The Tropical Fruit Forum

Definitely wipe them off.  But they sure look like eggs to me. Cutworm eggs maybe. Has this plant been outside, or has the greenhouse been open so that outside insects can come in? They are a small brown moth when mature.

Carolyn

So, being a greenhouse gardener, AND having poor impulse control when it comes to planting seeds, is a dangerous combination.
My setup is so crowded right now, there could be a jaguar hiding in the underbrush and I would never know it.
So I have sadly decided it is time to part with my solanums - lulo, tamarillo and dwarf tamarillo. They just take up so much room, and they don't fruit.  I am guessing it is because my greenhouse is in a slightly shady location.
So today, before the weekly trash pickup, I am sending them to the big composter in the sky. Well, actually the city compost...
May they rest in pieces.

Carolyn

Well, that is a Mormon cricket, so luckily they do not fly. They can really creep you out when they run at you and attack your shoes, though! My grandkids are both fascinated and terrified by them...

does anyone here enjoy eating noni? i have never had it but I have heard its... special.

I like noni.  I think the trick is that you need to enjoy "stinky" cheese.  To me, it is a cross between Maroilles cheese (If you aren't familiar with it, then think Limburger...) and banana. 

To get the seeds from which I grew my current noni bush, I was eating one over a trash can in a park in Honolulu, and a lady walked by, sniffed, and said "That is DISGUSTING! You are as bad as my sister!" I took it as a compliment...

I offered one to my four year old granddaughter, who sniffed it and handed it back, saying "No thanks gramma. You know I don't like cheese!"

So there IS a definite "stinky cheese" quality to it.

Cheers,
Carolyn

Hand Picked Nursery in Benson, NC has many varieties of plugs available year-round. I had to order some in December for an aeroponics tower class.

Carolyn

I collected some ripe olives off the ground, from under some many-centuries-old olive trees, and planted the seeds.
The seedlings are now several years old.

One has leaves that are much larger than the other two.
I am reasonably certain, though not 100% positive, that all the seeds that sprouted were from the same tree. I collected from several locations, and the germination rate was very low.

The branch under my thumb has larger leaves than the other tree in my fingers, and in the background.
Other than that, the leaves look the same, similar color, branches etc.
They are exactly the same size and age.

Do they grow true to seed? If so, one may be from a tree at a different location.
If not, then I am still thinking that all the ones that sprouted were from the same tree.
They are not a cultivar that was labeled. These were VERY old trees.

Thoughts???

I am in zone 6 (recently bumped up to zone 7 but I don't trust it!), and I get huge temperature swings in the winter and it doesn't seem to bother anything.
I have two greenhouses attached to each other with a door between that I never close. I can keep the two at slightly different temps.
We are high desert, and here are no clouds all summer and the temps get over 100 outside for a week or two. I use shade paint and strong fans, and can keep the greenhouses much cooler than outside, but it regularly hits 90 during the day, sometimes even in winter on a sunny day. My citrus and figs do fine when it drops to 40, and in fact nobody seems to mind the temp swings except the seedlings, so I cover them at night. The area with the cacao never gets below 50, they are the only trees that really hate it cooler.

I agree, I have never had them go after any of my eugenias. Their favorites at my place are citrus, papaya,  and my poor frangipani, that get just covered if I don't stay on top of them.

I have what seems like a zillion feet of vanilla orchid growing in my greenhouse.  I actually just ripped out a whole garbage  bag full.  So it can be kind of weed-like under the right conditions...
They will climb up anything (some are growing up a fake cement tree), attach themselves very firmly and then send roots down to the ground.  So really, the bottom of the plants don't need to be in ANY soil, bark, etc, but I do start them in a 5 gallon nursery pot with small orchid bark, for convenience.  Then I can move them if I want, before they become permanently fixed to something.
Mine seem to bloom only in almost full sun.  The blooms are only good for a day, and I spend a lot of time cussing when I find wilted ones.  Once they set buds, check several times a day. We are at 2,800 ft, so the sun up here is VERY hot and burns them if they are in totally full sun in the greenhouse, but they do well in very very light shade.
As to care, I keep the ground around them, where the roots bury themselves, moist, and spray them every few days, especially wetting the roots that are above ground.  I am pretty lazy about fertilizing.  I might get more flowers if I was more diligent.  Whenever I fertilize my other orchids, every month or so, I do the vanilla also, with just dyna-gro diluted to about half strength.  I soak the ground where the roots have burrowed with it.  The roots will fan out underground for quite a ways. I spray the plants too, but not sure if that actually does anything other than give them a bath.
If you zoom in on the picture you can see the roots attached to the cement tree.  (Ignore the cinnamon tree leaves in the foreground...). The blue and yellow things on the fake tree are the nest box doors for my little parrots.  Every so often I have to rip some vanilla away so they can get in.

Good luck!
Carolyn

If they are still feeding off their cotyledons they don't need any fertilizer. Once the second set of true leaves appears, I fertilize with a complete synthetic fertilizer with a 3-1-2 ratio (so it could be 3-1-2, 9-3-6, etc) cut down to about 1/2 or 1/3 of the recommended strength.

Carolyn

I have "accidental" ground covers of Typhonium roxburgii (dwarf voodoo lily) because I re-use the potting soil and I can never find the tiny corms. 

I also get a lot of Gynura procumbens (longevity spinach) and Talinum triangulare (African waterleaf) because they creep, and go everywhere.

The floor of my greenhouse is covered with Tradescantia pallida (Moses in a Boat), which I can't seem to get rid of.  A piece fell out of a pot over a decade ago, and now I am ripping it out a couple of times a year by the garbage bag full.

I would love to try some of the ones you listed, Elouicious, especially the creeping raspberry!

Carolyn

Ha! No, the global destruction will be caused by the mosquitoes, for sure! 

Leave the post so others benefit from what you guys discovered. Maybe change title to say it ISN'T legit...
And thanks for the tip on Lams!!! I will check it out next time I am in the area.

Carolyn