Last year I sprouted about 60 open-pollinated finger lime seeds from fruit off two of my finger lime trees/bushes (I have about 40 in-ground near Houston, but only two fruited last year). In this photo are 7 of the resultant seedlings that have much larger leaves than usual. Possibly they are finger lime hybrids with one of the many other citrus I grow. Time will tell.
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Medjool Date Palm seedlings. I grow these (near Houston TX) as landscape plants only as they will never (due to our hard freezes) reach fruiting size.
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They’ll produce a full sized pear tree similar to OHxF97, probably with better drought resistance. Bartlett has terrible fire blight resistance though, so it’s not usually used in the East Coast.
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This is 130 pawpaw seedlings (and 5 American Persimmon seedlings) in my PVC-frame “squirrel excluder device,” essentially a cold frame with clear poly-film sides to warm the soil and a fiberglass window screen top to allow rain in. The pawpaw seeds are open-pollinated seeds extracted from fruits of assorted improved/named varieties on my multi-grafted tree (about 15 varieties on one tree). The open-pollinated persimmon seeds were taken from the original “Turkey Lake” tree in Florida. I will use many of the seedlings as rootstock, but will grow out a few to see if the fruits are decent. Houston, Texas area.
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what kind of trays are holding your tree pots up?
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Definitely a cocona. Has a massive leaf, can’t even see the sugar apple underneath it.
Some cameos in the picture from top to bottom:
Gin Berry
Whitman’s Fiberless Soursop
Blackberry Jam Fruits
Seashore Mangosteen
Cuban Oregano (the blurry leaf in the bottom leaf corner)
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Texas persimmon is more rounded, even that young.
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The 12” deep x 4” wide “liners” are set in reused shallow plastic trays that vegetable transplants are held in at nurseries and garden centers. To hold the liners upright and make it possible to easily fill them with ProMix, I staple the top edges together with a hand stapler.
After a few months of growth I remove the staples and move to liners to milk crates.
BTW, to reduce transplant shock when either up-potting or planting all seedlings in ground I have an assortment of concrete filled plant pots that I use as molds.
I tamp the soil around them to get the precise size hole with no air gaps before withdrawing the mold and placing the plant. Big-time help!
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thats smart! thanks for sharing. would you post these and more of your ideas in our container thread: https://growingfruit.org/t/pots-and-bags-and-containers-oh-my/ where others might find them useful?
Have five that I grafted this year. I like full size rootstocks, so these seemed like a fit for me.
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my partner has become interested in planting every seed from every fruit he eats.
there are little pots labeled “good red apple”, “purple grape”, and “cherry???” and such everywhere. there’s a spot full of gallon pots that I had tomatoes in last year that he’s apparently filled with peach pits “to plant later” (some are sprouting). he won’t label them beyond the species either, and isn’t sure what some are even then. it’s gotten him interested more in the garden generally though so I don’t mind.
mi corazon doing my chore
my own seedlings- two pawpaw have broken the seed coat, starting a white root. they are tall pots now until the fall. I also have two sapodilla, I made a thread once about searching for these and was able to get seed to sprout for two!!! different ones. Silas and another that someone sent me a fruit and a label for. I also have an unknown seedling of my own that I thought was sapote, those were the seeds I planted there- but from replies about it, it’s probably something else. I assume I’ll find out eventually.
some of my partner’s seedlings were seeds he put into yogurt cups filled with dirt that he put no drainage holes in. I’ve left all his things where he puts them so far, I’m hoping one grows big enough to graft to, then he will catch that addiction.
edit to add picture of another place I found where he’s been a squirrel
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Hopefully morus nigra seedlings, but I’ve heard alot of seeds are mislabeled. Regardless, can always use some more mulberries.
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I have beach plum and prunus hortulana seedlings. Would it be better to plant these out now in May/June or to let them mature further and plant out in the fall?
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Gin berries (Glycosmis pentaphylla) that I just uppoted. Looking good so far.
Chocolate Fruit (Tocoyena bullata) also just uppoted. They got a shot of iron because one looks a little nutrient deficient.
Water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) starting to spread. Hopefully I will get a big bucket full of tubers by the end of summer.
African Miracle Fruit (Thaumatococcus daniellii). This is a ginger cousin that’s fruit are supposed to be ridiculously sweet. Apperently it isn’t self-pollinating, and my other seed didn’t sprout. But it should be able to spread by rhizomes and then pollinate itself one day.
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How do you like to grow your water chestnut? I have tried and the plants live for a while then die off.
Generally speaking, if a plant isn’t “self-pollinating”, its own clonal protogé won’t pollinate it either. They are, essentially, the same plant, & you’ll need two distinct individuals to get seeds.
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From what I read, the same flower cannot pollinate itself. It typically only has one flower at a time per rhizomal clump. If it were to have two flowers, they would be able to pollinate each other.
Information is difficult to find and everything is quoting one point of information and I can’t find the original source. So not only do I not know if what I said above is correct, I also do even know if it is actually self-incompatible. A source of 1 is not very convincing to me, even if that 1 source has been copy and pasted 20 times.
My first time growing them. I have them in a Home Depot bucket. When I originally planted them, they were just in manure, the soil I use, and some top soil because I was told it was heavy and would weigh them down. Then I filled it with water. Top soil was in fact not heavy, and after a couple weeks, all the bulbs had floated up to the top, and all but one died. I have since put aquarium rock on top, which has done a great job of keeping the soil and bulb down in the water. The one survivor (pictured above) has put out a ton of new growth and has spread some.
Starting mine in winter probably also hurt my chances. The ones that died from floating probably wouldn’t have if it was also warm out. But since it wasn’t, once they were completely exposed they didn’t stand a chance.
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