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re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates
Posted on 10/1/25 at 6:41 pm to Tigerlaff
Posted on 10/1/25 at 6:41 pm to Tigerlaff
Ruby supreme guavas getting much sweeter as the season goes on. No matter what I try, I don't think there is any way around thinning guavas in containers. They just set so much fruit and a lot will end up being bland unless you thin them. I've tried every micronutrient, etc. They start to really improve once about 2/3 of the fruit is harvested and off the tree. Same for cattley guavas. I did very mild thinning this year but next year I'm reducing fruit by 50%. This one was extremely sweet and aromatic. Best of the season.
Jaboticaba coming along. Another week or two.
Jaboticaba coming along. Another week or two.
This post was edited on 10/1/25 at 7:03 pm
1
Posted on 10/2/25 at 5:14 am to Tigerlaff
I just had my first guava. Aromatic, was a light green/yellow. I didn’t pick it was under the tree so guessing it fell off? Assuming it was ripe. Texture was interesting, and flavor not bad but wasn’t overly sweet. First time so nothing to compare it to..have more coming, may wait longer to eat next time ?
Do you counter ripen to that darker yellow?
Do you counter ripen to that darker yellow?
Posted on 10/2/25 at 11:24 am to DickTater
Yes, leave them on the tree as long as possible (falling off is perfect) then put them in a closed paper bag for 2-3 days indoors until they get nice and yellow. The first crop is rarely very sweet on a new tree. It has to use its sugars for growth more than fruit production.
Posted on 10/3/25 at 5:07 pm to Tigerlaff
Harvested my first fully ripened Kari starfruit today. Very sweet and refreshing. Tons of water content in these fruits like a watermelon. Would be excellent chilled on a hot day.
Posted on 10/5/25 at 2:37 pm to Tigerlaff
Came home from a farmer’s market with a baby purple possum passionvine. I have an empty 20 gallon pot that I plan to plant it in this fall and attach a trellis to the pot. Quick question - would y’all recommend the peat, sand, perlite mix for this vine with a top dressing of compost/osmocote? Should I mulch with bark, shavings, or pine needles? Appreciate any advice y’all have. We have native passionvine in the woods on our property but I’ve never tried growing tropical vines or for the purpose of fruit production.
Posted on 10/5/25 at 7:25 pm to AyyyBaw
quote:
Quick question - would y’all recommend the peat, sand, perlite mix for this vine with a top dressing of compost/osmocote?
It would work fine, as it does for almost any fruit bearing plant. Vines are tough and you could probably go a little higher on the peat for moisture retention. Passiflora vines only live about 4-5 years though so just go into it knowing it's temporary.
quote:
Should I mulch with bark, shavings, or pine needles?
Wood mulch, cypress or even redwood if you can get it. Pine needle mulch is garbage. Blows all over the place, breaks down too quickly, and doesn't provide all the soil acidity benefits people will tell you. Peat takes care of that.
Posted on 10/6/25 at 6:50 am to Tigerlaff
Thank you Tiger. Appreciate the tips. I plan to start cuttings before this vine reaches end of life.
Posted on 10/6/25 at 7:16 am to AyyyBaw
Same thing I do. Post some pics of your progress when you start seeing it!
Jaboticabas are so close....
Jaboticabas are so close....
This post was edited on 10/6/25 at 7:22 am
Posted on 10/6/25 at 10:16 pm to Tigerlaff
quote:
Pine needle mulch is garbage.
I only use pine needles for my potatoes and it stays in place. Maybe its the plants keeping it in place.
Posted on 10/8/25 at 10:15 pm to armsdealer
Finally got my first jabos. It's like a sweet tropical grape. Tree is loading up with more.
Posted on 10/13/25 at 8:44 am to Tigerlaff
Can you post the link for that heater again? I cannot find it
Posted on 10/13/25 at 12:18 pm to Tigerlaff
Pulling weeds from the pineapple patch. A mix of Hawaiian Sugarloaf, HoneyGlow, Mexican Sugar Pinas and some Costa Rican MD2. All planted from tops. About a year in on these. We may get lucky and have pineapples next year. Only bled a little bit; some leaves are a bit spiny. LOL..
Posted on 10/13/25 at 6:24 pm to wiltznucs
Those are looking good man. My white jade is getting beat up by the sun. Think I need to give it a little shade. No razor blades on white jade though!
Also added a Zill Dark Suriname cherry to go with my other grafted pitanga cultivar.
I've been thinking about doing a long PSA post in this thread about the pitfalls of growing fruit trees from seed. Experienced hands know all about this but if anyone is interested and doesn't know much about it please chime in and let me know. I saw some poor bastard on Facebook today who grew a store mango from seed in zone 8a in a container and has had no fruit 8 years later.
Also added a Zill Dark Suriname cherry to go with my other grafted pitanga cultivar.
I've been thinking about doing a long PSA post in this thread about the pitfalls of growing fruit trees from seed. Experienced hands know all about this but if anyone is interested and doesn't know much about it please chime in and let me know. I saw some poor bastard on Facebook today who grew a store mango from seed in zone 8a in a container and has had no fruit 8 years later.
This post was edited on 10/13/25 at 6:32 pm
Posted on 10/13/25 at 8:24 pm to Tigerlaff
the only tree I know of that reliably fruits from seed is loquat. I dug up a single seedling from a relative’s house years ago, planted it, and it grew to over 20’ high and nearly as wide; thousands of fruits each year. Unfortunately Ida took it but I have many potted seedlings going and some of them are starting to flower.
Posted on 10/13/25 at 9:31 pm to cgrand
Yes, loquat is one of the exceptions. The fruit is not identical to the parents but it's usually at least good. You also don't have to wait 10 years.
There's just this romantic thing people have about growing from seeds and it's almost always a huge and dumb waste of time unless you're doing it for root stock or you are trialing out new cultivars.
There's just this romantic thing people have about growing from seeds and it's almost always a huge and dumb waste of time unless you're doing it for root stock or you are trialing out new cultivars.
This post was edited on 10/13/25 at 10:03 pm
Posted on 10/14/25 at 12:07 pm to cgrand
Papaya from seed is definitely viable. Trouble is you don’t know if you’ll get a male, female or intersex tree. Agreed though; growing from seed is usually the worst way to go. The number of fools trying to grow mangoes from seed is astounding. Many never produce fruit; and those that do often don’t end up being like the parent tree. More often they end up being poor in terms of flavor, fiber and flesh/seed ratio.
Posted on 10/14/25 at 1:47 pm to wiltznucs
quote:that’s good to know. Is it possible to sprout and fruit in the same growing season?
Papaya from seed is definitely viable
Posted on 10/14/25 at 4:12 pm to wiltznucs
quote:but if no one grew from seed we wouldn't get all these new "varieties" right?
More often they end up being poor in terms of flavor, fiber and flesh/seed ratio.
Posted on 10/14/25 at 6:09 pm to Neauxla
quote:
but if no one grew from seed we wouldn't get all these new "varieties" right?
This is true. But to give an example, about 75% of all the very best mango cultivars were discovered by the Zill seedling program. The Zill family (mostly Gary Zill) planted over 10,000 seeds from great trees and only selected about 85 cultivars in total for the final cut. These were not random seeds. They were seeds from great fruits. The rule is that you almost always get an inferior result. If you have acreage to experiment, then hell yes you should push the envelope forward and discover the next great cultivar that will bear your name. If you are a backyard grower who isn't planning to live until 130, then you should only do it if you like long odds gambling and don't mind digging out a huge tree in 10 years.
This isn't just mangos. It's citrus too. It's almost impossible to grow a new and worthwhile citrus from seed. Same for most commercialized crops.
I think growing from seed can be very fun provided you realize that you might be throwing it in the trash in 7 years and have plenty of other worthwhile things growing and producing. I'm currently growing jalisco red guava, which is a seedling of Mexican cream from California discovered about 20 years ago that is alleged by several reputable sources to be one of the sweetest and most aromatic guavas ever developed. But I have no idea if it will be true. We'll find out!
I mainly just want to discourage the naive tendency that so many amateur growers fall into about planting a random seed and enjoying the resultant fruit for decades to come. That's almost certainly not going to work out and your time is better spent with things that will.
This post was edited on 10/14/25 at 6:18 pm
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