bowen as they are called under a different name. Calypso in particular has a very washed-out, banal flavor, with a bad flesh-to-seed ratio. You'd need to eat a perfectly tree ripened, fresh and chilled KP mango to understand just how very, very good they are. They are popular for a reason, and that is that everybody prefers them over every other type in Australia. This isn't because they are carrying a banner for KP mangoes (that would be very, very strange) but because they simply satisfy the tastes of the Australian and International consumer. When I eat non KP mangoes, I always feel that the taste has been adulterated from what a mango should taste like, even if  that particular  mango is enjoyable. I find NDM to be like this, especially--a mango that I very much like but I don't associate with genuine mangoeyness. I cannot say the same of Ataulfo, which is a very mangoey mango in my books. This probably all sounds like nonsense, and it probably is.


I am a fan of the television series doctor who. This is probably something largely unfamiliar to most Americans, but it is a sci-fi series which has been airing since 1963. I've grown up with it. I watch it still.The actors who play the doctor have changed numerous times throughout the years--this is actually necessary as it is part of the plot. However, if you ask me who the GOAT doctor is (this changes every so many years, it is part of the plot) I will always say the actor Tom Baker. People from different generations will have other preferences and these will invariably relate to which actor played the doctor during their salad days. When I think of doctor who, I think of Tom Baker. I don't know why, it is just the way it is.

I think the idea of what mango should taste like, the essence of what  mango should be is subjective that way, too.

The humble KP is Indeed a great mango. Bumper wild crops around at the moment, but it would have been bigger if we hadn't had those few days of rain a couple of weeks back. They are always sold more cheaply than the bullock's heart here in Brisbane, which works for me.

Is it the fruit he is allergic to or the latex from the stems?

s

Quote from: Mike T on December 13, 2013, 07:23:15 AM

Starling true enough, however all Durios are permitted species ie C7100 ICON listed so it is better to do it openly.

DW, all of Mike's suggestions are good. You have to make a customs declaration. I suggest you write seed packets because your package will definitely be opened and inspected. Write latin name on the plastic bag. Make sure NOT to use moss, or peat, as that is prohibited in Australia. Use moistened vermiculite only.
The tricky thing with durian seeds is getting all the pulp off. If you don't they will start to rot. I suggest also double bagging them to try to keep the smell down a bit. Poke some small holes in the bags for venting.

The packages will not "definitely" be opened--this implies a greatly overstated and mythical degree of competence. I can definitely tell you of a recent instance  in which some things were recently received which were both definitely banned from importation and definitely arrived in a soggy cardboard tube wrapped in brown butcher's paper.  The whole thing was absolutely  white with mold. They either  definitely didn't check that package,  or are definitely worse at their job than even I can imagine. They definitely do not check all packages or even the majority of them. Try to understand please, that these people are simply not very good at what they do, and will incinerate permitted species whilst simultaneously allowing through prohibited material of all descriptions. I'm sorry if this post is derisive but frankly that is a department which has and continues to earn derision. Quarantine Legislation in Australia is so badly constructed it beggars belief--almost none of it is based on any kind of logic whatsoever: rather, it is just inarticulate carpet-bomb policy. Not only does it not work with terrifying regularity, but is something which is apropos of willful sloth and slovenliness. If you want a handy go-to slogan for the entire department, look no further than: "Why try harder when you can just ban everything and have more time for doughnuts and pencil hockey?"


The old lie is that it's done to the end of protecting Australian biodiversity and nature. Ok, sure thing. Now consider this: The Liberal party of Australia dissolved the appointment of a science minister upon being elected into office. Yes, that's right; Australia has no minister for science. What we do have is a Minister for Industry--the dishonorable Ian  McFarlane (or 'chainsaw' as he is affectionately referred to by his entourage of cretins) who is a gout afflicted, gin-soaked redneck sugar cane farmer with a bulbous drunk's nose fat as a wilted radish, who  does not possess a degree in anything let alone a science, and who is a climate change denier born and bred in the backwater of Kingaroy.

think about that.

s     

A whelk is an edible mollusc, still consumed in some parts of Britain.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whelk_stall

I have predug 7 holes in my decomposed granite (dg). That's what they all it around. Here. I call it big pebble sandy beach. . All I know is that its some hard rocks.  Like the worse beach sand you can walk through.  I had to use a pick to over several weeks to remove the dirt from the holes.

Most hold water like a swimming pool for several days a few will hold it for a week or 2.


The holes are about half of a 55 gallon barrel


Had a chat with Simon and saw how he did his  holes and he gave me some suggestions with mine.


My plan is to:

1. Throw away old dirt;

2. throw some gypsum on the bottom if each swimming pool hole

3. bring in some planters mix, compost fines, and compost menure. And mix them all together. 

4.  Fill the hole back to normal level

5. plant as a raised mound

The planting is as follows but I don't know which plant grows faster or slower so any input as to the order would be much appreciated.

Hole 1 orange

Hole 2 strawberry guava


Hole 3 longan

Hole 4 2 types banana

Hole 5 rose apple

Hole 6 wax apple

Hole 7 lychee


Passion fruit vine will be in the entire back of the fence after I install a chicken wire type fence in the back.

That all I got so far, any other input or advice would be helpful before I finalize everything.















You will need to at least build the mounds 1ft 1/2 above ground level. A raised bed would be ideal but it doesn't appear you have the space for that, so the raised mounds will have to suffice.

The main problem with the outlay as far as I can see is that the trees are planted far, far too close together. It is going to be very difficult to prune these, particular the longans and lychees, into a wide dome whilst stilll allowing for enough growth to facilitate a decent amount of fruit set. More importantly, everything will be growing into everything else. Some fruit trees do not like competition, I cannot comment if this is true of what you are planting out as I just do not know.

The bananas, if they are not a dwarf variety,, will drown out the light and this will cause sun exposure problems, as these will certainly grow higher than the other species a lot more quickly. Lychees will not set fruit on areas which do not receive full sun. Additionally, the bananas will produce pups which will have to be removed, and in later years, doing this might risk damage of the peripheral root system of the other species as these will become intertwined with them. Everything you have spreads out surface roots; if you treat the soil regularly with compost and mulch and regular watering this will, slowly, turn the upper stratum of soil into a loam. Well, not a loam exactly--but it will be much, much better than what you already have, and will be good enough. Be careful with gypsum, it isn't a panacea and if used excessively will certainly disrupt your soil chemistry.