Growing goji berry in South Florida

I couldn't find any information about growing it in Florida, so I am taking a chance and bought some seeds online -Lycium chinense, this is the variety that grows in the southern warmer parts of China. They took a long time to germinate, and they grew very slowy, of the 8 or so pots I planted, 4 survived, I've already planted 3 in the garden in different spots, I'm still looking for a spot for the last one.

This is a picture of one of them, now 5 months old. Apparently they take 3 years to bear from seed, so now its wait and see. The plants are very scraggly and needs to be supported.

They are in the Solanacea family  that includes eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers .... and so far I have found them to be suspectible to the same pests, i.e. tomato hornworm, spider mites...whitefly

Hopefully i can keep it alive for three years in order to get some fruit from it.

Second try at growing turmeric

Last year I bought some fresh tumeric tubers at our local fresh market and planted them in my garden.

They sprouted growth but never seemed very happy and the argentine ants invaded the tubers and the plants just died back. I lifted the few remaining tubers and stored them until late January after the last day of frost, then planted them and kept them moist in my little greenhouse. They only started growing in late April, seems they really need shady, moist, warm and humid conditions. In retrospect, I think the site was too dry and too sunny.

After they grew real leaves, I planted them in this box container and placed it on the patio where they will receive a few hours of direct sun, If I see them deteriorating, I'll move it to a full time shady spot, maybe under one of the trees.

So far the leaves are really beautiful kind of reminds me of shell ginger or even canna.

Rescued ixora's coming on nicely

About 3 months ago, I helped my neighbor to redo the flower bed leading up to her front door. http://thebudgetgardener.blogspot.com/2010/03/lending-helping-hand.html

I don't know if I had any part to play in it, but they sold their house and for a much better price than anyone had hoped for - still well below what we owe (since we bought at the height of the market in 2006), but its 50% more than our direct neighbors sold for. This gives us hope that we might break even  (and dare we hope even turn a profit some day) sooner than later.

Anyway, the dwarf ixora's that I removed due to being burned by the chlorine bleach used to clean her walkway, are all starting to sprout new growth (except one which is now on the compost pile). Now I just need to figure out where I'm going to plant them, or I might sell them on our community garage sale.

The first sapodilla flower

My latest addition to the yard, an Alano sapodilla from Excalibur which I planted last fall, is flowering! This is the difference between buying quality versus skimping (or growing from seed). My other sapodilla which I grew from a seed 2 years ago, is only about 3 feet tall and will probably only fruit in another 5 years.

The bought tree is barely 4 feet tall and already has numerous flowers and will probably bear at least 5 fruit.

The secret to growing myrtaceous fruits from seeds

Almost all the myrtaceous fruit seeds I have bought have played the same trick on me.

This includes:

1. Surinam cherry
2. Grumichama
3. Uvalha
4. Cabelluda
5. Blue Grape

and I am pretty sure the same holds for most of the others with large seeds, like jaboticaba, pitomba ...

I plant the seeds in well drained loamy soil, place the container in some shade, but where it will receive some sunlight, keep it moist, not too wet, then wait for what feels like forever. Normally after about 2 - 4 weeks (for some even 2 - 4 months), you should see the first little shoot push trough the soil.

What happens next is very disheartening, almost without fault, the very first shoot dies within a few days and turns brown and rots away.

I made the mistake to throw out some of those seeds, but accidentally left a few grumichammas and discovered to my amazement that a new shoot (or sometimes more than one) started growing ! This later happened to most of the seeds I bought online. If I hadn't known, I would have lost all of them. Some of these seeds run $3 each ! (Uvalha).

My latest seed, a Uvalha, germinated and started growing a shoot, but within a day or two, the shoot died. So with a lot of faith, I left it, placed it in deeper shade and didn't water it too much, and sure as hell, today, about 2 weeks later, I discovered the new little shoot ! You really have to zoom into the picture to see it. To the right of the green little shoot, the dead brown shoot is barely visible.

Its important to never expose the new little shoots to direct sun, they will get scorched and die within a day.

Taming the yellow (lillikoi) passion flower

When I went outside on memorial day, I was planning on doing a few routine maintenance tasks, i.e. prune some shrubs, prune the pentas ...

I heard some hacking noise and discovered my neighbour hacking away at the lillikoi that had been suffocating his crepe myrtle trees. I guess we're even now, because he let his bougainvilleas and mandevilla vines grow over the fence and completely engulf the whole corner, including a Christmas palm. The bougainvillea is much tougher to deal with than the passion fruit since it has hard woody canes armed with nasty spikes.

After he was done, I took out my pruning gear and hacked away the last few shoots growing over the fence. I didn't have the heart to remove all the shoots that are now creating a rather nice looking ground cover, but I sort of realize I might be sorry later when it tries to take over the rest of the yard ! I also left the thick growth that is now covering the bottom part of the travellers palm. I did however cut off the shoots that are now trying to suffocate the strawberry guava and the ones reaching for the sugar apple.

So far, not s single fruit in sight. This is very disappointing. Now I have this beautiful vine, taking over most of the back fence, with beautiful blooms and the promise of great tasting fruit, but nothing !

Growing grumichama from seed

Growing grumichama (Eugenia brasiliensis) from seed is not for the faint of hearted or easily discouraged. The seeds take a very long time to germinate, then the seedlings are extremely vulnerable to drying out, sunburn etc. This is my 2nd grumichama that died suddenly after two years for no apparent reason.

If you are lucky to live close to a rare fruit nursery like me, your luck is in as these are fairly cheap and can be bought for about $15 and will fruit within a year or two from planting. However, if you want a good supply of these delicious fruits, I suggest you buy as many as you can, so it can get expensive very quickly. If money was no issue, I definitely would plant as many of these as I have space for.

For me I grow it from seed because its more of a "I do it because I can" and "I hate throwing away seeds" and "I already have two fruiting specimens, but I'd like a lot more, so I can wait".

I strongly suspect that juvenile plants can not stand even a single drying out episode, neither do they like the scorching South Florida sun. This particular one looked a little wilted, I watered it but it died within two days after it started wilting. They also seem to really hate being transplanted.

Furthermore, they seem to have some nutritional deficiency all of the time, but at the same time don't seem to like too much fertilizer either.So for me, its been a hit-miss experience. I still have three seedlings varying in age from almost two years to 1 year.

We love this fruit so much that we literally fight over them, we pick the fruits then count and equally divide them!