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re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates
Posted on 11/6/26 at 3:29 pm to cgrand
Posted on 11/6/26 at 3:29 pm to cgrand
Yep those are set. You could try to protect them and see if they stick on once the freezes start. But it's gonna bloom in spring anyway and have new fruit ripe in July. Good work!
Posted on 11/6/26 at 4:14 pm to Tigerlaff
I’m pretty stoked about how vigorous and trouble free it is. Anything that will grow like that and make fruit is welcome in my yard
thank you again!
thank you again!
Posted on 11/6/26 at 7:20 pm to cgrand
very welcome. Cattley guavas are tanks, man. If our winters were 8-9 degrees warmer they would be taking over anything below I-10. Mine has been in the ground 19 months and already has a 1.5 inch trunk. My theory is that if you protect it for 3-4 years and really let the roots establish, then give it a good layer of mulch each December, no 9a winter will ever be able to truly kill it. Worst case scenario will be returning from the roots and that would only be during extreme cold events. The wood can allegedly take 22F once established. So what would it take to kill the roots below ground under mulch? 24-48hrs in the single digits or low teens? Ain't happening. I won't be protecting mine this winter until we are below 30F. 03/07/2025 at planting.
11/08/2026
This post was edited on 11/8/26 at 12:48 pm
Posted on 11/6/26 at 7:44 pm to Tigerlaff
Beautiful little Bell starfruit from Lara Farms. Going to grow it out and then graft it onto my Kari tree. There is no way I can consume all the starfruit that 2 potted trees would produce so I'll either sell it down the road after grafting or maybe even put it in the ground in a super protected spot.
Also got my restinga jaboticaba up potted from 5g to 15g. Planted as a seed in December 2021 so coming up on 5 years old. Hopefully it will start fruiting in the next 3 years or so!
Also got my restinga jaboticaba up potted from 5g to 15g. Planted as a seed in December 2021 so coming up on 5 years old. Hopefully it will start fruiting in the next 3 years or so!
This post was edited on 11/6/26 at 10:35 pm
Posted on 11/7/26 at 12:09 pm to Tigerlaff
Well I have a worse problem with the damn mealy bugs than I thought. I finally had some time to check everything yesterday and I have a bunch of them. I have 5 potted desert roses that all have them, one of my mangave's in a pot has them, a majestic palm in a container is covered and even my christmas palm that is in a pot has a few of them.
I even found a few leaves on my desert roses that were covered. Most of the leaves just one one or a small patch that I could find.
I spot treated all the ones on the leaves I could see with a q tip then sprayed all the leaves down with 70% alcohol. Then I did the soil drench on all of them with the Mineiro 2F Flex Imidacloprid mixed at one tsp per gallon of water in a bucket then poured over the soil till it was saturated.
I dont know what else to do so please educate me.
I even found a few leaves on my desert roses that were covered. Most of the leaves just one one or a small patch that I could find.
I spot treated all the ones on the leaves I could see with a q tip then sprayed all the leaves down with 70% alcohol. Then I did the soil drench on all of them with the Mineiro 2F Flex Imidacloprid mixed at one tsp per gallon of water in a bucket then poured over the soil till it was saturated.
I dont know what else to do so please educate me.
This post was edited on 11/7/26 at 12:26 pm
Posted on 11/7/26 at 5:13 pm to LanierSpots
now you just gotta let the systemic do its job. It won’t happen overnight. Meantime manually remove as many bugs as you can by wiping the leaves with an alcohol soaked paper towel
Posted on 11/7/26 at 5:23 pm to cgrand
quote:
now you just gotta let the systemic do its job. It won’t happen overnight. Meantime manually remove as many bugs as you can by wiping the leaves with an alcohol soaked paper towel
Thanks. I have been using a qtip but maybe a paper towel would be easier.
I also have some white flies on a few of the leaves. I have no idea where all these pests came from. My shite was clean a month ago.
I found two leaves that had these like this and I just pulled the leaves off and threw them away. I did spray them with alcohol as I threw them in the trash.
Posted on 11/8/26 at 3:30 pm to LanierSpots
Yep. Just kill as many as you can and wait for the imidacloprid to work its way up the vascular tissue.
Posted on 11/8/26 at 9:18 pm to Tigerlaff
Been slacking off. My bad. Started a new gig in September. Been busy as hell. Decided to focus on what grows here and what we actually eat. I spent over $1K locally grown mangoes this year. That’s a lot. So mangoes it is. Along with avocado, bananas, mulberries and possibly starfruit.
Reverse zone pushers out. Citrus out.
Right now.. 17 Mango trees in the ground.
1. Sweet Tart
2. CAC
3. Coconut Cream
4. Pickering
5. Lemon Zest
6. Orange Sherbet
7. Lemon Meringue
8. Lil Gem
9. Kathy/K3
10. Super Julie
11. P22
12. M-4
13. Glenn
14. Super Alphonso
15. Dwarf Hawaiian
16. Cecilove
17. Peach Cobbler
Reverse zone pushers out. Citrus out.
Right now.. 17 Mango trees in the ground.
1. Sweet Tart
2. CAC
3. Coconut Cream
4. Pickering
5. Lemon Zest
6. Orange Sherbet
7. Lemon Meringue
8. Lil Gem
9. Kathy/K3
10. Super Julie
11. P22
12. M-4
13. Glenn
14. Super Alphonso
15. Dwarf Hawaiian
16. Cecilove
17. Peach Cobbler
This post was edited on 11/9/26 at 7:42 am
Posted on 11/9/26 at 6:45 am to wiltznucs
quote:
1. Sweet Tart
2. CAC
3. Coconut Cream
4. Pickering
5. Lemon Zest
6. Orange Sherbet
7. Lemon Meringue
8. Lil Gem
9. Kathy/K3
10. Super Julie
11. P22
12. M-4
13. Glenn
14. Super Alphonso
15. Dwarf Hawaiian
16. Cecilove
17. Peach Cobbler
Any chance you could arrange these by preference or at least give your top 5? I have tried the Dwarf Hawaiian and it is my favorite by far. I wasn't able to find anything but small grafted trees so it will be a while before mie produce. I have a pickering, cecilove. Does M-4 go by another name too?
Posted on 11/9/26 at 8:06 am to TimeOutdoors
looks like a light frost is likely FRI/SAT this weekend for the northshore. I guess I’ll deal with the banana trees this week
Posted on 11/9/26 at 9:41 am to cgrand
What do you typically do with your banana trees? I received one last year through an order where the vender made a mistake and shipped the wrong item. I put it in a pot, but didn't move it into the greenhouse because I did not care if it lived. It came back this year without any winter protection.
Posted on 11/9/26 at 9:57 am to TimeOutdoors
this is my first year with them LOL. I’m doing whatever Tigerlaff says to do
When I planted them I built a bamboo frame around the whole patch so my plan is to trim them back and cover the whole frame top and sides with a greenhouse tarp. And then use either lights or a heater to raise the temp.
I’m dreading it though it will be a lot of work
When I planted them I built a bamboo frame around the whole patch so my plan is to trim them back and cover the whole frame top and sides with a greenhouse tarp. And then use either lights or a heater to raise the temp.
I’m dreading it though it will be a lot of work
Posted on 11/9/26 at 10:44 am to wiltznucs
quote:
1. Sweet Tart
2. CAC
3. Coconut Cream
4. Pickering
5. Lemon Zest
6. Orange Sherbet
7. Lemon Meringue
8. Lil Gem
9. Kathy/K3
10. Super Julie
11. P22
12. M-4
13. Glenn
14. Super Alphonso
15. Dwarf Hawaiian
16. Cecilove
17. Peach Cobbler
That is an ELITE list! Hope the new gig is going great.
Posted on 11/9/26 at 10:55 am to cgrand
quote:
looks like a light frost is likely FRI/SAT this weekend for the northshore. I guess I’ll deal with the banana trees this week
Yeah I'm really waffling on this one. I'm only showing a low of 41F on Saturday morning. I'll be keeping a close eye on it so I can set up the greenhouses on Friday if it looks necessary. Right now I'm leaving everything out since the days are so warm.
Posted on 11/9/26 at 11:02 am to cgrand
quote:
this is my first year with them LOL. I’m doing whatever Tigerlaff says to do
When I planted them I built a bamboo frame around the whole patch so my plan is to trim them back and cover the whole frame top and sides with a greenhouse tarp. And then use either lights or a heater to raise the temp.
I’m dreading it though it will be a lot of work
Anyone planning to protect bananas needs to first decide if you are protecting for plant survival or for fruit. If survival is all you care about throw a bag or two of mulch at the base and call it a winter. It will come back from the ground no problem in spring.
If you are protecting for fruit, there is no need to build a huge shelter. The leaves are going to freeze regardless of what you do unless you build an entire 4-walled structure around the tree and heat it. All I do is wrap the stem (or multiple stems if they are within a foot of each other) in a single 25ft strand of c-9 Christmas lights. Then, I wrap the stem from the ground all the way to the crown with the biggest frost cloth I can get. I secure the frost cloth to the tree with bungee cords. That's it. Leave it like that all winter and plug the lights in when temps drop below 40F or so. When the leaves freeze and droop down, do not remove them. It's just an extra layer of insulation.
Posted on 11/9/26 at 11:10 am to TimeOutdoors
quote:
Any chance you could arrange these by preference or at least give your top 5? I have tried the Dwarf Hawaiian and it is my favorite by far. I wasn't able to find anything but small grafted trees so it will be a while before mie produce. I have a pickering, cecilove. Does M-4 go by another name too?
I will preface this by saying that everybody’s taste is subjective. What I may really like, you may find less enjoyable. I have found that I tend to prefer mangoes that are rich and citrusy which feature a subacid component.
This year I probably sampled 60 or more varieties of mangoes. This season was sort of extraordinary in that we had the February freeze, which really set the overall production back. However, it was followed by a prolonged and bitter drought which resulted in the mangoes being richly flavored and with minimal disease/fungal issues. So we didn’t get much; but what we got was really high quality.
The best mango I had this year was Peach Cobbler. Hands down, just delightful. It does have a problem. It is known to be a shy producer when young and the fruit even when ripe remains green in color. Making knowing when to pick it somewhat of an art and science. I tried it from a few groves this year and liked it so much I drove an 8 hour round trip to get a tree for my place.
Other standouts this year were Super Alphonso, Cecilove, P22 and M-4. Sweet Tart is always a winner for me. Florigon was excellent this year too.
I’ve never seen M-4 go by another name. I will say that it is a very strong grower. I planted a 15 gallon example back in the spring and it is already approaching 5 feet tall and equally wide.
This post was edited on 11/9/26 at 11:12 am
Posted on 11/9/26 at 3:10 pm to Tigerlaff
One of the asian women who work at the hospital with my wife invited us over to their house yesterday to eat dinner. Her husband is retired and basically works in his plants 8 hours a day. I only took a few pictures but the crazy shite that guy is growing is amazing. So many huge desert rosese, bonsai , fruit trees is just crazy. He is twisting and combining plants and making crazy designs. I learned so much in a hour walking around there.
He was some kind of chemist before he retired and holds over 100 US patents. Dude knows his shite. I left there with a massive desert rose that he gave me.
Just a couple pics I took of what seemed like 1000's of potted and planted things in his small yard
He was some kind of chemist before he retired and holds over 100 US patents. Dude knows his shite. I left there with a massive desert rose that he gave me.
Just a couple pics I took of what seemed like 1000's of potted and planted things in his small yard
Posted on 11/10/26 at 7:23 am to LanierSpots
He's got a nice collection. The adeniums are definitely an obsession. Never got into them myself.
Still watching weather for this weekend. Lows projected at 42F then warming up immediately thereafter. It is extremely unlikely I would see any frost under those conditions. Leaning towards letting it ride. Would be great to get another week or two without greenhouses.
My red hybrid jabos are the size of damn muscadines.
Still watching weather for this weekend. Lows projected at 42F then warming up immediately thereafter. It is extremely unlikely I would see any frost under those conditions. Leaning towards letting it ride. Would be great to get another week or two without greenhouses.
My red hybrid jabos are the size of damn muscadines.
Posted on 11/10/26 at 9:07 am to Tigerlaff
quote:probably I will as well. I am going to frost cloth the guava just because it has fruit on it.
Leaning towards letting it ride
I’ve had one fatality…the new kumquat I planted in spring up and died. Not sure what happened but oh well. I’ll try again in spring
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