The Tropical Fruit Forum

Nice harvest Brad.   I picked a couple  Cherimoyas last week and they were outstanding. Tis the season.

Hey, glad to see the Blue Guac is trucking along.  It seems to be a sturdy little plant.  Mine put on some good growth over the summer but was eaten back by some grasshoppers.  Had a real problem with grasshoppers this year.
Did the E. tenuipedunculata make it it through the summer? It’s by far my favorite Eugenia with beautiful leaves both mature and immature.  I just hope the fruit is halfway decent and can survive our full sun next year.
And yes, E. azeda is the slowest growing plant in my collection.  It could give Luc’s Garcinia a run for its money.

That’s a great looking tree!  Impressive growth in just three years.  I swear, I’m doing something wrong.  Maybe I should stop planting twigs and get that 15 gallon sweetheart lychee recently posted for sale.  I would love to get just one good sized Lychee tree on my property. Is that too much to ask?  Everything else grows fine.

Looking good Janet.  I can certainly appreciate the amount of work put into the land and supporting infrastructure.  Lord knows there are innumerable challenges with starting a farm in SoCA, with water sourcing at the absolute top of my list. Congrats on locating a solid water source.  I had to drill 1200 ft to locate water at 20 gpm.  Yes, dry farming is possible with ground covers, improved soil health, and permaculture practices for certain types of plantings.  If you’re trying to grow subtropicals like mangos and avocado (among many other rare fruit species) in our environment, it’s near impossible without water supplementation.   I always chuckle when FL forum members mention drought conditions when we survive without rain for 7-8 months of the year.  The 1 inch last night was an unexpected albeit appreciated deluge.
For your pond, do you allow that water to settle down to your water table or do you pump some it out to storage for later use?

Oh, those poor mango seedlings. Look what you did to them!
Probably too much water. Try cutting back on the water and let them dry out a bit. 

Here’s my green sapote just hanging out in an industrial parking lot.

I love how you’re just guerrilla farming all over SB. I thought that was reserved for cannabis growers, but you’re making me rethink the possibilities. 
I’m actually surprised several of you are struggling with full sun green sapote saplings.  I’m more east county than most and the sun has no effect, even during the most intense heat of the summer. You watering your trees enough?  Granted, my sample size is two trees. 

Brad, how hot does it normally get in Poway?  My mom has an old Fuyu tree in Sacramento and it produces a bumper crop every year.  She regularly gets temps in the 100's during summer.

SHV, did your replant your persimmon in the same spot as your old tree?  I've heard fruit trees suffer from replant syndrome because of the dying roots of the old trees, so it's advised to not plant related trees in the same spot.  Old vineyards and orchards will replace the soil when they replant new trees.  I planted a small bareroot coffee cake persimmon in Fallbrook and it set over 20 fruits in its second year.

Janet

No, I planted it in a different part of the property.  An acerola cherry took over the old fuyu tree spot and grows like a weed.  I think I just got a dud fuyu tree. Maybe I will dig it up this winter when it goes dormant and see if there is a root problem.  I don’t think the heat is preventing growth.  My wife had several trees in Lodi, CA and it gets ridiculously hot during summer.  They were big ol’ trees with branch breaking fruit loads.

“As God is my witness, he is broken in half!”
Those pictures look like they are from a crime scene. All you need is an outline. I, too, had a Fuyu persimmon tree that broke in half, but it was high wind that caused it and not fruit load.  It never recovered so I replaced it with another tree that refuses to grow. Every year it produces ~5-6 fruit but never grows larger than 4-5 feet. I’ve tried stripping the fruit, and it still won’t grow. Honestly, I don’t know why I put up with it.

My winter lows are just above freezing on the upper end of the property. Last winter was the first in 3 years I touched 32F, but normally I get a few days that are in the mid 30s.
My soil mix for Garcinia is an equal part Peat moss and Garden bed soil mix, with 10-20% perlite added. The garden bed mix I source from San Pasqual valley soils by the cubic yard and it’s comprised of a blend of “premium composts, washed sand, coco coir, pumice and gypsum.”

Janet - I hope you do post more photos and updates from your farm.  We benefit from all of the experienced and inexperienced growers that post on both their successes and failures.  On one of your posts, you mentioned digging out a water collection area on your farm.  I loved that idea and it inspired me to replicate it this winter by damming up a dry creak bed that flows through the lower part of my property during heavy rains.  I captured a 3 foot deep, 1000 sq ft bed of water that lasted for nearly a month and helped recharge a lot of the shallow aquifers that I previously drained from my wells.  I even had wild ducks swimming around for a couple days!  That was my winter highlight. 
Don't let the small minority of closed-minded posters dissuade you from sharing. They may have the loudest voice, but there are many more who lurk for information and much more in future years that read these posts and make their own opinions.  Hell, I lurked on this site for several years before creating an account.  I don't agree with some of the biodynamic approaches to farming and much of it is impractical in southern CA without a reliable water source and lots and lots of time.  Nevertheless, there are components of it that I can apply to my farm and trial for myself.    I hope to share video clips from my farm one of these days, whenever I decide to take the initiative and record.  At the very least, I should do it for insurance purposes. 

I have a couple Achachas that were approximately 4 ft high, nicely branched, doing well in an unheated greenhouse. I slowly introduced them to outdoor shade then full sun over a spring and summer. The new leaves would get trashed whenever there was a windy day under outdoor shade but would grow ok. Once exposed to full sun, the tree would get burnt to hell and new leaves would not fully develop.  Over the following winter, lots of dieback exposed to the elements.  I dug them up and potted them back in the greenhouse to recover and are doing fine.
You can grow them here, but they need a lot of protection from the elements, particularly if you live more inland.  Most seedling Garcinias that I have acquired do just fine in pots in a greenhouse, even with regular mid-high 30F nights. Space will eventually be the concern. Eventually will be a long time based on their slow growth.

Here’s my Achachas pushing all kinds of new growth. Had to tie their heads to the ceiling due to too heavy weight.  Both in 15 gallon pots and loving the desert heat of my greenhouse. 

Good looking tree and fine looking fruit, Ken Bee.  Looking forward to my Cherilata fruiting in a couple years.  I’m currently top working one of my Cherimoya seedlings.  I purchased 10 scions earlier this year from Cytochrome Joe in FL and got 6 takes, even though we had a cold front drop the temps, a couple weeks after grafting, down to low 30s.  Now one scion is flowering.  Yes, I will remove any fruits that set, however unlikely.  I also want to nominate one of my grafts for the “graft of the year award”.  I call it the peephole graft method.