I don’t know about mandarins, but at work we let the oranges that fall under ripe sit on the table. They turn from light green, to yellow to orange. I don’t think they really get much sweeter, but the color changes and they lose some of the sourness of an unripe orange. All of these in the picture below started the same as the one on the left. Lemons and kumquats will do the same. The mandarins and tangerines almost never fall so I don’t know about them.
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This pigeon pea is ridiculous. From seed this year and it’s like 8-9ft by at least as much. When do they bloom? Haha
The calamondin lost a couple branches from wind, it’s so loaded
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Mine start blooming once days are under like 11 hours I think. Both of my varieties start at about the same time. Should be pretty soon for you, I’d start looking for buds.
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Ah ok, just in time for the frost to wipe them out. I have several randomly throughout the yard but this one is the only monster. Just curious if it will survive a winter without any help.
Probably not. But they can handle light frosts* so it might give you 1 or 2 crops before it gets real cold. Probably not any dried peas though, but in my opinion they are much better green then dried.
*I had one with frost damage, but the rest had none, and the one with frost damage was the only one that has black peas instead of green, so there does seem to be some cold tolerence variance
Edit: Adding on that my red roselle have started to form flower buds now. So my white roselles started bud formation in mid-August and started harvesting them (after bloom) in mid-September and my reds are budding now for probably a November harvest. The white roselles I have seem to be a whole two months earlier, pontentially making them better for more northernly people.
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My larger greenhouse has started to fall apart, so I had to order another one. In the meantime, I’ve moved my vanilla and black pepper vines into my small greenhouse. They were growing all willy nilly before so I staked them up some and gave them some pontential logs to branch on. I also trimed the pepper vine and attempting to root the cuttings. Hope they do well.
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do you find these two easy enough to grow? wonder how well they will propagate 
I was able to root a cutting with a couple of nodes and one leaf. Rooted in about a month with rooting hormone, humidity tent and some light. Growth since has been pretty slow with only one smaller new leaf. Cut just below a node and apply hormone to the cut. Roots will appear at the node.
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Pretty easy in my greenhouse. Both of the vanillas were started as cuttings. I am a little worried about moving them, some of the roots snuck there way into other pot’s soil. But care for them has been easy, just keep them watered, warmed, and humid. I plan on fertilizing them more now that they have there own space.
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How’d your babaco turn out? Did it end up ripening fruits? I know the last time you mentioned it you said it was having some unknown issues.
And also the Oakleaf papayas that I just remembered aren’t the same plant.
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It was a rough year for me in time to care for them. So I lost track of them and a few fell off due to drought stress, and one was likely ripe but insects beat me to it on the ground. There are currently two small ones hanging but they don’t seem to be growing. So I guess the jury is still out on them.
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For anyone interested: Mangifera caesia – White Mango, Binjai, or Wani — Bellamy Trees
They have white mango (Mangifera caesia) seeds for sale. Not cheap but these are very rare. There’s also 15% off till October (although I’ve noticed there is kinda always a 15% off going on).
Just an fyi, in case anyone wanted one but doesn’t check seed sellers as often as I do.
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We’ve been tasting a kishu every few days and they are definitely getting more flavor the more the peel changes to orange. When the peel was yellow, they were really mild and missing sweetness. They’re also much easier to peel when orange. Yummy little things!
Hoping I didn’t hurt the tree too badly letting it keep a lot of fruit. I thinned it about 60% and tag says it’s 4 years old…saw a social media video of fourwinds saying not to keep any fruit until 5 or 6 years old. Oh well, we’ll see what next year brings and how it takes shape given the branches are very arced like a weeping willow with the fruit.
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High 30s on Monday predicted, and it keeps getting lower. Thats rough for us in November, very early pontential first frost. The native plants haven’t even started going dormant yet. I don’t have a day off before than and I have to get probably 1/3, if not 1/2, of my potted plants into my new greenhouse. Good thing I got a bigger one.
This is also a good time to test cold tolerance. So some extra seedlings will be left out up against either my house or the greenhouse. Some examples are:
Star apple
Phalsa
Ice cream bean (2 or 3 different species)
A random mango seedling
Java plum/jamun
Some eugenias
Some Jabos/plinias
Maybe a Junglesop
Cherimoyas
Abiu
Maybe some lemondrop mangosteens
Loquats
Mamey and/or Canistel (seedlings are mixed up)
Some of those I know would be fine in ground, but any space I can save in the greenhouse would be great. I also need to know which ones are truly fool’s errands and which ones are doable.
As a side note: unless we get the hoophouses up this weekend at work, I will also see the cold tolerance of (in a high density setting):
Potted Mangos
Achacha
June Plum
Hog Plum
Ross Sapote
Allspice
Black pepper
Soursops and other annonas
Pitomba
Grumichama
Cashew
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Same, 38 projected here. I think I’ll move most things this weekend since the predictions have been bad lately. Had several nights in the low 40s so far but no frost. We don’t get frost often due to the constant breeze which stops it from forming as often as it likely would.
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Not tropicals but hopefully yall allow it
Arctic Frost satsuma
Calamansi
I have no idea what to do with all of these, maybe some marmalade?
Owari, about 15-20 remaining of the about 50 satsumas by far my biggest harvest yet
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Calamansi is my favorite citrus. Very sour but very good, and the peel is sweet like a kumquat. You can use them like limes for meat dishes or drinks, you can make marmalade like sour oranges, or you can make a pie like key limes. Best of all, they are everbearing!
Also that cold projection keeps dropping. Its down to 36 now. Guys in the Midwest need to close the freezer, they are letting the cold air out.
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Their ever bearing nature is quite nice, but I don’t love eating them. In contrast kumquat are nearly my favorite citrus, but even then I only want to eat 4-10 per day maximum.
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This palm tree in the backyard just fell on my tiny house. It was so loud I thought the AC I turned on in the middle of the night exploded. No internal damage, too dark and rainy to see if it dented the roof or crushed any plants. It could have crushed like 50% of my potted tropicals if I didn’t put them in the greenhouse this morning, its like it waited for me to move them. The good news is I can reach my dragonfruit now though, if it didn’t get squashed. Bad news is theres a palm tree on my house now.
Added pictures:
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I’m glad you’re OK!
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