re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

back from 2 weeks in Colorado. According to raindrop I got 4.5” of rain from 8/20 to yesterday, and thus did not have the mass casualty event that I expected. Thank you Mother Nature

Potted bananas



Planted bananas





Cherry of the Rio Grande



Lemon guava



Barbados Cherry



Shampoo ginger…growing now finally but no flower buds yet



Taro in bloom. This particular root clump blooms every year and is extremely rare for it to do so



Pawpaw patch unfortunately is a mess. The shade tripods I put up all blew over and I’ve got two broken trees…of course, the expensive ones LOL. I’m going to have to rethink what I’ve got going there but I still have five healthy youngins. This winter I’ll figure something out

I have quite a bit of work to do this week cleaning up and getting back to the grind but I fared way better than expected

yeah I was thinking I would remove the shade fabric now. The smaller ones stay in deep shade under there and they didn’t grow that much while I was gone, and the tall namwah both busted out of it anyway.

I’ll leave the frame up for winter enclosure

Miami Fruit is running a Labor Day sale with very steep discounts. They are usually extremely overpriced.

I got a create-your-own mix box containing mangosteen, achacha, abiu, Lisa atemoya, Rollinia, and Gros Michel banana for $147 with free overnight fedex shipping. There are many more options to choose from.

Miami Fruit has mixed reviews. Most complaints are about the prices and a minority about the quality. I am not vouching for anything about them. But this is a very good price to try up to 6 different types of fruit to see what you like and don't like. Other sellers have cheaper prices but they are normally giving you only one kind of fruit per shipment. Make sure to use the LABORDAY2026 code at checkout and to select the overnight shipping.

LINK

Would be an ex-GF over here. Should have told her you'll take up offshore fishing, elk hunting, or weekly golf instead and see how that goes over.

Only one way to find out on the sun.

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Is that the location where you will set up your greenhouse? Do you plan to use supplemental lights?

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Yeah I think I'm going to build a greenhouse out of pex/PVC and poly sheeting. I was just going to do heaters again, not lights.

found one more bonus dwarf cavendish that sprouted in the old spot while I was gone.



it really is a pretty plant when grown in a protected spot. This one is way bigger than they ever got before.



giant swallowtail caterpillar on my orange, ready to pupate

OK time for some lessons learned (the hard way) on pawpaws.

I planted my first pawpaw, Sunflower, about 15 months ago. I didn't do enough research and spent money to get the biggest tree I could find at 3g. Sunflower is possibly the most vigorous pawpaw cultivar known. It is also the only one that is proven to be significantly self-fertile. These qualities made me think it was a guaranteed success.





The tree immediately started declining and I attributed it first to shock and then to the onset of fall. This spring it flushed leaves over a month after the other pawpaws and the leaves were all tiny and stunted. It produced a single flower.

Later on, I found out about the very sensitive and long taproots they produce. You need to plant pawpaws young. The larger the potted tree, the less likely it succeeds. When the taproots get constricted in the pot, they don't later straighten out and function normally.

The result as of today 9/4/26?





That's where the roots were after 15 months. I did not rip it out of the root system. That was the entire system.

I then tried to salvage the Sunflower wood to graft onto my other trees, but the wood was too dessicated inside to use.



When you buy pawpaws, look for ones that have 1 or 2 year old rootstocks and that are grown in tall tree pots. All my small pawpaws are doing great. Lesson learned!

Roselle hibiscus patch
I had no idea these plants got this big LOL.
Beautiful leaves and massive trunks and branches.









no fertilizer or insecticide needed and I only watered them twice right after I planted them. Cannot wait to see this bloom

I am on campus tailgating but man I found something amazing at LSU today. Will post tonight or tomorrow.