Excellent. Thank you for the warning.
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Up potted roselle. I gave away my other starter to someone who knew it by a different name used to make a Jamaican Christmas Tea. It seemed to like the sandy mix it was in, so put more sand in the larger container. I’m excited to see how it does.
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Enjoy! I’ve grown the Thai roselle from Southern Exposure here in Central NC and been able to harvest mature seeds before winter. Might not be able to so that every year, though.
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Im growing some rozelle seedlings to graft okra onto. The nematodes are so bad in my garden that okra won’t grow, but rozelle is supposed to be very resistant. Kind of off topic but curious if anyone has tried this.
I don’t think roselle is especially nemotode resistant (at least root knot nemotode). I have heard of it dying to nemotodes, and I lost one to them last year (roots looked like braided rope). They have pretty shallow roots, so it makes sense they are susceptible.
There are different species of nemotodes, and even different species of root-knot nemotodes, so it be a YMMV type of resistance.
Ok maybe it’s not reseller that I am using. It’s false roselle Hibiscus acetosella.
I saw some research indicating it is resistant. Well find out, that is if my grafts take
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Thats cranberry hibiscus, and it is nemotode resistant. Or at least has never had an issues for me. I was actually going to suggest it, but wasn’t sure if okra was compatible with it.
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Ok maybe I am on the right track. It is compatible with okra. The stems are skinny so grafting is going to be tricky..
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The trick to getting them to flower is forgetting to turn the grow light a few times and giving them a vicious spider mite infestation?
Any idea if they’ll continue to set flowers once they start if they go to a normal day/night schedule?
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They probably won’t. The flower on days with less then a certain hours of sun. So the grow lights being off probably tricked it into thinking it was short days. The ones it has will probably mature.
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I guess maybe they do have a day neutral roselle? Or at least a longer day blooming roselle. Thats pretty cool. I might buy some seeds from them then. My only red seedling (my red roselle saved seeds seem to not be viable unfortunately) got hit by something, cracked and died, so I need some replacements for this year and next.
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The flowers don’t last long. It was like this an hour later but then I had to go to work and by early afternoon it was already closed. I hope I get to see the next one fully open. Also just reviewed @sharq that I’m supposed to stake and totally forgot will do that tomorrow!
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I believe the flowers are one day only.
What was the source of the early blooming ones? I’ve had a terrible day and my brain/searching didn’t work. I’ve got Southern Exposure Seed Exchange red ones and Chill Hill Farm white variety growing.
The Thai red southern exposure ones
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Correct. Like it’s ‘cousin’, okra, the flowers are a one-day event. Calyces can usually be harvested ~2 weeks after petal-fall, iirc.
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I just have this one, small plant- do you just collect as they appear, store in the fridge and process all at once? Thinking I might need to keep my spare next year and grow two.
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Yes. You’ll need quite a bit. You can harvest the petals at any stage, but there best when the pod is about an inch wide. Yours might not get that large because the is still small though. At the end of the season when the risk of cold temps is high, you can also harvest the unopened flowers. They aren’t as firm, but they still work for processing.
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I usually have at least a half-dozen, but more commonly a dozen(or to dozen) plants, so when I’m harvesting fruits to process the calyces, I’m getting at least a gallon of fruits at a picking.