Quote from: CTMIAMI on January 06, 2013, 04:47:59 PM

Zands if I get you correctly, the next new moon is January 14, 2013. The next 14 days will put you to January 28, with the best day being January 21, 2013?
I did dome grafting on December 18 Waxing moon and they are already pushing out like crazy.

Estimado Carlos, you have more than one day. Let us say the four days surrounding January 21. The idea is increasing light and tidal pull on all water and all plant juices from the moon. This starts right after the new moon which is empty and non-visible.

http://www.plantea.com/planting-moon-phases.htm
Increasing Light -- New moon to full moon
Examples of garden chores to do by the light of the moon:
(NOTE: These are general guidelines. I highly recommend referring to Ed Hume's Planting Guide for specific planting tasks):

    Repot and groom houseplants
    Sow seeds of plants that grow above ground (for helpful tips on starting your own seeds, click here.)
    Fertilize
    Graft fruit trees
    Plant evergreen and deciduous trees
 

Zands, those 'tidal' influences happen every single day, 365 days a year - as the Earth rotates once per 24 hours, under the moon above, so to speak. So the plant juices and such are going to feel daily tidal pulls similar to the oceans.

The phases have to do with where the moon is in its orbit around the Earth. If it's on the other side of Earth from the sun then we see it 'full'. If it's off to the side - ahead or behind us - we get to see 'half' of it. If it's on the sun side of us then the face of the moon to us is dark.

It is true though that  the COMBINED effects of tidal pull with moon brightness is at a maximum once a month. And, as you say, there are several days (nights) bracketing full moon when the moonlight is close to'full'.

My 4 1/2 year old Ross is bearing right now too. Maybe a total of 40 fruits - of mixed sizes. Mine don't look as picturesque as yours - kinda scruffy. But they taste very good. I make milkshakes with most of mine - half liter of milk, avocado, a bit of ice, plus one Ross with seeds removed, skin and all. I look at the tree and gently feel any yellowing ones for softness. After 12-24 hours on the kitchen counter they soften considerably and turn a darker yellow. As for smell, so far I haven't ever detected any odor from either flowers or fruit. The tree is maybe 12 feet high and growing on poor sand soil. Being the cruel master I am, I have left the tree to make its own way in the world - without much attention or care from me. Last year I read some books/ info on giving plants access to 'fully mineralized' soil (Acres USA, John Kempf, Charles Walters, Maynard Murray) and have lightly sprayed some of my plants with a dilute solution of SeaCrop an ocean water extract which claims to contain the entire gamut of elements.

I have about 40 moringa trees in a line about a foot from my back fence. They were about 30 feet tall. About 6 weeks ago I simply chainsawed them all down, leaving just stumps 5 feet tall. The wood is very soft and branches up to about 2 inches in diameter go like butter through my electric chipper-shredder - yielding a lot of fast breakdown biomass. Now, 6 weeks later the new growth on those stumps has already burgeoned back up by at least 6 feet - and before long will probably be back to 30 feet high and ready for the chain saw again.
It also makes for an excellent privacy screen at our rear property line

Our Keitt is done for this season. Last mango eaten today....

Same thing happens to us. Not always, but enough to be aggravating. It is an 8 mile round trip to take them back to Costco, so we just grin and bear it.

What about saw palmettos? I like them, but I just recently heard that they tend to harbor pests. Would 'tree rats' nest in those too?

I make a smoothie with a cup or two of guanabana (deseeded!), half of an avocado (about 8 ounces), kefir (about 12 ounces), a small scoop of vanilla flavored protein powder. I use a Vitamix blender and it comes out great. I add stevia if I want it sweeter....

Enables us to have fruits (and vegetables) normally not available in the stores.

Trees and plants arranged nicely are more attractive than plain carpets of mowed grass desert.

Homegrown fruits and vegetables can be picked and eaten closer to their optimum state of ripeness and nutritional value.

Self-sufficiency and security should times of trouble come upon us.

Satisfaction from giving treats of delicious fruit to elderly folks who no longer have property or the ability to garden.

Intellectually the ideas of 'permaculture', 'food forest', and 'edible landscaping' are appealing and beautiful constructs. Kind of a movement of spiritual harmony between God's natural creation and the human creature.

More control over the health and fertility of the land - over its nutritional potential - and hence over the nutritional completeness and quality of the fruit and vegetables produced.

Fresh air and exercise.

My Day is about 35 years old. Never had a problem with it. Most of those years it was not irrigated. Now it's in a drip irrigated zone. No disease or bug problems. Virtually no fertilizer either.

Production was very low in the early years. I just didn't pay any attention to it. About half of the tree was wrecked by hurricane Wilma. It bounced back fine.

Fruit season is generally from late July through August and part of September (in Boca Raton). This year was less than the previous several years - maybe 70-80 avocados. Average weight about 1 pound, I would say. In some prior years we've had hundreds - maybe 300-400.

The seed is pretty big. The skin is smooth and shiny. Green during development, then starts to change to a beautiful shiny black. Convenient, because you know those turning black are ready to pick - no guesswork. They ripen from hard to soft and edible about 3 days - skin goes all black and goes duller. The seed pops free and rarely leaves the seed husk sticking to the fruit. The only trouble they give - and it's not a lot of trouble - comes in scooping the fruit away from the skin. Hass avocados have that hard, stiff skin and it's so easy to just run a spoon inside and zip zip, it's done. The Day skin is very soft and thin. It's easy to tear through the skin so you have to work it with a bit of care.

The taste is excellent. Very creamy texture, golden color, can be spread like butter. All in all it's a fine little avocado.

Jack (Coconut) brought us that beautiful Phet Pak Ching atemoya yesterday. My wife and I are complete annona innocents - first a. muricata (guanabana) this spring from our own tree (maybe Cuban Fibreless?), Boca Chewy from Jack last week, and now Jack's PPK atemoya. That's the total story. So, in the sampling of tasters we represent the unsophisticated newbie segment of the population. Yeah, unsophisticated, but after tasting these things, very happy newbies.

The guanabana was the messiest fruit I have ever eaten. Juicy, syrupy, even slimy in texture. I didn't weigh them but some were approaching the size of a football. Pretty darn ugly fruit I must say - off putting even. Strange misshapen things. I don't see much commercial potential because they ripen from rock hard to pretty squishy soft in just a couple of days. It would be easy to just jab a finger through the skin and right into the center of the fruit. The taste though!! Sweet, complex, sharp, a real taste bud waker-upper...

Jack's Boca Chewy and the PPK were much firmer and would have better shelf life. The flavor of both is excellent. Neither was messy to deal with. No juice running down your arm... The BC came across as more complex and with more 'character'. The PPK was just plain delicious - not bland, but somehow plainer and not as fascinating to the taste buds as the other two.

 There is a hilarious dinner scene in the movie "What About Bob?" where Bill Murray is enjoying a meal in the home of his psychiatrist (Richard Dreyfuss) and verbalizing his pleasure with all manner of oohs, aahs, moans, and groans.  If we had some kind of 'Bob' scale for fruit tasting the guanabana would provoke 'wow', the BC 'yum oh yum', and the PPK 'hmmm hmmm'. 

How's that for unsophisticated?

Quote from: franciscu on August 23, 2014, 06:54:03 PM

Thanks,  Jack, for that opportunity yesterday to taste your Boca Chewy and Burmese Red. We're still in the deep meditation :-)). The experience of seeing your place with all those health-giving plants is going to change our world here. I was out looking around this morning. For some of my trees now I am going to have to become a grim reaper. Taking space but not giving us good taste, or food, or anything. You're the MAN!
- Frank

Well thankyou for allowing me to field trial Big Eyes SUgar apples & whitman fiberless selection on your property.  It s nice to find some one with a darwinism attitude toward breeding, and yes Frank its all
About taste & how much to fill the belly.  Nice to meet kindred in your wife Cherokee background! I am sure we Choctaw have argument with our Cherokee brother, but after they all march us in the Cherokee Trail of tears to Oklahoma we are more bonded now than just a few gambling Casinos!  You think They allow us to sneak in a few bison to graze your backyard, no one would notice in your sleepy section of the beach?

Jack, my wife's father was part Cheyenne - not Cherokee. Still all brothers though! Me too - being as I am a mix from Roman Eighth Legion, Irish, Viking, German, French, and Jewish, I think... (basically everything but Gringo  :-))

- Frank

After my wonderful surprise experience with my annona myricata (guanabana) this year I am psyched up now to plant some more annonas. The guanabana bore its fruit (approximately 25 2-3 pounders) thru April-May. Being a noncommercial homeowner I prefer trying to spread the harvest over the longest period possible and avoid getting buried with too much fruit all at once. Sounds like the Phet Pakchong is one I need to find to cover August. What is recommended for June-July and maybe September+ if possible?