I probably wouldn’t be growing so many marginal plants if I didn’t already have a ton of reliable fruiting plants to keep the garden feeding us. However, I see this experiment as a 3-5 year program which will hopefully end with a handful of plants that turn out to do unexpectedly well here. Then I will replace all the dead or weak trees with those newly proven performers and spend the rest of my gardening life growing actual fruit instead of babysitting whiny plants.
3 Likes
Yes, Emma Prusch is a great demonstration. They also have a fruiting Jaboticaba hiding in there, as well as several large fruiting Suriname Cherries.
Richard, I love your map. It’s clear you only grow the stuff you love. I would love to do that someday, once I go through this trial and find out for sure if I’m not missing out on the opportunity to delicious fruits that are slightly out of my zone.
2 Likes
That’s what you’re thinking today.
As you find success with a few trials along the way, chances are that that others will catch your fancy and lure you into testing them as time goes by. As your experience and confidence shift, so will will your chances of success with future trials.
2 Likes
Hah, yes there’s a good chance of that happening. I also look forward to going deeper with individual species. There are so many varieties of Cherimoya and White Sapote out there, but I only have a couple of them.
1 Like
date palms and opuntia ficus indica are no brainers in my location
with date palms the toughest obstacle will be the lack of heat …
Part of the fruit never reaches maturity, so better try with early varieties like medhool … and of course, you will need a male palm close to your female palm
1 Like
Did you try any? Longans are often CA grown and Rambutans could in theory be imported from Mexico and not irradiated, but the ones I’ve found have unfortunately been from Asia and possibly frozen along the way.
wow, have you been able to ripen any dates there?
Joe,
If you travel to an area where there are a lot of Asians, it is likely that the imported tropical fruit from Southeast Asia are feesh, not frozen.
In the city where I work, I have noticed that in recent years, Asian grocery stores carry fresh longans, rambutans, lychees, jackfruit, durians, etc. no need to eat frizen tropical fruit here.
2 Likes
They are grown in Baja and irridated before crossing the border. This time of year you can find them by the bushel at Ranch 99 markets.
1 Like
dates mature here, but in steps, palms have to be climbed too many times to pick the fruit, therefore it is not reentable establish a commercial exploitation …
it is also convenient to protect dates from the autumn rains
in a town near mine there is a large palm grove, here is some info about it:
This is a seedling from that tree.I visit a friend in Fremont sometimes and go to Emma Prusch occasionally when there.
A couple years ago in September I think,the tree had a lot of fruit but they weren’t ripe yet.There happened to be a half ripe one on the ground and out of four seeds inside,this plant grew.
I was wondering if the cultivar at the Park is a named variety? Brady
1 Like
Wow! You have a really cool list of plants, I’m excited to see how they work out!
I’m north east of San Diego, I think also zone 9b as it is inland and gets some cold air off of the hills.
From your list I agree that strawberry guava, ugni and pineapple guava have made it through winters with no visible damage. Cherry of the rio grande fell into this category as well.
The winter before last the cherimoyas were severely frost pruned but grew back quickly and didn’t seem to struggle this past winter.
Longan got sad and suffered some yellow leaves but bounced back readily this summer.
Red Malaysia guava did much worse than I expected over its first winter and hasn’t had much regrowth. This may be my fault as I have been less than diligent about watering/fertilizing this summer.
Star fruit was severely frost damaged its first winter, had over 6 feet of regrowth and just lost leaves and smaller twigs this past winter. It has flowered but not fruited and is definitely my experiment tree.
Luc’s Mexican and cherichula (bumpy lemon) will have their first winter this year. Fingers crossed!
Dragonfruit (unknown white variety) was a loss to cold weather.
Passion fruit (Frederick, Nancy garrison and black knight) haven’t thrived. I suspect this is something I’m doing wrong as one of my neighbor’s has a little shop of horrors Frederick eating his yard.
2 Likes
Nice, @Lids, you’re growing a lot of cool stuff! I keep hearing conflicting stories about the hardiness of Dragonfruit. Maybe it comes down to specific varieties.
Do you cover your trees in winter or try to protect them in any way?
I haven’t been covering them, but probably will spoil the garcinias this winter until they get a little bigger.
Now that my experimental trees have been in the ground 3 months, I’m starting a YouTube series that will follow them throughout the coming seasons. Here is the opening video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1e7cxoXeJo
If you don’t want to suffer through 5 minutes of me talking, just skip directly to the flyover at 1:20 which shows all the trees and how they’re planted.
More videos will come soon that look at the individual trees up close and talk about their growth this summer.
5 Likes
Keep it up, Joe! I’ve really enjoyed your videos. They’re well done, and the music compliments them. Did you use a drone for your flyover? The layout of your garden looks very attractive.
I hadn’t realized that summer nights got so cool there. Does it fall below your dewpoint? Mine are in the mid to upper 70’s, but for much of the summer that was cool enough for dew to set.