re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

Well, I finally have answers about high end Asian crunchy guavas and how they perform. Here are the things I wanted to know and what I learned by growing Taiwan Ruby Seedless Guava over the past year:

Do they grow and fruit well? Yes. But they need high temperatures to set fruit. South LA is just fine for that.

Do they make totally seedless fruit? Yes.

Do they get softer if left on the tree or counter to ripen? Yes, but not like a normal guava. They just become less crunchy. Same consistency as an apple. They also start to get bad spots like a normal guava if left out or on the tree too long so you aren't able to just let it ripen indefinitely until soft/creamy. That creamy texture is not in the genes of these Asian guavas.

Are they exceptionally sweet as they are always described? NO. And this is the fault of the Vietnamese, on whom I place immense blame. All descriptions of this guava include high sweetness. But the Vietnamese typically conceive of guava as a totally different fruit than we do. To them, it is more like a crunchy baby carrot. Are baby carrots sweet? I mean sure, in a sense. But you have never eaten a baby carrot that is as sweet as a grape. To them, ANY level of sweetness in these crunchy guavas earns the "deliciously sweet" label because they aren't eating regular guavas. They eat these things dipped in salt and chili powder and the more crisp and vegetal the better. Even when I asked Vietnamese people, they all told me these things were sweet. It's just a totally different frame of reference. A sweet creamy ruby supreme isn't even entering their mind when they talk about guavas. They are thinking of a crispy dipping snack and calling it sweet in the same way we might call a good baby carrot sweet.

Could I just have a dud tree? Unlikely. I've since connected with a very experienced commercial grower in California that grows every guava you can imagine. She tells me that she has never had a crunchy guava of any type, including this one, that was anything better than very mildly sweet. She also reports that 95% of her customers for these trees are Vietnamese. The Chinese and Taiwanese don't touch them as they prefer sweet soft guavas.

Do I like them? No. I do not like crunchy, mildly sweet, vegetal guavas that eat like bland apples and I'm certainly not interested in dusting them with a salt/chili mix. Some people are going to absolutely love these. They are very refreshing. But they are nothing like the guavas I know and love and I am selling this tree ASAP. I am 100% confident that I will have multiple Vietnamese buyers interested.

So there you go. Ya boy has finally done the work and posted the results (in English) so future middel-aged white guys can make a guava variety decision without blindly guessing.

If this guava doesn't sound good to you, then you also need to avoid Taiwan White Seedless, Thai White Seedless, Thai Ruby Seedless, and any other guava described as crunchy. Indonesian White Seedless is creamy.

This is my M4 I hacked a month ago. Any idea what’s turning my leaves brown?

roselle hibiscus, getting close





Also this might be the easiest plant to propagate I’ve ever seen. These are branch tips I clipped off and stuck in a pot a week ago, already rooted



lemon guava is flowering





Big growth spurt on the cherry of the Rio grande, as soon as it cooled off a tad. Very interesting



Shampoo ginger is actively sending up flower stalks now, I can see about a half dozen. I was not expecting this to be so late in the season to flower so now it’s a race against the clock

My COTRG also started pushing strongly with the temperature break. Trimming also induced good branching. I'm going to protect it this winter to get it established.

Lemon guava flowering is a good sign. Protect it this year for sure. Not enough time to fruit right now.

The sun is weak right now so it's a great time to get them as much as you can.

Saw a big rack down in Nola today.



Longan finally looking good after I restructured it. Much easier tree than lychee.



Every day this Makok sapodilla keeps setting more fruit. I may have to do a second round of thinning.



Also found a late atemoya hiding in the tree. It must have been tiny and really accelerated once all the other fruit were harvested. Have been out of town a lot and somehow missed this one.

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Loving the cool snap but temps of 50F means lipstick palm has to come inside.

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I am hoping I have a while before that has to happen

Starfruit is setting a metric frick ton of fruit. Every branch that I pruned a couple months ago is covered up with them. Guessing it will all drop once it gets cold.

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I decided to put up the greenhouse and put everyone in before this cool weather started

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That was quick. I moved everything to the patio so I can spend the week repotting, pruning, etc and getting them ready to move.

Okay so here is my almost end of an outdoor growing season on my 3 potted avocados.
They were started life as a 3 gal in bad soil. End of march I bare rooted them into Gary’s mix, 13 gallon planters.
Proper watering, osmocote, fish fert, gypsum, calcium, and azomite here and there.
After they recovered from the bare rooting they were brought into full sun through about early August, then were positioned on my patio to be shielded from afternoon sun from about 4pm on. Did that until mid September. Gentle pruning inputs, and lots of tipping and bud pinching. I want these trees dense and somewhat low (<7ft).

They’re going into greenhouse for now until about Jan then will come out to
Get some cold exposure to help with flowering (minus freezes)

I have in pots:
Super Hass type A
Oro Negro type B
Winter Mexican type B

In ground :
Reed type A
Maria black type B

These have all grown sufficiently that I will let them flower and bare whatever fruit they can hold. This is dwarf container culture, so if it slows the vegetative growth some, that’s a win.
I do plan to uppot these over the winter. Likely up to 25 gal!
Happy with the progress

Oro Negro



Winter Mexican



Super Hass