The Tropical Fruit Forum

What is the species of the huge ficus tree right outside Excalibur nursery? The fruit is big and fuzzy but not sweet.

Seeds are starting to sprout! I was the most interested in dracena draco, and they were the first ones to pop.

not composted but very high quality. We used to get from a guy in Wellington, his horses are top notch so they are kept on organic grass/feed. Haven't talked to him in a while, hope he's still in business.
+1 (561) 212-8069 Jim - text him, ask if still available.

Have to look at the order but something around 2 years I think. It started fruiting 1 year ago, as soon as it went to its permanent spot, maybe in a week or two out of pot bloomed.

I can't help but laugh when I visit some people's gardens and they say, "Organic only, no systemics, never spray, I don't fertilize!" and then when I ask if they buy conventional fruit and veg at the grocery store they say yes. Even organic fruit can be treated with a wide spectrum of sprays, pesticides, and so on that are probably not so swell for us to eat and I assure you, when it comes to commercial agriculture they will always prophylactically spray rather than have crop loss. Costs too much to not do so. If you are eating commercial crop, you are assuredly ingesting systemic insecticide, fungicide, hormone, and so on.

I am not afraid of genetically modified crops, personally. In many ways, we've reached such a crazy demand for food that we really need them. I don't really care if corn is GMO, since so much of it is going towards making ethanol here in the USA and I generally don't eat it anyways.

Some stuff, imo, doesn't have a place in home gardening this said, and I would draw the line at hormones, known toxic pesticides, and the like that are continually dosed throughout the growing season especially during fruiting. I feel it's fine to launch some annona seeds from GA3, or to spray GA3 on grapes to make them seedless though.

 If you want to speed up fruiting, learn about soil health, pruning, sun exposure, PH, fertilizers, and find a really great source of clean water to start from. That's more than enough for the home gardener.

If only it were that simple, Kevin. GMO corn is dangerous because it wipes out heirloom corn varieties on which people have been surviving for thousands of years. Corn is air pollinated, and there have been lots of precedents when a GMO giant repo's a local farm because their own non-gmo corn cross-pollinated with the trademarked variety. It's real hot mess. Guess what happens when all seeds have a trademark and belong to one guy/corpo... Native people have been able to preserve hundreds of varieties of corn, and I don't even want to start on monocropping and how all corn in the world can be wiped out with a single tiny virus or bacterium. Happened to bananas already, so it's very possible for any monocrop. Our strength of a species is in variety - both human and flora/fauna, and the fact that one ultra rich dude owns the entire seeds in the world doesn't seem appealing, even if they are only used for fuel (they aren't; your burger is fed by corn, too; all your sweets and other processed crap have corn syrup in them).
That is why I support and promote fully organic operations, and get very happy when they become successful.
Just visited Peter at Finca La Isla on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, he is fully organic and is very knowledgeable. I know his farm has been toured before but we specifically grilled Peter on the organic side of his operations. Take a look. [size=78%]https://youtu.be/WId5g3vQehg[/size]

I bought plants from Bellamy, very strong and all survived shipping, well packed and delivered fast. Highly recommend. Passionvine I bought from him as a small sapling is producing now! Very sweet fruit, no sourness, unusual for a passionfruit actually.

You ask "How do they taste?"...
Delicious!
I let them ripen fully on the tree for best flavor.

Kevin

do they have a very strong strawberry cream flavor/strawberry aroma? A little bit more details please cousin Kevin 

My barbie pink is very much paler, this is a very bright fruit! How’s the taste?

> I highly recommend miracle fruit.

I had one of those for a few years, and you are absolutely correct.  It did great.  It was a heavy producer, and the flowers smelled fantastic.  The only problem is that I am not a big consumer of sweets.  At the time I was a member of a board game group that met at a brewpub which was all about nasty sour beers, and the miracle fruit made them taste like riesling/molasses/etc.  Nowadays I don't have much use for one.

You could donate berries to a local cancer treatment facility. google “miracle fruit for cancer”  for an explanation.

Lots of stuff is used by many people, and lots of people becoming ill. Not impressed by accounts of prevalence of use. Means nothing regarding health.

"Paranoia" is a strong word, but I am American.

Maybe paclobutrazol can be used "properly" without ill effects, but that doesn't appear to be what is going on. It certainly can cause a host of problems.

Here's a little info, tons of stuff out there:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6958485/

I am truly happy that you are caring for your health, and the environment including zebrafish, and i wish i saw more of it among growers. 

I didn’t mean prevalence of use. I sometimes see hideous posts that say it’s ok to use really harmful, with scientifically proven ill effects products as long as they are not bathing in it, and these comments get no response, so i was pleasantly surprised. Peace.

Does this nursery belong to a forum member?
I wanted to buy some seeds but many times buying something unusual from online businesses outside of the forum, seeds aren’t fresh and don’t germinate well, and temperate resellers often don’t know how to store tropical seeds properly. If anyone bought seeds from them, please share your experiences.

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