I've been growing watermelon in my yard for several years and every year they do a little worse because of disease issues, especially Fusarium. After Googling around for watermelons, I came upon a thread where someone mentioned that he grafted watermelons onto other Cucurbit rootstock that were disease resistant and his grafted plants grew much better and produced better compared to his non grafted plants that eventually got diseases.

I tried the hole insertion, approach graft and cleft graft methods and the hole insertion method was the easiest for me. Out of the 12 plants I grafted, one definitely did not take, three definitely took and the rest I won't find out until I make the final cut. Anyone else try grafting watermelon or other fruit and veggies?
Simon

Just wanted to let all the local San Diegans know that there is some great quality Champaign mangoes available at Lucky Seafood in Mira Mesa. Price is a little high but the fruit are large and very sweet. Just make sure you wait until they are at least a little wrinkly before eating or else they will not be sweet. I ate several from a case I bought last week and none of them were bad inside.

Lucky seafood and the fruit shop also has Sapodilla, the fruit shop also has white sapote, Jackfruit, mangosteen, rambutan, Longan and cherimoya. The fruit shop has the best fresh pressed sugarcane juice around so give it a try. The best Cherimoyas are at the farmers markets.

The Kent mangoes from Peru are pretty bad but I did get lucky with a few decent tasting ones. Lucky Seafood also has Manilla and Ataulfo mangoes for a cheaper price than the Champaign but they are also smaller fruit. Smaller is not necessarily worse but I can only vouch that the Chsmpaigne mangoes are great quality. I have yet to try the Manilla/Ataulfo from here.

Please post here if you happen upon any good quality fruit locally available in San Diego.
Simon

Hello everyone, I just wanted to get everyone's opinions for the best way to grow Mangos in SoCal? Specifically, I'm wondering if it is better to top the tree immediately in order to stimulate new lower growth to get future scaffold branches early or is it better to wait until my mango trees, whether planted into the ground or in a pot, are more established and has a good established root system and one or two years of stored energy?

Before anyone answers, I know that Richard Cambel recommends that mango trees should be topped early in order to establish the scaffold branches as early as possible but here in SoCal, the Mangoes grow so slowly that I have some mango trees that barely put on 8 inches of growth in about two years because they keep trying to bloom and hold fruit.

Someone, I believe from this forum recommended that Mango trees grown in SoCal should be allowed to establish itself and store a little energy before topping to induce new lower growth of scaffold branches. I believe the reasoning was because small mango trees have a limited number of leaves, this is the plants solar cells used to make and store energy/carbohydrates for growth, flowering and fruiting. By topping, you remove the majority of leaves and leave your tree with only a few solar panels to generate energy.

If you let the small tree establish for a year or so, the tree will be able to use all those additional leaves that were not removed in order to store up more energy and possibly spur faster and healthier new growth after topping in the following year. I have several plants that are really tall and lanky and will eventually need to be topped. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Simon

I got my White Jade Pineapple plants from Flying Fox Fruits, Adams new nursery, yesterday and the plants came in perfect condition. The little plants look super healthy and none of them snapped during shipping. The roots are just starting to come out of their plug and I potted them into some organic potting soil.

Adam, if you are reading this, do you have any advice on how to acclimate these to the outdoors? I know you mentioned that these were tissue cultured so I'm wondering if they were grown under artificial light or in a greenhouse. It gets down to about 50F at night and about 80F in the daytime currently here in San Diego. Thanks again for the plants and the excellent service! I'll definitely be ordering more plants from Flying Fox Fruits!
Simon

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for Big Sister, Fino De Jete and Orton Cherimoya scions shipped to San Diego. If you have these varieties available , please pm me with the price. Thanks in advance!
Simon

Hello everyone, here is a quick update on my Lychee trees. All my Lychee trees are very small except my FZS/Sweetheart/Hak Ip. The only tree I have harvested fruit from is my FZS and it only produced two fruit that ripened properly and 4 fruit that were malformed. The largest fruit weighed about 46 grams. I gave the properly ripened fruit to my dad and he said it was excellent quality.

All my Lychee trees look terrible when they are small as you can see in the pictures. Once they have been in the ground for about two years, they start to put on some size.

The first several pictures are recent air layers that was purchased from Oscar. Shortly after I received the air layers, every single leaf dropped from both the Bosworth3 and the No Mai Tsze. The majority of leaves also fell off the Hanging Green but it did retain several leaves. I thought the air layers were a goner but I gave them artificial lighting, bottom heat and frequent mistings.

A couple weeks after all the leaves fell off, I saw signs of life, small green buds starting to emerge from all over each air layer. I did remove all brown and dieting leaves and I also cut back several of the branches. Under my artificially controlled environment, the new leaves are enlarging and the root mass has spread out into its new pot. I believe the bottom heat greatly accelerated the root formation.

Hello everyone,

I grew the Chilean Guava several years ago and the fruit are absolutely Fantastic. I mean, this fruit tastes like an explosion of unique, sweet cotton candy flavor. The scientific name is Ugni Molinae and it is branded as Tazziberry in Australia.  I have since killed my plant and would like to replace it with a large fruiting variety. Does anyone know where I can find selected varieties of Chilean Guava that was selected for large fruit size or better eating qualities?  Thanks in advance!
Simon

Hello everyone, I just wanted to share with everyone some simple thing I do to increase the quality of the fruit I harvest from my trees. Please feel free to share your knowledge and experiences.

One thing I do to my fruit trees is to give them frequent diluted feedings of kelp extract before I expect the tree to flower all the way until after I harvest the fruit, so pretty much I give it kelp extract year round except the dead of winter when there are heavy rains and no growth on my trees. Kelp extract has many of the major, minor and trace elements/minerals that plants need and it is difficult to burn your plants with this type of fertilizer. I give my plants kelp extract even after fruit is harvested because my trees need to build up strength for vegging and flowering next season.

Another thing I do to my fruit trees is to heavily thin my fruit. I typically thin by removing about 1/3 of all the smaller fruit when they are about pea to marble size(in general). Of course the size of the fruit when you remove them depends on what type of fruit it is but generally speaking, pea to marble size covers much of what we grow. Another way to look at it is to remove 1/3 of the fruit 2-3 weeks after fruit set. This is the first thinning.

Depending on the type of fruit, I do a second thinning several weeks or a month later to remove another 1/3 of the smaller, malformed or damaged fruit. For fruit like Longan and Loquat that fruit in large panicles, it's easier to just clip off the terminal 1/3 to 2/3 of the fruit cluster when pea sized. Most of this information is just regurgitation of information I read online or saw on a YouTube video.

When flowering and when fruit are enlarging, I like to give my trees organic 0-10-10. The Potassium in this type of fertilizer is supposed to increase the sweetness of the fruit and I really feel it helps greatly from my experience. About every 3 months or so, I also like to give my plants some ground up rock dust like Azomite which you can order online. This is supposed to help replenish the minerals that were used up by the plants. There are some informative videos about this on YouTube.

If you are going for extra large "showpiece" fruit to give away to your friends and relatives, make sure you water your trees according to what is recommended for that type of fruit. Also know your soil and your rootstock so that you don't kill your tree by overwatering. Having stated this, I have found that( very obviously) the more water you give, the larger the fruit. BUT, be careful of fruit splitting.

In order to avoid fruit splitting, I try to establish my trees as best as I can. By this I mean that the first couple weeks I plant a tree, I water my trees almost daily but don't rely on what you read online! Everybody's yard, soil and microclimate are different so it is difficult to generalize. You Must get your hands dirty and keep track for yourself. If in question of wether or not to water, dig down into the soil or feel the drainage holes of your pot and see for yourself. When establishing trees it's important to gradually decrease the number of waterings so that your trees roots will expand deeper and deeper into the ground in search of water. With these deep roots, I personally feel that you will have less issues with fruit splitting. Also try to keep your watering schedule very regular and do not water in midday during a heat wave unless to save your trees life. I'm just totally guessing but I feel that the heat causes increased metabolic activity in the trees and the trees are capable of sucking up so much water during a heat wave that it causes fruit to split. It may be better to wait until late evening or at night and don't overwater in these conditions. Having deep roots will also help in these heat wave conditions because the water supply to your tree is more stable.

I was just wondering why Cherimoya does not do well in Florida and what can be done about it. Is it the heat/humidity that inhibits flowering or fruit formation? Do pollinated flowers simply not produce fruit?

I thought about what I tried to do here in San Diego to give me the best chance of success when it came to fruiting Mangoes and wondered if it could be applied to growing Cherimoyas successfully in Florida. I put an extra rootstock onto my Maha Chanok in an attempt to give my tree added vigor and better adaptability to my soil, two roots better than one? I also grafted named varieties onto my Manilla rootstock because some people have suggested that Manilla rootstock is more cold hardy.

I was just wondering if anyone has attempted grafting A named Cherimoya variety onto a seedling Atemoya or if anyone has attempted to put two or more rootstocks on a Cherimoya? Perhaps the extra vigor from multiple rootstocks can push the plant into holding and properly ripening some fruit. Also, I was thinking that since Atemoya(I think) and Sugar Apple can fruit successfully in Florida, they can be used as rootstock and then named Cherimoya varieties can be grafted on top.

Perhaps Floridians can strip the leaves off their Cherimoya leaves in winter so that flowering can occur in a more favorable climate?
Simon

Hello everyone,

I picked my first home grown mango about two weeks ago. The mango is a Nam Doc Mai from a grafted tree and it was grown in Southern California. I've had the tree for about three years and removed the fruit each year when they are thumb size but this one fruit was hidden behind a leaf so I didn't even notice it until it was half grown.

The fruit was picked about two weeks ago mature green with just a hint of yellow blush on one side. It was hard as a rock when I picked it. I let it sit on the counter for about 5 days but it was still hard so I set it on my seedling heat mat for another 5 days and it got just slightly soft. I then put it in the fridge for one night and finally cut it open last night.

There was just a slight sweet smell coming from the fruit but you had to pick up the fruit and sniff it up close to smell it. The fruit weighed slightly over 12 ounces and had an extremely thin seed. I harvested the fruit mature green because there was rain in the forecast two weeks ago and I was afraid of the fruit splitting. I believed the fruit would ripen properly because I read that a slight yellow blush is an indicator that the fruit may be ripe. The fruit also had filled in shoulders.

When I cut the fruit open, it was a golden yellow orange color and I was glad to see there was no jelly seed nor black streaks in the flesh. There was absolutely no fiber and this mango was extremely sweet! I mean it was really really sweet. There was no "tropical mango" flavor that I associate with Haden, Kent and Edward mangoes. Not wanting to waste any of the flesh, I skinned the mango as close to the skin as I could get but I left little bit of green skin on the flesh which may be the reason a couple bites had a slight green taste to it. This mango was sweeter than any Champaign, ataulfo, manilla or Kent mango I've had all year. The flavor had hints of honey and the rest was pretty much pure sweetness. The NDM mangoes I had in Thailand had more floral bouquet and didn't have any of that green flavor. Next time I will leave the fruit on a little longer and also remove all of the green skin.

The seed was paper thin except where the embryo was. The embryo was very small and appears to have two parts/seedling. I gave this tree some organic 0-10-10 after I discovered it was hiding a fruit and I believe this is partially why the fruit was so sweet. I believe the Potassium helps sweeten up the fruit.

I am extremely glad I planted this tree because I absolutely love this fruit. I still can't believe such a small tree with so few leaves can bring a mango to maturity and full sweetness. The tree is only about two feet tall and has very few leaves. The thing I don't like about this tree is that it is extremely dwarf and flowers constantly, producing very few leaf flushes. I have tried very few varieties of mangoes but based on the fiberless and extremely sweet flesh of this NDM, it is one of the best mangoes I've ever eaten. Right up there with the Edwards mango off Eunice's tree.
Simon

The tap water here in San Diego has a pH of about 8.2.  I can drop the pH of my tap water to 5.0 by adding one tablespoon of distilled vinegar to a gallon of water. I was wondering if it would be ok to continually water with this vinegar water or if anything will start accumulating in the soil that will be detrimental to my plant?

Should I flush my potted MF every once in a while or should I alternate watering with tap water and vinegar water? Is there another, safer way to lower the pH of my water that is easy and cheap? I already use rainwater whenever I have it available. Thanks!
Simon

Hello everyone, I planted a Kohala Longan about a year ago and decided to let it hold some fruit. The largest fruit are now larger than a quarter. I only have 9 fruit, yes that's right, 9 fruit so I want to make sure I harvest them at the right time. The fruit are mostly tan with some green. The largest fruit feels just slightly squishy but only the largest one. I am trying to grow these to the maximum size and brix but don't want them to spoil. How much longer do you think I can leave it on the tree? How can you tell when they are overripe? Thanks in advance!
Simon

Does this look like Fei Zi Siu Lychee? This first picture is what Chinese call Hak Ip next to what I believe is a Fei Zi Siu Lychee. The Hak Ip is the smaller and red colored fruit. The Hak Ip weighed in at 27.4 grams and is the largest fruit I got in the bag. The FZS is still on the tree so I can't get an accurate weight but I guess it's approximately 40+ grams and is definitely larger than a golf ball. The color is mostly green with a little red and it has only gotten slightly more red in the last two weeks. It reached this size about two weeks ago when it's bumps sort of flattened out and the size does not appear to have increased in the last two weeks but its hard to say for sure.

 I have difficulty determining if it is ripe because the color does not seem to be getting any redder and it appears to have reached full size and bumps flattened out. I say the bumps flattened out but this is relative to how it was when it was smaller, this variety appears to retain its spikeyness but it just becomes less sharp and the bumps round out slightly.

I only got six fruit from my tree this year and only two fruit developed normally. Two fruit were joined together like siamese twins and are very small and very spikey but these fruit were in the sun and turned much more red. The last two fruit are extremely long and were also in the sun and are much more red but the flesh is not filling in at all. These two long fruit reached maximum size about a month ago and it reached full redness about three weeks ago but I left it on the tree because I was hoping it would fill in, I believe the fruit is over ripe now. If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I would absolutely believe these three phenotypes were from three different varieties of lychees.
Simon