The Tropical Fruit Forum

I bought a Kwai Muk from TopTropicals a couple of years ago, here in San Diego, and it's done just fine for me. Way too young to flower but it remains evergreen even through winter. I just have it in regular potting soil. At first I had it in the ground but felt it got too little sun, so now it's in a pot on my balcony and seems to do better. I need to find a sufficiently sunny spot in the ground for it.

I haven't ever fertilized it, I just give it water.

Seeds are irrelevant because the flesh does not cling to them at all; they're just in their own hollow pocket in the center. And the exterior of the fruit has the most flavor anyway. Just break a fruit in half and shake out the seeds; it's simple.

All wax jambu can create seedless fruits if not pollinated, but the flowers create so much nectar that it literally drips down and so bees go crazy for it, so pollination is very likely.

By the way, while fruits are forming you should use low water; that helps sweeten the fruits. With abundant water they just become more watery/mild. Also don't pick them until they're about to fall off; even after the color break, they still have a month or more of ripening to get properly sweet.

Coffee for sure does well in shade, and so does miracle fruit. Of course both are basically novelties for home growers; you're not going to snack on either really. Same with cacao.

I think monstera was a good suggestion.

Carolina, plants need sunlight to produce sugar. Depriving it of light will always result in bland fruit. That's why commercial growers try to get as much sunlight as possible. But it's nice that the plant can survive such conditions.

Honestly you should visit both places; they're very different. In terms of plants, PR has a tropical rain forest but Hawaii does not, because PR is overall much wetter and more consistently tropical. But that can work against you if you grow fruits that actually prefer it drier, which would be much easier on the western halves of the Hawaiian islands.

But PR is MUCH cheaper and also much closer to other places as well as Florida. Hawaii is a 6+ hour flight from anything.

My own tree, which I bought as a 3G six years ago, created its first ever flowers and fruits earlier this year, and now it has more ripening fruits as well as tons of flowers. It went from 0 to 100 very quickly!

aka Beach Cherry, I have a couple of plants too (very small). The fruits are OK. The problem is this species is only propagated by seed so each one is different. One of my plants makes fruit that is sweet with little bitterness and some slight flavor; hard to describe but at least it's not completely bland.

By contrast, my Ice Cream Bean makes sweet fruit but with no flavor whatsoever.

I had no idea what he was talking about, but he means this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_lime

They should all be able to survive for you. Ong's Nursery in San Diego has Canistel and Ross Sapote.

Cacao tend to be grown on hillsides for good drainage, and in low pH soil, usually clay.

Low pH = high acidity. Clay is high pH; it is alkaline.

Well you obviously need to water them; you can't expect to grow fruit without irrigation unless in a consistently wet climate. That's your biggest problem. Fruits require quite a bit of water so the trees need to be well watered. Secondly, do the flowers have pollen? If so then they are male.

But avocados and citrus are not "interesting". Exotica is a great option because it's not just a nursery; they have 50+ year old fruit trees of all kinds so you get to see and sample really established and mature exotic fruit trees. Quail has fruit trees but you're not allowed to pick or eat the fruit there.