Last November I got about a dozen dragon fruit cuttings from Jim at www.gotepis.com I also got to meet him and his wife as he delivered them to me by the I-5 as I was going from Northern California back to Mexico.
I potted them up and left them outside my fenced garden room thinking my dogs surely would not eat cactus. Wrong. Well, maybe they just played with them but three of the cuttings disappeared. The rest quickly went into the fenced room where they had shade and occasional water.
Eight months later I have PLANTS. All the cuttings grew and some have two or three branches, up to four feet tall!! I'm doing the happy dance.
So many of the plants I've tried here that I thought would do well, haven't. This looks llike it could be a success in my efforts to expand the number of foods that are grown locally. We do have the wild pitayas here. Tony and I found and shared one the first year he worked for me (now maybe eleven years ago). I still remember the wonderful flavor. The local wild ones are hard to find as they get picked so fast.
I am planting some of them in my home-made earthboxes. I'm also using EM in innoculate the soil both in and out of the boxes. And they are each getting some biochar. (I keep learning new things to keep me busy here at DG).
I am looking for a source for a carob tree. They take fifteen years from seed but I may start some anyway and share them with my farmer/gardening friends here as it sounds like they might do well here. Anyone growing them?
When I finish brown bagging my bedroom (see Trash to Treasures Forum) I will be on the hunt for more tropical seeds, plants. Let me know if you have or know of any that might do well here.
katiebear
Drgaon fruit - a hopeful beginning
How odd! The dragonfruit we had in Bali was delicious! Just peel and eat - no lemon juice or sugar. I wonder what the difference is?
Yokwe,
Shari
There are lots of different varieties. The wild one that I found with Tony was delicious.
The amount of water they receive might also make a difference.
katie
Katie, I was also thinking the soil. But then I got to thinking that Thailand and Bali have similar climates and soil conditions...as far as I know. Maybe not though. Tis a puzzlement, and maybe just a matter of taste.
Glad you found a good one in Mexico...bodes well for my retirement there. Ha Ha.
Yokwe,
Shari
It's dragon fruit (pitaya) season here in southern MX and they are delicious. One of my favorite fruits. The taste is light but not at all like water, it is refreshing, not too sweet. I just cut them in half and eat them with a spoon but you can peel them or use them in smoothies. The ones grown here have a white flesh but a little father south they have a burgundy flesh and even farther there are some with a lighter color, they all taste very similar. We get the Costa Rican - purple flesh - here as imports and the white are easy to grow and sold everywhere. Here's a pic of some in the market.
and a link to a pic of one cut open.
http://www.baddog.com/images/forums/pitaya2.jpg
Thank you so much. I dream of the day my fried who has a small grocery store which supports 22 members of his family will have that kind of stack of dragonfruit. Also, other friends who have a small grocery store and a farm will be getting some plants.
Tourism is way down here and, wile it makes things quieter for me, it makes a difficult existance even harder. These people still seem to manage seem happier with their lives than many Americans.
katiebear
That's a great plan and I hope you can get them going in quantity. They look like a cactus but since you are in the desert keep in mind that they like more water than you would assume. They are from a tropical area with distinct wet and dry seasons so they can survive dry spells but they flower and fruit in the rainy season. We get tropical downpours every few days right now and they are all in fruit, the blooming began a couple weeks after the rains started. Since they are epiphytes (sp?) they don't need soil but they do need high humidity and water daily or every other day to fruit.
Thank you. We are preparing for that. They are being planted in a mix of shredded palm tree trunks and seaweed. All the cuttings I got have grown well and as I've moved them out from the nursery to more long-term homes I've gotten a few new cuttings. Tony and I have a large area that we've been clearing and making into a large bed with rock-filled tires for paths I think this will be where we put most of the dragon fruit. It's one of the warmest microclimates on my property and it's well-fenced. And two water hoses go there so we can keep up with that.
katiebear
Also give them something to climb, I've seen these neat supports they use in Asia somewhere. They end up looking kind of like a fake palm tree with one branch going up the support and then many arcing out and down with the fruit. Here, they grow on the rock walls mostly.
We have a mold we used for fence posts that we may use. I've also been thinking about a support with holes in it that could be filled with compost.
The ones I have moved so far all have good fences to climb on.
I love the look of rows of them in Thialand and Viet Nam.
kb
Aloha!
Glad to hear your dragon fruit are doing so well, Katie. I have missed you all so much lately, but back on line now!
I took these pics at LaPerouse this weekend - are they night blooming cereus (Sp?) or dragon fruit? Is there a difference? There is a whole fence of them roughly 300 feet long, but I have never seen any fruit on them.....
Edited for spelling - I was too lazy to look it up last night...
This message was edited Aug 6, 2009 6:22 AM
Fat buds ready to open tomorrow....
My monster one has had a couple of blooms twice in the past few months, but right now has maybe two dozen big buds.
The roots are absolutely on the surface of the surrounding yard. Not an inch deep. I'd sparingly mulch, an inch, not more and not bother to make any soil amendments whatsoever. The roots grab any dribble of water from the slightest of rain showers this way.
My dogs always knock parts of my Dragon Fruit off when they play. I literally throw them on the ground at the base of the house and they root. Since I am zone 8b, only the ones at the base of the house survive the winters. I bring the monster one in the pot in the sun room during the winter. Moving that big plant is like moving two porcupines having sex. I dont recommend it to anyone.
They really seem to like it here. Tony built a non-dog house for them - an outdoor enclosere with chicken wire around it. I'm gradually moving them in there in my home-made earth boxes and along various fences around the property. They are growing like crazy.
There is a dragon fruit festivazl in Irvine, Ca on Aug 29. I'm hopng to attend and get lots of cuttings.
Some pieces have fallen off as I moved them. Yesterday I made the first gift of a cutting to my friends who have a rancho and a small grocery store. I told them that in five or ten years we should be able to have our own festival.
katiebear
We are on vacation right now and when i get back i am buying some dragon fruit plant. I had some in Singapore and Ioved it and had not had any since because I did not want to spend $ buying one. They sell them at an asian grocery store but very pricey!!! The ones i had was soo sweet and juicy but stains. Does the plant have pins like cactus? I know they look like cactus or are they are cactus?? Thank you . Belle
I just posted this on another message.
Mine are about to bloom.
Cool thread - I'm definitely going to be planting a few of these guys for a sunny wall in my yard. Here's a question: are they self-pollinating? Can anyone recommend a tasty varietal? Any place that sells them other than http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/dragon/index.htm ?
I think these will be perfect for our dry Island climate and can't wait to get started.
Can I repeat Braveheartsmom's question please. Is the dragon fruit the same plant as night blooming cereus? One sees the night blooming cereus growing on rock walls in Hawaii but I have never seen fruit on them. But people are starting to grow dragon fruit in Hawaii now so what are they growing or doing? Are they hand pollinating? Would appreciate an answer to this puzzle. Aloha
In Thailand I bought fresh dragon fruit juice. Just peeled and chopped fruit into a blender and givin a whirl. No added sugar or lemon. It tasted ok but no wow. Bright purple and full of tiny seeds which mean lots of fiber in the diet.
Thanks Stellamarina, I still don't know the answer either!
I have both, I GUESS! That's why for Latin names, so much confusion with common names.
The Dragonfruit all over St Croix seems to be the same kind. it's all green stems, about two inches wide. If you chop a piece in two, the cross section is triangular. The edges of the ?? stem are slightly scalloped, and have small thorns in each depression. Must be handled carefully. The blooms are big and gorgeous and have zero fragrance.
I found a bit of "Night Blooming Cerius" in a nursery here that resembles one I had long ago 'up north'. The stem is small and round, and about the diameter of my little finger. As it grows, at about two feet high, it gradually flattens out into a flat, wavy/scalloped shape, about three inches wide and 1/4 inch thick. More leaves come off the nodes, and more stems as the plant ages and climbs. The bloom resembles the Dragonfruit, but is very very fragrant, like Vanilla and Frangipani mixed, or just heavenly.
Both plants can go to the top of a tall tree.
OK?
What color is the flesh of the fruit where you are? Ours is the type with white flesh and the flowers are fragrant as well. I'll take a pic of some of the vines in the next couple days, I'm over at the beach right now.
I followed some local advice and smeared the flesh of a particularly good tasting fruit on the rock wall of my yard. I thought it hadn't worked but apparently the rains washed it down to the base of the wall and I just found about a dozen small vines starting. Since I didn't think it had worked I also put a couple of pieces broken off a friends vine near the wall and those have rooted as well.
The other day I was tagging along with friends who are house hunting and in the backyard of one of the houses we looked at they had planted dragonfruit in the cut off trunk of a dead palm. They told me they had first hollowed it out and filled it with soil. The dragon fruit was very lush with dozens of branches that came out like a fountain and fell back on all sides. The owner said usually your neighbor gets the fruit from your vine but he wanted to keep them in his yard.
I did actually get one small fruit from the monster in my yard. Monster because the original had crawled up a small Christmas Palm, and made lots of hanging branchlettes, like the trained ones in Thailand. Maybe it was trained. But, it got loose, and is growing all over an orange tree nearby. If the whole plant were to be removed, it'd be a huge pickup truck load. It's bloomed four times recently, and has buds now.
The one fruit had white flesh, and tasted like crunchy water.
I'd sure appreciate some seeds!!!!!!
mmmmmm ......Thanks Molamola.....maybe the night flowering cerius is different then. I need to look at them closer to see the shape of the stem.
My baby is about to burst!!!!
Here is my hand in the picture to get reference.
JuJubetexas is yours growing in the ground ? If it is do you leave it outside in the winter?
It is in a pot. I let it grow up the tree when it is warm and bring it in the sun room when it gets cold. However, I have some growing at the base of the house. They have made it one winter.
Just got my first one.
Thanks for the info I have been wanting to try this one for quite a while and think I will now.
Do they like it pretty dry?
It was a little fragrant. It came in regular potting soil so I have kept it in a well drained/sandy potting soil with semi-regular moisture.
Hhahahaha! Jujube...when looking at those pics with the flower and your hand, I heard "Feeeed Meee" going off in my head...you didn't name her Audrey did you???
Yokwe,
Shari
Yes, my wife and I have been joking about that too. Very Little Shop of Horrors.