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Messages - W.

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1
I also have two plants that I bought from BellamyTrees at about the same time. Mine are smaller and have yet to show any signs of flowering, though I know now to keep an eye on them.

2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Whitewashing trees
« on: January 09, 2024, 07:08:59 PM »
I paint my Asimina triloba.
Thinned latex paint. There are a couple of “natural” tree paint products out there but I haven’t used those.

Good to see you back here on the Forum!

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Whitewashing trees
« on: January 09, 2024, 12:56:28 AM »
Whitewash is traditionally made of either hydrated lime or chalk. Milk paint is similar, but it can be made of lime or borax. I would never put latex paint on trees. You're just spraying plastic on your trees, though you're far from the only person doing so. Still, not what I want on my fruit trees; I can buy plenty of chemical-infused produce at the grocery.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Exotica Nursery Closing Down?!
« on: January 08, 2024, 10:13:48 PM »
That's too bad. Considering how long the nursery has been in business, you would have thought at some point he would have bought that land. I understand that land in California is very expensive, but still, if you don't own something, it's not yours. And if it's not yours, that means someone else can take it from you.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: figs!!!! an underated fruit
« on: January 07, 2024, 08:12:11 PM »
I'm not sure I would call figs underrated, but there isn't an inordinate amount of fig posts on this forum because there are dedicated fig forums such as Ourfigs. I would say that mangos and jaboticabas dominate this forum; there aren't dedicated forums to those fruits, so Tropical Fruit Forum is the place for those growers to congregate. That being said, there is no reason not to post more about figs here.

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Selling cuttings is ok if the trees are very vigorous.  For some trees, it is not something you want to be cutting up if the tree is slow growing.  I wont sell mango cuttings at all because of the slow growth.  Avocados also it kind of hurts to chop up but they can make some extra material to sell but it is not "waste" material.  Thats fruiting budwood that would have been fruit. 

I think you will find that being able to have enough trees and plant material to make almost any profits requires a huge orchard.  That requires a lot of work to build and maintain. 

None of it is easy.  If you are looking to make some quick bucks this is not the way.

Agreed. Growing and selling rare fruiting plants, in any form, is not a get rich quick scheme.

Personally, the most profitable thing I have ever sold was Psidium striatulum seeds. The fruit the seeds came from were off of my plants and were "free," at least if you ignore the costs of potting soil, fertilizers, water, pots (those actually were free thanks to a neighbor getting rid of some), buying the seeds the plants were grown from, and the time and effort expended over a three year period to get those plants to fruit. Like I said, "free."

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Congrats, you're probably the first person to flower any Uvaria in the continental US. Considering that I only ever managed to germinate a couple of seeds, which then proceeded to immediately die, I am extremely impressed.

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I have a couple of types. They're all made at the same factory in China, anyway, so there's not much difference in them. All these brand names just give us the false illusion of choice when in reality we all just buy the same thing, made in the same place, from the same website. It's merely the 21st Century expression of Henry Ford's quote about the Model T, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

9
My experience has been that you just need to keep things underpotted most of the time. Once a pot is mostly full of roots the plant drinks all the water and it's much harder for it to anaerobic. I used to be up potting things like a banshee, getting them into 20g when they really should have been kept in a 5g.

Also lately I am into pulling stuff out and root pruning, and putting into the same pot, or after the plant kind of settles in and eats up soil to turn into tree, I will just pull the plant out, put a bit more soil in, and put it back in same container.

The main thing to avoid is any wood mulch / wood chip type soils, which Kellogg and the like are famous for. Peat moss with lots of perlite seems to be totally fine if you keep the plant in the appropriate sized container. I have had some luck with sand, pumice, and compost type mixes as well, but I stick to peat moss with tons of perlite now and have very good success.

I'm finding myself going in the same direction more and more, with greater success. For me, smaller pots are better because I water a lot, and sometimes it rains a lot. Peat, perlite, and sand are working well. I'm no expert, I like plants and fruit, and turtles.


I like turtles too.

As do I. I have a "pet" Eastern box turtle that lives in my yard and woods. I feed him, both directly and indirectly, throughout the summer.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: syngonium fruit?
« on: December 08, 2023, 10:16:28 PM »
I am afraid I don't know anything about Syngonium, but what I do know is that All The Fruit eats things I would never, ever, ever eat. Like Weird Explorer, I have used his videos as guides to add to my collection. And, I like that he puts out so many videos tasting all the fruit, even the inedible species, but I have the sneaking suspicion that one day the videos are going to completely stop as he is poisoned by a fruit or afflicted with some jungle disease.

11
Does anyone here have some more guava varieties they can hook me up with?
Looking for common guavas...just with names.
Thanks much!
Also, never knew that this thread would gain so much traction.
glad to see the love of psidiums spreading!

I was just at Mimosa, crazy collection of guavas there, picked up ruby supreme. I saw: kilo, vietnamese giant white, century, watermelon, red malaysia, Taiwan white, Thai, Taiwan Ruby, Thai Seedless, Ổi Nữ Hoàng (queen), Ổi Không Hạt Thái Lan, Ổi Mật Thủy Đào, Giống cây ổi tím Malaysia.

I'm going to try to air layer some guava next spring, stay tuned. Will try on skittles, long leaf, guineense, strawberry, lemon, and orange flesh guajava.
Amazing. Look forward to hearing back later.
if anyone else has some different varietals, I'm always open to buying.

I have some Patillo Guava seedlings. It is a Mexican variety of guava, pink flesh with a subacid, mild flavor that the University of Florida Extension recommends for home growers. I got the seeds from Trade Winds. Since these are seedlings, they are not guaranteed to grow exactly true to type. You can see a photo of them on my sale page: https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=52354.0.

12
I haven't done much propagating lately. But, I used to do quite a bit, and I simply used heat mats and grow lights, a pretty standard, basic setup. Make sure you use a good seed starting mix. Don't use too much mix, so use small containers such as seed starting trays. Don't water them too much, but don't let them get too dry. Heat mats and grow lights should provide you with more than sufficient heat to ward off cool temperatures, which shouldn't really be a problem when propagating seeds inside during a zone 10a winter (it was a little more of a problem for me, since I actually have a winter where I live).

13
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Battle of the Soapberries
« on: November 27, 2023, 04:43:22 PM »
I used to think that lychees were the best among these soapberry species. Now, I prefer rambutans. Rambutans, despite the drawback of their clinging flesh, have a more agreeable taste at all stages of ripeness, from underripe to overripe. Lychees tend to get unpleasant tastes and aftertastes when they get too ripe or are otherwise not properly ripened. Since I, by nature of not living in or near lychee and rambutan growing areas, have to buy my lychees and rambutans from grocery stores, I tend to get rambutans, since I know they will always be, at the bare minimum, good. I cannot say that for lychees.

That being said, supposedly pulasans are the best of all the soapberry species. Though, Adolf Grimal went to great lengths to add alupag to Grimal Grove due to its outstanding taste. Considering his wealth of fruit hunting experience, that may say something about which soapberry is the best.

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A bump ahead of Cyber Monday. Or, you could just give me money on Giving Tuesday. ;D

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Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Rare Fruit Books For Sale
« on: November 26, 2023, 05:29:04 PM »
A bump ahead of Cyber Monday. Or, you could just give me money on Giving Tuesday. ;D

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Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Psidium Striatulum Seeds For Sale
« on: November 22, 2023, 12:32:07 PM »
I just sold the last of these seeds. Thank you to everyone who bought them. I hope everyone has a great deal of success growing this fruit. It's growth habit and taste have placed it pretty high on my list of favorite plants I'm growing. I think it is an essential fruit plant for container growers, particularly those who have less space.

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Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Psidium Striatulum Seeds For Sale
« on: November 10, 2023, 12:03:29 PM »
Good day,

I would love to buy 20 psidium striatulum seeds from you.  Please let me know where to send payment.

Thanks,
Matt

PM sent.

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I have Psidium striatulum seeds available now, for anyone who is interested: https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=52841.0. My plants' fruits ripened recently, and I still have some seeds from them.

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More new plants added.

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Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Psidium Striatulum Seeds For Sale [SOLD]
« on: November 08, 2023, 11:29:18 PM »
There seems to be a good deal of interest in Psidium striatulum on the Forum right now, which is great because I think it is a fruit more people should grow, as I am. Since my Psidium striatulums fruited within the past few weeks, I have seeds available to fellow Forum members.

The price is $7.00 for 20 seeds. Free shipping for orders in the United States. No international shipping as I do not have the time to deal with onerous customs paperwork.

20 seeds should more than guarantee that you get multiple healthy plants.

I am not interested in trades, since I already have too many plants. ::)

I do not have an indefinite number of seeds, but enough for several people to order.

You can see photographs of my plants' fruits on the Psidium striatulum thread: https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=21523.msg504823#msg504823

21
There is a great deal of variability in the genera Nick mentioned.

Annonas: Sugar apple is your best be here, depending on exactly how much room you have. I have four-year-old sugar apples fruiting in relatively small pots at about 5' tall. A sugar apple can be kept in a 25 gallon pot pretty much indefinitely, but does not need to be in that large of a pot to fruit. Cherimoyas and custard apples grow larger and more vigorously. I have them in my collection, but they have never fruited and are growing a bit too tall. There are some rarer Annonas with either somewhat lesser quality fruits or larger growth habits that I am not going to get into here.

Eugenias: Eugenias are great container plants, with the caveat that not all are suitable. Surinam cherries tend to respond well to pruning; they will get as large as you let them, but you can hack them back without them suffering. Their fruiting age and size (and fruit quality) is variable, but I have had one fruit at three years in a one gallon pot. I would avoid grumichama, pitomba, and Eugenia leitonii; they either get too large or are too finicky. There are many, many, many new species being introduced to the US that are relatively unknown as to how they perform as container plants. I will get back to you in a few years about some of those. ;D

Citrus: I like citrus, but I find that they are harder to care for than the Myrtaceae now wildly popular among rare fruit growers. Root diseases and spider mites are problems, at least among mine. Other growers do not have those problems. Another forum user, Brian, does a great job with citrus in Pennsylvania.

Guavas: Your standard Psidium guajava has not been a standout in my collection. I have a Columbian red guava. It wants to grow large, yet refuses to fruit, despite being four-years-old. This can be alleviated by buying air-layered cuttings from fruiting plants, but those can sometimes be hard to find and expensive. If you can find a reputable grower with a variety you want, that would probably be the way to go. I really like Psidium striatulum, which fruits young and at a small size. That species tops out at 10' tall in nature; you can prune it to be smaller and more compact. Its foliage is quite ornamental. Its fruit is just as good as a commerical red guava, in my opinion. Like Eugenias, Psidiums are getting a lot of attention from growers due to new species and varieties coming out of Brazil and Argentina. Some of them have some promise, but the jury is still out.

Jaboticabas: Also variable. Red hybrid and scarlet (escarlate) are the two best varieties for container growers. They fruit at a small size and at a young age. Plinia phitrantha is another good choice, but I find that it gets larger, closer in size to sabaras and Grimals. That has not stopped me from having all of those, plus several other species in my collection.

For all these plants, be aware that they will not fruit as quickly in more northern, temperate areas as they do in Florida, California, or Hawaii. That is simply the nature of geography. In my experience, add a year or two to account for that. So, if people in Florida can fruit a species in three years, plan on it being four or five years for you. That is not just my experience; Jay (Tropical Fruit Hunter) has written about having similar experiences with delayed fruiting in his Ohio greenhouse.

I am not writing this to discourage you, just to provide a little advice. Go out there and grow what you want to grow, even if it is going to get stupidly large (my jackfruits and mamey sapotes). Just remember that this fruit growing hobby is supposed to be fun and provide you with delicious fruit, not something where you are aggravated at large, non-fruiting plants. Avoid that.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Queensland Fruit Fly Found in California
« on: October 29, 2023, 02:02:11 PM »
Fruit growers definitely don't need another pest here in the US, but we may have one. Queensland Fruit Fly has recently been found in Southern California, with a quarantine established in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties to try and eliminate it before it can get established. Here's an article about it from Growing Produce: https://www.growingproduce.com/crop-protection/insect-control/another-exotic-pest-find-in-california-say-gday-to-the-queensland-fruit-fly/

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I already brought most of mine in a couple of weeks ago, when the lows reached the 40s. Now, all the citrus are coming in with lows in my area reaching the mid-30s. My weekend is spoken for. ::)

I agree with one of the previous posts that winter is arriving a little early, compared to recent history; though, as my mom, a fellow grower (of various houseplants, now considered heirlooms) told me, this is still later than when she would bring her plants inside 30 or 40 years ago.

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Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Rare Fruit Books For Sale
« on: October 21, 2023, 10:07:47 PM »
Bump

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New plants added.

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