I could be wrong but it looks like a papaya to me.
1 Like
Second on the papaya
Some marumi, Meiwa and Nagami. About another container or two left on the tree
One of the Meyers in ground with its first decent crop
10 Likes
I could be wrong too 
1 Like
Just one of dozens of volunteer Mexican papaya plants around my orchard. I have harvested 50+ pounds of ripe papayas from these “free” plants just this year, so I let them grow wherever they come up from spreading the compost from my compost bin. They don’t fruit the first year, but those that survive winter (e.g. under that huge tarp) will fruit in subsequent years. Here are some of their fruits earlier this fall.
8 Likes
Here are some of my “jumbo” Nagami (only one of my 6 Nagami trees bear these outsized fruits) along with normal sized fruits from my other Nagami trees.
5 Likes
Here are some of my “jumbo” Meiwa (only one of my 12 Meiwa trees bear these outsized fruits) along with normal sized fruits from my other Meiwa trees. This big tree (about 8’ tall) with extra-large fruits is on Flying Dragon R.S., all the others are on regular trifoliate R.S. and only about 5’ tall. Go figure…
6 Likes
Kuno Wase mandarin cozy in its winter blanket, which it totally has not needed yet this year - 3rd year in ground, first year with fruit!
2nd pic is my sudachi which I’ve been picking as needed for months. This pic is from a month ago but it doesn’t look much different today!
Not pictured are my Meyer lemon and Bearss lime which didn’t have much on them due to last year’s hectic winter with -11C lows that I didn’t adequately prepare for, and I already harvested what they did have a couple months ago!
Victoria BC, Canada
11 Likes
That is a really healthy looking Kuno Wase. You guys all are making me a little jealous. So far i have only been able to get my lemon to fuit in PDX area.
1 Like
Virtually all of my 100+ Citrus varieties are in-ground, but a few of the most tender ones (citron, Persian lime, a Variegated Eureka lemon, and a couple others) are in large containers Ican move into the garage for bad freezes. Yesterday I decided to harvest to last of my Variegated Eureka Lemons before our first freeze of the winter. About 25 fruits in all remained on my 45 gallon container plant (in The Woodlands north of Houston). So, what to do with 25 beautiful pink lemons? How about making pink lemon pies and limoncello! And since I still had about a dozen Persian Limes in storage from my harvest of them in November, I decided to make a couple lime pies too. Here are photos of the Variegated Eureka lemon tree (45 gallon pot) just before harvest, the lemon harvest, the beautiful juicing results, the zesting and limoncello making process, and the 4 finished pies (2 lime pies top row, 2 pink lemon pies).
9 Likes
Very impressive Scott! I almost gave up on citrus after the hard freezes in Houston. I am back to keeping a few in containers….i just love growing citrus!
1 Like
Luke: Yes, the 2021 freeze (9 F here) was rough. I managed to keep every one of my hundreds of in-ground Citrus trees alive, just barely. Most were mere stubs about 1 foot tall after that historic freeze. The Dec. 2022 (12 F) and Jan. 2024 (17 F) freezes didn’t help matters any. I had nursed all of them along pretty well until the drought this summer, when I lost about 10 trees while I was out of state. Maybe someday I will finally accept that SE Texas just isn’t Citrus tree friendly! Here are some Fairchild fruit I picked from my in-ground tree a couple weeks ago. This tree had a moving blanket and tarp over it the past few freezes.
6 Likes
Here is a photo I took just before Christmas of some of my in-ground Nagami, Indio, Meiwa, and Salustiana (left to right) fruits, and a photo of my container-grown Meyer yesterday (I have two large in-ground Meyer trees too, but no fruit on either of them this year due to Jan. 2024 lows of 17 F on two consecutive nights).
9 Likes
The Meyer have a scale infestation or something to cause it to have such low foliage? Happened to mine before
I’m curious about real experiences with kumquat hardiness. At which temps did the different varieties take real damage? They seem hardier than advertised by the companies selling them.
I have a spring planted Callie Kumquat planted outside as an experiment and so far I think it went through ~19 degrees uncovered without defoliating. But, I may have just gotten lucky with a microclimate.
1 Like
Mine have taken 14* the Meiwa had no damage, nothing at all. The Nagami split a few branches at that temp but this due to the Meiwa had no fruit remaining on the tree and the Nagami was full, not quite ripe yet (early freeze). I think if they are “dormant” they take much colder than when loaded with ripening fruit.
1 Like
Yes, that Meyer has been plagued by problems this past year (whiteflies, psyllids, and scale). Although I try to always use organic approaches to pest control, I may have to try a systemic imidacloprid drench to get things back to normal.
1 Like
Of course all the usual caveats to winter hardiness apply (freeze duration, weather trends just prior to freeze, timing in season, rootstock, fruit load, soil moisture levels, wind, soil cover, branch thickness, etc.), but I don’t rate kumquats nearly as hardy as most reference materials (which often rate them hardy into low F teens). My Meiwa and Nagami have both been badly frozen back (all the way to my banked mulch) at 17 F. My Changshou fared even worse with significant branch splitting. I have been more impressed with Satsuma performance during the same freeze events. I may have to revise my talk handout of recommended Citrus varieties for Southeastern Texas that includes a relative hardiness scale as a guideline. I’ll post it here for any thoughts of you Citrus growers.
6 Likes