The Tropical Fruit Forum

I’m using saucers for all guava trees in pots.
The roots at the bottom use up the water in the saucer.

Carolyn thanks for the dowel tip, I'll use it and I also like plastic containers because the soil seems to stay moist a bit longer. They're definitely easier to get the plant out of when needed and a LOT lighter than the clay if I had to move them. But I do not have to move the clay on my open patio and the heavier weight makes them more stable during our frequent (sometimes daily) summer storms which can have winds of 40 mph and up.

I also use raised bed potting mix but coco coir instead of Perlite which keeps the soil from getting compacted and holds onto water. I guess there's no right answer until you find out what does NOT work :-)

Seanny, yeah, I guess what zone you live in has a lot to do with saucers letting standing water collect. I've often watered my trees to fill the saucers and a heavy rain came within a few hours and by the next day the trays were empty so I'll keep those in saucers as is. 

After enjoying a batch of gnarly but DEElicious tomatoes recently I dug around in them for seeds and thought "what the heck, why not try growing them" and I planted the dozen or so seeds I was able to get from the seed stingy tomatoes I had. Gads, the 10 or so seeds I was able to get sprouted!

Now the questions...

Has anyone grown Heirlooms in south Florida?

If so, my yard is semi to mostly shaded with patches of full sun areas, which is best?

Container or in ground?

Planting / soil medium?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

My trees get full sun 7+ hours a day and are growing like gangbusters and are in close proximity to each other, one has 10 blooms the others zero. One in ground in partial shade and as of this morning has three flowers blooming.

It's definitely not sun, nor lack of water / fertilizer or a soil issue as they're all in planting medium from the same bags.  There has to be something I'm missing.

Based on pruning suggestions, what I'm going to try is to clip the mature leaves from near the nodes to see if the deficient plants are self shading themselves?

Guava are the only trees that I have problems with and Dormant oil and all seasons oil generally keep them down.

Anything not white inside.

Two Rollinia came ready for picking today.

I've been growing them long enough to know they do not ripen if picked green off the tree but today of two I picked one was yellow enough to pick but I found that the other side was STILL green.

I am bummed out thinking one of my long awaited fruits will not be edible. What are the chances this one can be salvaged? If so how to store it?

Smoke flavoring? I've used grape vine, peach wood and apple but Guava? Tell me more!

 

Pickering is an excellent choice, my second would be Glenn.

My Julie seedling (Juicy Lucy) bears heavily, the neighbors love it and she is completely resistant to anthracnose unlike her parent tree.

When I moved into my current house the city had a split bill assuming that with their "pretty lawn" ordnance / mandate not 100% of water used went into the sewer and water bills were calculated fairly. When they went to "we meter 2000 gallons, you pay for 2000 gallons of sewage" water bills doubled.

I paid to repair the well pump, sprinklers and added hose bibs and I haven't used city water in over 18 years. Many of my neighbors saw the practicality of repairing their wells and did the same.

So I pay the minimum for connect fees and sewage on whatever I use (less than 1k gallons per month) and my bills are ~$50 a month.

I bless that well and my decision to repair it every time I water my trees, and if I didn't already have a well I'd have one drilled because cities have run amok on fees. By my calculation, I saved over $8,000, well worth the well repair or even a new well.

Well owners STILL need to conserve water because the county mandates it during water restrictions. Remember even the remote possibility of having a sinkhole open up under your house is no picnic.

See: https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-pedia/why-are-there-suddenly-so-many-sinkholes/

Mine are too big to remove them and they give ma a lot of fruit and I have no issues with diseases.

duplicate

Been growing a 'Ruby Supreme x Barbie' for four years now.  it grew to eight feet tall and needed to be cut back. 
It got a haircut in March a year ago, trimmed down to four feet then grew back to six feet by June but never bloomed.

It gets irrigated reasonably frequently and it was fertilized a couple times with 10-10-10 because I know they are heavy feeders.

Maybe my timing is off somehow on the watering, feeding, and pruning.  The plant grows well but why no fruit?

Also have a few Psidium catleyanum but they're not large enough to fruit.  Next year maybe....

Asking for some suggestions.  All welcomed.  I love guavas and would like to get that dumb plant to fruit.

Cheers!

Paul M.
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OP, I'm wondering how your Guava have fared? Several of my guava are in a similar situation as yours and mine are from reliable sources that say they were air layered.

+1 On S-L-O-W rooting air layering.