The Tropical Fruit Forum

Okay, thanks.  It wouldn't be straight coco coir, mixed with perlite and bark, which I think helps drain better (something like gardener's ground cover bark, or orchid fine bark, or kellogg garden soil / recycled forest products, whichever is on sale).

My part of so cal had an unusually sunny June, but the gloom caught up and last three weeks have been overcast just about daily.  I think the pineapple plants are responding well cosmetically, they've greened up a bit and look overall healthier than they did last month.  That said, I went a bit too long in watering them this week and the mix I use (peat, bark, perlite) has dried out because I'm getting awful channeling now.  I don't think I'll do air-pruning pots without automated watering again.**

How do you all rehydrate peat-based mixes without taking the plants out of the pot?

**I bought a bunch of 5-10 gallon rainscience grow bags a couple years ago on a 4/20 deal for my peppers and tomatoes, then when I was upotting my pineapples last year, I had the grow bags handy and decided to try them; biggest drawback is that they dry out super quick, I've seen no evidence that they are better than regular pots for everything else.  Despite this, they are super high quality, will last a long time, and clean up nicely in the washing machine.

Oh, that's a relief, thank you all

Oh.. I went back to watch a video of the KSL farm and see the red leaves now.  I guess I remembered them wrong.  Holy cow those plants got huge out there!

Ah okay, I'll leave them alone then, my shady places are pretty much just shade. 

Oh no what have I done. 

Tomangos?

Mangatoes?

Womanatoes?

This is an unknown variety growing at parental units' yard.  Likely bird-dropped seed 7-10 years ago, unknown variety.  Gardener chopped all lower branches off to shape it into a "tree" a few years ago before it began setting fruit, requires ladder to access   Branches are pulled down for easier pictures.  Fruit is sweet, tart, quite tasty.  It might be fun to graft known varieties to this, but my only experience is so far is with two apple trees.  Maybe someday I'll try to graft something to the lower trunk, although I noticed a sucker growing, it is now 2ft tall, maybe I can graft to that?

Shilohtech, when that area had sun, water was every 2-3 days, now that it's shady maybe 7-10 days.  I check the soil, keeping moist and not drying out.  Soil mixture is 3-1-1 (bark, peat, perlite) with about a tablespoon of a mild organic fertilizer (down to earth 4-4-4) since it's in approx 1 gallon grow bag.

I think for a period it may be been too wet, maybe that caused this.

Hi:

I received a blackberry jam fruit rooted cutting earlier this year.  Took a while, but it finally had some new growth sept-oct, and today I noticed brown/orange spots on the leaves.  Is this something to be concerned about or is it fine?

At the moment, it's in an area which gets only morning sun (overcast or fogged) for 3-4 hours, then rest of the day bright shade.

Thank you!

That makes sense, thank you.  I wouldn't add a graft to the rootstock then, just below the existing graft?

You could potentially grow some sort of vine onto the tote, or put some shade-loving plants around it, beneath the canopy of the tree.  Just means more plants, but hey, why not