All I can find is a million references to the word 'pitaya'. That doesn't help me a lot. No doubt one of the columnar type cacti produce these, but which? What is the proper name? Is it worth growing--I.E, will it fruit within my lifetime 

Why would the australian customs confisticate packages that go OUT of Australia? I don't understand that part.

They basically said I'd mislabelled the seeds, you have to fill out a green form with details of what is being sent etc and mine apparently wasn't satisfactorily done on both occasions.

Quote from: Recher on February 27, 2014, 05:21:27 PM

Am I alone in preferring Opuntia ficus-indica fruit to any of the Hylocereus?

I view them equally as tasty as Dragon Fruit. I think most people shy away from Opuntia sp. fruits, due to the glochids and spines involved. Also the seeds are a major turn off for people.

I have had an excellent Opuntia that had no seeds and had sweet tasty flesh, I ranked it a 9 out of 10.

Opuntia are very fine fruits, better than DF in most cases, the downside being the high number of small, hard seeds. Similar to guava.

Anybody who can't successfully  use a chef's torch to deal with glochids and spines has no business growing prickly pear. It isn't rocket science.

Meanwhile, on planet reverse osmosis...

Company over here in Aus is marketing this as 'Aztec Gem'.

Looks very suspiciously like Dark Star. Do you think it is actually Dark Star, and has just been  renamed?

happened to me a couple of weeks back with a package I'd been trying to send to Luc.

The last parcel I sent shouldn't get canned for any reason as far as I can see...I've really tried to go above and beyond what is expected.

But yes, I feel your pain Mike. It isn't easy or to cheap to send out packages from Aus, and it can be time consuming too if the seeds are hard to clean (Achacha, anybody?) and to have them refused is a real kick in the guts. Not to mention the person the seeds were promised to is left high and dry. Just a really bad situation all around.

And yes, I'm a total quarantine Pirate. But who has Made me that? AQIS and their entourage of mouth-breathing staff.

What I liked the most is your idea to use a bed frame as trellis. I would never had thought about that.

Tomas

Thanks Tomas. It is nice aesthetically, but I have my doubts about longevity. I sealed all the fixtures and openings with silicon to try and prevent rust, but I'm not convinced that the powdercoating will stand up to the harsh Queensland weather. Hopefully I'm proven wrong.

An as yet unidentified dwarf banana which was scavenged from a friend's place. He isn't in to plants (he's a mechanic) and has no idea what it is:


Collette Finger Lime. Has a lot of small fruit like the one displayed right now. Will be a while before they mature.



A couple of purple Dragon fruit. I build all my trellises this way now, using very large plastic tubs and hardwood posts. I ran out of UV resistant paint for this one, I'll get to doing that eventually.



My largest rollinia, which isn't big by any means but I hope this year to get fruit.




A raspberry trellis I build from an old wrought iron bed frame and some pine posts. Not sure how long it will last, but should be good for 5 years or so, I hope. I have tayberries and heritage raspberry planted out on it.



A white wax Jambu/ Jambu apple. It got damaged very badly in last year's heatwave, but is coming back strong. I have red and pink also. Not a lot of people like them, but I find them crisp and refreshing.



Some baby Z4 Abiu and Giant Thai Carambola. These, like a great, great deal of what is in my smaller hothouse, were gifted by Mike T, who helps out a lot of people nationally.



Wai chee Lychee. There are a lot better cultivars, but this one crops well in the subtropics.



You'll never see a macadamia tree bigger than this. It is truly gigantic. I haven't collected the nuts in years, but the cockatoos like them, and I can't be bothered bringing it back into some semblance of control.



Alstonville Fingerlime. It was a poor crop as a result of the plant being stressed by having been repotted.



The back paddock. Looking pretty grim right now due to the lack of rain. The bananas are blue Java and are ready to be fertilised, the dirt patch is where my neighbor's horse has claimed as a rolling spot.



I'm cheating a bit here: This isn't the river which forms the boundry of the property, and is salt. The one I intend to irrigate from is fresh, luckily. They do join however. This was taken at my local fishing spot. I catch some decent whiting here sometimes, and if I'm lucky mudcrabs. But these get scarcer as the years go by, due to overfishing.  I do catch a lot of bream here, but do not eat them. Many people do.

At the local markets I never see any variety of Finger Lime other than the Rainforest Pearls. They are much too acidic for me. I have some Wauchope Finger Lime tree's that produce excellent quality fruit although I would like them to fruit more and to have larger fruits. Does anyone have Australian Blood Lime? I have been looking for this one a while...

The blood lime, like everything developed by CSIRO, is quite crap. It in fact tastes like something you'd clean a shower with.

Ricks red is popular, I do not think it is the best out there but many do. Alstonville is quite good and has very few seeds, it is not totally seedless. The yellows are pretty (sunshine yellow) but my experience of them is that the vesicles tend to be dry and rubbery. Collette is the best IMO.

I have used in salads, and it is very nice, also in drinks. The main problem I've found can be excessive seediness in fruit that has cross-pollinated, a real pain picking the seeds out of the 'caviar' - solitary trees (at least in the improved cv's) seem to have few to no seeds. Also, a nasty resinous tasting taint of the little balls can occur from the oily skin of some varieties if not opened with care ( Rainforest Pearl is one).

Green RP is indeed a terrible fingerlime cultivar, mine ended up as landfill a long time ago.

The ones I've had that were that color in mikes photo were very sour , definitely made me pucker. Those were purchased from Goleta,ca. My trees from W & N , the fruit is dark purple when ripe and a more balanced interesting flavor unique to this fruit . What starling says is true for me as well in regards to flower , fruit set and over all healthy look of the tree . They don't prefer full sun . Here's some almost fully ripe , when they are dark purple.

Bush2beach your finger lime variety is Wauchope. This is a good cultivar.

The fruits get proportionately larger as the tree size increases. The bigger the tree, the bigger the fruit.

s

That's the problem.  You've not had a boutique fig.  A few of the best do actually put out fruit that are dessert table worthy.

which are considered boutique depends on who you ask. I've tried dozens of different varieties, and prefer the whites over the dark. I currently grow 11 varieties, all in pots. This has more to do with trade value than the fact that I'm a fan.

Again, they are ultimately bags of sugar.

Australia sure can become the best tropical tourist location for the ones that don't want the disadvantages of other tropical destinations (3rd world country's). They have everything a tourist might wish on a holiday.

I don't understand why that chief is Dutch and why they go for this berry and not the fruits that Mike and his fellows are growing. Maybe you should let him know you got much better fruits Mike.  Where can a tourist eat marang, durian, pulasan, achacha, keledang, jackfruit without all the problems/corruption scams diseases protests unhygienic stuff of Asian country's? Right only in Oztralia. And they even speak proper english there, all of them. Have loads of seafood, meat, scenery, wildlife, space, beaches, reefs and so on, no place on earth can beat that.

I didn't see any fruits when i was in Queensland but that might have been my fault, i didn't search for them. Or it might be the Ozzy's fault, they should sell them on places where tourists gather.

The only bad things are the sharks, jellyfish or small purple octopusses on the beaches and the fly's in the desert.

Used to see blue ring octopuses fairly often as a youngster, the blue on them become more pronounced the angrier they get, they are very small. Haven't had a run-in with an irukandji before, hope I never do.

Regularly fish for bull sharks in the local canals, they are present in great numbers, but almost all of them are about 1m or a little over. I guess the big ones go out to sea, but no doubt there's some monsters in the Brisbane river.
s