Greenhouse Northern VA with guava, lime, and sweetsop

General Fruit Growing
#21

@Sunny_Orchard @RobThomas

Have you given any though to growing June Plum I am hoping to win over more fan.
Spondias dulcis aka June Plum, Golden Apple, Ambarella, Pommecythere. Why is no one growing this fruit?

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#22

Very helpful!! This is my first year overwintering tropical guavas indoors, any idea why they keep dropping so many leaves? Temperature is between 50-60. I’m worried they won’t stop dropping. Chilean, pineapple, and strawberry guavas are all fine, only the tropical guavas are dropping leaves.

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#23

Also, do you find you get enough light over the winter to keep tropical happy this north?

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#24

What minimum temperature do you keep for overwintering? Any supplemental lighting?

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#25

I am very tight on space. Also Ambarella seeds are very hard to find. I can only find young green ambarella fruits. When I can find a few I will start growing them.

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#26

Leaves dropping is very normal. They are starving for solar energy. I think they drop them to reserve energy because those leave don’t produce energy and are draining resource. The greenhouse provided enough light for the tree to ripen the rest of the guavas for me.

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#27

That’s makes me happy to hear!! As long as they won’t drop all of their leaves? Should I be concerned about that?

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#28

I understand that. Only Logees is what I would call affordable. Juneplum is truly a fast grower. Mine grew from a twig in a 2.5" pot too the size it is now since about june. It is already on its second flowering. I dont expect fruit till I can move it back outside next year. Juneplum is also know to root exceptionally well from cuttings. I will share when mine is large enough maybe next year. If your are interested I suggest using the wishlist button on Logees. If you really want to grow from seed you might want to contact Bryan Brunner Montoso Gardens PR. montoso.gardens@yahoo.com I read in another forum he had seeds available. I purchased my elusive Calathea allouia from him. Forewarning, he is Puerto Rico and the Island is still devastated. He has solar power and internet but shipping might not be available for new orders.

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#29

When do your sweetsop flower?

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#30

They flower a month after you clipped all the leaves off.

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#31

Do you have access to PawPaw’s. Have you ever considered timing it so you can cross pollenate?

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#32

I believe they have different chromosome counts, and won’t cross.?

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#33

It takes a lot of time and effort to start breeding a plant. I am on my second guava breeding. I got a good red guava out of the 16 seedlings. I got the seeds from the ARS GRIN program. It’s the only keeper so far. It is sweet, early, and fragrant. Two of them are trash. One was very sour and the other one still hasn’t ripened (8 months counting). I have years left to test out the rest. It’s very fun but it takes so long. My 1st breeding took me 5 yrs and I am not satisfied with the result. I may re-do the green guava breeding once I am done with the red ones. Everyone has their favorite fruit to breed. Mine is guava. Currently my latest guava flowers in June and ripen in October. If I can get one to ripen in September. I would consider that a success. Something I may consider breeding next is Muscadine. However, the breeders are doing such a good job. I don’t think I can improved on their work. If you decided to breed Sweetsop let me know the results. It will be fun.

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#34

Made me do some research I found this thread taking about it. The best chances would be using the lower court Annona as the seed parent and Pawpaw as the pollen parent. Difficult but not impossible.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1982494/cross-generic-hybrids-chromosomal-info

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#35

If only I had a greenhouse. My breeding efforts are going to go towards breading crossing a tropical blackberry with a hardy one. Wintering in my sun room is all I can do right now.

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#36

You seen where I was going with my question lol

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#37

really nice greenhouse design using the other two walls from the house! And I also love guavas, I like more the cream guava but it’s hard to find resources of this variety. I have only taste the pink and the cream guavas but I personally like the cream ones best. So far I have the Peruvian guava that I bought in spring so don’t know what the taste like? Also thanks for sharing about the Sweetsop I have never try this fruit but you got me thinking about it.

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#38

Searched for space heater and found this thread.

Just ordered a Pink Barbi guava (Psidium Guajava).

I live in zone 9a and don’t have a greenhouse. This tree will be an in ground espalier. Since I do get cold enough to damage a mature guava tree occasionally, I will build a temporary tarp or plastic on those nights below 30.

A cheap space heater with a fan should be enough to get past those nights…but I don’t think the cheap ones have a thermostat.

I can use an off-on timer I think to get around that issue.

If anyone has a link to a low end thermostatically controlled fan heater…

Ideally the fan would run all the time to mix the air then kick the heater on as needed.

Growing an espalier means it will be a relatively small temporary space I need to build for those cold winter nights.

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#39

Ah I see you can buy a cheap thermostat outlet controller for ~$20.

Years ago I was looking into something for a cooler and don’t remember these being available.

I could always add a separate little blower for air circulation in addition to the heater.

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#40

Easiest is frost fabric, thermocube and c9 incandescent Xmas lights. Works for me down to a least 17degrees maybe more for protecting citrus from freeze

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