I currently reside in Madison, WI Zone 4-5 and am going to be growing some container tropical fruits. I was wondering if anyone had tips or good resources for 6 plants in particular. Cacao (Grafted), Fig, Noni, Mango (Grafted), Miracle Fruit, and Key Lime. I currently have the Lime and Fig and they are doing OK but after this summer I want to get my place set up inside to really produce some fruit from these plants. Other than the lime, fig, and Mango, I got the other three b/c of their lack of need for full sunlight. Specifically I have been unable to find good resources on growing these plants in Containers. Any advice or resources would be greatly appreciated.
Tropical Fruit in Containers
Feingold, welcome to my world. Somebody ought to write an article (see article tab, above) about growing tropical fruit trees in temperate climes. OJ, are you in with me?
There really isn't a whole lot of stuff out there. Regarding mangos, any of the "condo mangos" are good, and the Pine Island website has a nice list and viewer which you have probably found already: http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/mango-viewer/index.htm My mangos are in ground beds in the greenhouse.
Figs are easy, as is citrus. I grow them in CHC.
Ohiojay has a Miracle Fruit tree, he'll be here to comment sooner or later. You probably already know that they need a very low pH, so lots of peat in the mix.
I have guavas in ground beds in the greenhouse. The Lemon and Strawberry guavas are fruiting at about 24" height, so I suspect they would fruit in a container.
I don't know much about Noni except that the ripe fruit smells bad. I haven't grown cacoa.
Wax jambu will fruit in a container. Sapodilla is rumored to be a good container plant. June plum (Spondias dulcis) is supposed to do well in container as well. A few others might include: Jaboticaba, Surinam Cherry, Star Fruit (Carambola).
Another poor soul joins the fold. Yer right Stress..."somebody" ought to write an article! Here's a sample chapter....
Chapter 10...It's a jungle out there
I slowly made my way through my living, transpiring, tropical jungle. The sounds of frogs, crickets, and condensation dripping from my glass ceiling tickles my ears. The sight of passion fruit, mango, and lychee leaves dance to the breeze of the ceiling fan pushing the moisture laden air. I lift my head and breathe in the scent of insecticidal soap. Ahhh...my beauties, how have we grown today? What surprises will I bear witness to?
As I peruse my potted interiorscape, I sense something is amiss. Why do the leaves of my Theobroma Cacao look as brown and dry as my morning toast? What happened to the last two leaves of my Jit Lee Rambutan? Why is the Meyer Lemon plant's leaves spotting? Spider mites? Again?! What are those plump little dots on the leaves of my Garcinia Livingstonie? It can't be! How many times do I have to kill those aphids?! I panic. I look around in disbelief! It can't be! Why hast thou forsaken me?!! I've given you water, light, heat, nourishment, and tender loving care. I've monitored your PH. I've given you new soil and bigger containers. Who is to blame for this travesty?
It is I, gentle readers. And only I. I stand humbly before you in ignorance and lack of meaningful experience. I am... an idiot. My seemingly peaceful and prosperous garden is afoul. There's trouble brewing. If you listen carefully, you can just make out the drums of the pigmy cannibals. They will dine well tonight.
My false sense of accomplishment, my cocky attitude that things were going oh so well...has come home to roost. So ends the serman.
I hope you enjoyed my painful experiences. It just goes to show you that growing rare, tropical fruits in containers, in greenhouses, in climate zones where the Lord above never intended such plants to grow...can be very difficult. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun, challenging...oh so challenging, and can be very rewarding. But man! It can really get you down sometimes.
First...let me start off by saying "good for you!". Stress and I need more people like you in our midst...mainly so we can say we're not the only people out there in need of some serious therapy. Second...looking at your current plant list...you've chosen a couple of plants that have very high humidity requirements. The cacao and miracle fruit. While you may get by keeping them alive, they certainly will not thrive in the home environment. We just cannot keep our homes so humid. What you will need to do is get you one of those 4-tier, plastic covered greenhouses, a small, ultra-sonic humidifier, and raise these two plants inside of it. You'll want to maintain humidity at around 80%+. I won't go into the pollination troubles with my miracle fruit. I'd keep the mango in a south facing window with as much light as it can get. I'd even set up a big metal halide grow light. Hmmm...let's see...fans... can't forget fans when the light makes that part of the house 90+ degrees. Wow! All that sounds familiar! Just my two cents. Just keep in mind that Stress and I have a lot of plants currently. I'm sure he lost a bunch like I have due to trials, errors, and the the "why not?" attitude. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't grow these plants in Wisconsin. You can. It just takes a little doing...well, maybe a little more than that!
Here's my advice...stop kidding yourself. You know you are going to end up wanting a greenhouse. So this spring...you might as well go and get it out of your system right now. Then think of all the plants you can get then!!!! :)
I'm tired, spent, and ...why the hell is the fogger kicking on when the humidity is already 95%?!! Oh for .... It never ends......................................
LOL!! Love your little "article." That was funny and oh so true. I don't grow fruit because I tend to kill plants in the house that aren't hardy but I totally understand it!
Hey, we've got more...
Chapter 1: Getting Over Your Zone Envy: How to Ignore Posters from FL, CA, and TX
Chapter 2: Finding Plants (Forget Lowes...think Puerto Rico!)
Chapter 3: The Enemies, Part 1: Spider Mites, Mealybugs, Aphids, Scale,
Chapter 4: The Enemies, Part 2: Cold Water, Cold Air, Dryness, and Darkness
Chapter 5: The Space: What to Do When You THINK Your GH is Full (answer: send OJ more plants)
Chapter 6: Mangosteen: How to Grow It (OJ) and How to Kill It (SB)
Chapter 7: How to Prune a Jakfruit for an Ohio GH (OJ, incomplete)
Chapter 8: How to Prune a Cherimoya for a Missouri GH (SB, incomplete)
Chapter 9: How to Really Enjoy a Weeklong Vacation Away from your Precious Plants (no author found yet)
SB
This message was edited Mar 16, 2007 8:23 PM
LOL. If I stay away from my plants for a week and they don't go to my grandma's they are dead for sure. Except for my cactus and 2 trees or whatever they are.
That's good Stress! We'll have to get to work filling those chapters in! We'll have to add an addendum to your Chapter 6 though. I've killed more than my fair shar of my beloved mangosteens! But yet...I keep trying. There's a word for that. Oh yeah...my wife wants me to add another chapter..
Chapter 11: Justifying your plant purchases...or...those lame excuses we tell our spouses...or....you're adding another year to your retirement date.
I believe I could devote quite a bit of time to this chapter. Sad, but true. Well kids, it's been fun, but it's past my bedtime...probably dream about pigmy cannibals...
Chapter 12: Potting Mix: The Good, The Soggy, and the Poorly Aerated
Chapter 13 (at the suggestion of my wife): How to Grow Bananas at $6000/pound and Counting.
Just kidding.
Well, not really.
Feingold, welcome to our club. Here are some links:
http://www.crfg.org/ You can spend hours browsing this site. Start with Fruit Facts.
http://www.ricecrc.org/reader/citrus/h2311.htm My favorite on citrus nutrition.
http://citrus.forumup.org/ This is a citrus group with a container growing forum. It is basically all the citrus experts that defected from the GW a couple of years ago. There is also have a tropical fruit forum, but you are encouraged to post here on DG first!
http://www.nafex.org/figs.htm Great fig link.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/fig/fig.html Another fig link.
SB
lol that was really funny about what your wife said about the $6000/lb of bananas SB!! I am still laughing-esp because it is so true!
OK can any crazy (is obssessed a nicer word?) person play this game or does it just have to be crazy people who are growing tropical TREES in a grhouse??? How about just tropicals? And the tale of getting too many of them??
Here are some pictures of what I had to resort to the other week because I had no more room in the grhouses ( yes that is grhouses-plural- and all THREE of them are large ( obviously not enough!) one is 20x100 and the other two are 20x65 long).
I finally just broke down and put a tarp on the floor to hold all of them-believe it or not, its really easy to keep them watered this way. I just drag the hose in off the deck and water! lol
here is looking at it from another angle...believe it or not, they are all doing well there, I have two skylights and the doors to the deck face the south, so plenty of light! A little crowded though, and I may have to move more in. I may have to put more skylights in for next year!! lol
Show this to your wife, SB and she will be grateful for the grhouse now!
Another welcome from another guy who wishes he lived in the tropics but doesn't dare suggest it because his dear wife would divorce him. My Brown Turkey figs in the whisky barrels who have suffered, leafless in the garage all Winter, have leafed out about a week ago and we'll be eating fresh figs before you know it (well, yes I always have a bad case of Spring Fever about this time of year and limitless optimism).
My potted "Buddah's Hand" (Citrus medica) and "Sweet Olive" (Osmanthus fragrans) are both in full bloom in the greenhouse and it's intoxicating when I enter. I also have a variegated pink lemon (another Lowe's wonder I picked up in Florida this January) in flower and little lemons are forming. I have trays of bananas, dwarf papayas, Custard Apples, Ensete, etc. seed planted, and I'm checking the EEs and other resting tropicals daily to see if they're finally getting warm enough to start actively growing again.
$6,000/pound bananas indeed - how true - but as they say on the TV ads... "priceless"
Dave
I love the chapters in your book! Of course if anybody's read chapter 1 you'll all ignore my post LOL! But I think you should add an appendix for those of us in zone 9/10...a 12 step program for people who live in a wonderful practically perfect climate but aren't satisfied with that and insist on growing things that won't grow there (I have a whole greenhouse full of things that won't make it through my winters without help!)
Thanks all for the links, advice, and sanity check before I get these on the way. I too have had a green thumb up North here in the summer time w/ Veggies, but Tropical Fruit seems like such a great challenge and fronteer to conquer in Wi winters that is. I rent and cannot do a outside greenhouse, however the GH inside for the Miracle Fruit and Cacao would be a good idea. I currently have some full spectrum Incandescents that don't seem to be doing the trick and am pondering the Halides. I got SW facing windows w/ plenty of sun that way. But anyways we'll see what happens. Stress - you mentiong Puerto Rico in one of the chapters. I was planning on getting my new trees from a guy in PR. Do you know of any good growers down there? The plant and shipping prices are great.... but I don't know what shipping will do to a 3-4' tree that distance. Anyways I will keep you guys posted on what develops in the next couple of weeks and if I can get my Key Lime back into action now that it is warming up.... its one lime is way way too lonely. Any rec's on humidifiers that are better than others? I was looking at Humidifier/Heaters all in one on E-bay. any thoughts suggestions???
Guys, I just purchased a greenhouse and it is not even put together yet...... I was happy that now I could grow a few tropical plants and orchids.......now I find out I can grow tropical fruit too?? Had never heard of a mangosteen so I had to google it. I want one of those! You all are so baaaaaad, I have not even opened up the box and it appears I have already filled up the greenhouse. LOL
LOL. I don't have a greenhouse or fruit trees. I just live thru you guys. Very, very limited space at my house.
Montoso Gardens is the grower we've been using in Puerto Rico.
I have used the Herrmidifier(sp?) brand humidifier. It is widely available.
Metal halides: Good!
Did you buy your key lime grafted from a local store? That's what I should have done. The key lime was actually the plant that started this whole enchilada for me. I had a lemon and grapefruit that I kept on the deck. I just made a key lime pie and I joked with my wife about planting the seeds. She told me to go ahead. Why not? That was all she wrote. From there it just got worse and worse.
If you put up a metal halide, you won't have to worry about a heater! There are some small ultrasonic humidifiers out there that don't cost too much and are adjustable.
SB is on the money with the PC guy. Bryan at Montoso Gardens. He'll help you out. Good luck.
I got my key lime grafted from a local nursery as well as my Turkey Fig that needs lots of TLC to get growing into an actual tree and not legged out shoot. I will have to see what I can do to get HH lights used on ebay or here. I am currently a UW Madison Student and to top off all of the challenge of just growing the fruit, but I am on a budget....... but far from deterred from such an undertaking. Madison has some really good nurseries and plant resources at the Botanical Gardens here etc... I have e-mailed Montoso Gardens last night and am eagerly awaiting a dialogue with them soon.
Feingold-
I bought a washington orange and a tangerine plant from a local nursery in the spring of 2006. I live in Brooklyn NYC (Zone 6ish). When I bought the plants, they both had a 3 or 4 small fruit on them. Both plants grew a handful more fruit over the summer of 06. By the time I brought them indoors in about October, there was 1 orange left on the tree (the others had been eaten by squirrels or had fallen off), and about ten tangerines. I harvested the tangerines which were slightly smaller than store-bought in Novemberish. They were very good. The orange was pretty small but very tasty- if I had more patience, i would have let the fruit stay on the trees a month or so longer and they probably would have grown bigger and sweeter.
Over the winter, I put them right by a large window which got decent afternoon sun. I also placed a fluroscent shaped growing light over the plants but given the shape of the bulb versus the plants, i dont know how much light from the bulb hit the plants.
over the winter, i lost about 90% of the leaves on the tangerine, but about half the leaves lost were replaced with newly grown leaves. I also lost about half the orange leaves though a few new leaves grew as well. My big surprise is that starting in about late december, and expecially in feb/march, my orange tree has grown about 50-75 blossoms, of which several have formed small fruit.
anyway, i mention all of this, to show that if even a completely ignorant black-thumbed ftuit obsessed gardner like me can keep tropicals alive, and at least in the case of the orange tree, grow numerous fruit, I'm sure you will be able to.
Below is a picture of one of the small oranges currently on my plant. I am also including a link to about 8 photos which show my trees now, and how they were before I btought them indoors.
finally, Ohiojay, Stressbaby, if you have any tips for anything I should be doing to improve the health of my plants, I'd gratefully receive. also should I be concerned that the tangerine tree has not grown new blossoms
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/ggrunsfeld/album/576460762394114013
Well, I am about to post the pictures of the trees that are available to me from Puerto Rico right now (A guy from ebay). Not Montoso gardens though because they have not gotten back to me. I was curious if someone could give me some advice on if they look way to legged out (Cacao, Mango especially). I have a current Fig, from a local nursery that was way to expensive, that was/is crazy legged out when I got it and it will take quite some time to get it into a "tree". Anyways here are the pics and if you could let me know whether or not you would consider them acceptable for purchase of if you think I would be able to find better. Below is Cacao.
Mango
Miracle Fruit
Noni
The miracle fruit look fine...depending upon the cost. The one I received from PineIsland was 2-3 times that size and flowering. Is the mango grafted? If so, which variety. If not...avoid it. The cacao plants are quite tall but I can't see that as too big a problem. I just lost mine due to a transplanting brain fart. I'm a tad p.o.'d about that.
Ya just have to be careful on the Ebay items. I'm sure there are great deals if you look hard enough. It all depends on what you want and the variety/size you want.
I think they look OK. I agree with Jay about the mango, only get a grafted smaller variety.
The mango is a grafted "haden" Mango. Are there better or more preferred varieties for containers? The plants are all between $25 and $30. Can any of you give me a rough estimate as to the gallon size of the containers?
I have a dandy fig (unnamed) that produces fruit very well. It is the only fig that I have seen in this part of Florida that bears for a long season. It is 'red' inside and out. It hasn't gone completely dormant this year so I think it might be a good canidate for growing under greehhouse conditions. It has already started to set fruit this year and the fruit was excellent last year, its first year in the ground. I am going to air layer it in May when things are nice and toasty here.
Perhaps OJ's estate might designate a ghost writer to finish his jakfruit article? lol! Priceless book!
I've been bitten by the bug too, though. No gh yet, but planning for an attached one that can be assembled/disassembled over a rear patio every autumn and spring. Right now I am acquiring LOTS of windows and sliding glass doors, preferably tempered glass. :)
I am also acquiring tropicals at around one a week. It's a race to see who spends the winter on the patio, the plants in sheltered bliss, or me in a little tent with a zero degree sleeping bag if I can't finish the project. :(
-Joe
I too have been bitten a few times. I have a Miracle plant that is several years old, with 2 leaves lol. Does pepino qualify? I was able to get a couple of small fruits one year. I've been thinking of trying surinam cherry/.
Nice to see this thread is still around!
Surinam Cherry is a good one, I have heard of people growing that plant successfully.
SB
How funny your chapters are...even if you are ignoring my post , hehe...kind of sent me in culture shock... i was thinking about making a greenhouse, to start seedlings in case it doesn't rain as much as it needs. I never thought about making a house for trees , rock on ya'll!
Here's an idea, if you are renting, why not make a 'non-permanant' gh? here a lot of people take really thick plastic ( 6 mil i think), the practically clear stuff... and attach it to pvc piping so they can change it up if they want. Not sure how well that would work in the snowy lands, as that is where I vacation ;) (I'm jelous that ya'll get to go snowboarding all the time).
Manic, I do the hoop house with PVC piping here, but it gets much too cold for the tropicals even in the hoop house (I cannot heat it). I do put a few marginals (zone 6 for zone 5) in one of them (in pots sunk into the ground), but there is alway the issue of how much water needs or doesn't need to be added. The plastic prevents the precipitation from getting to the plants, but also helps protect from the drying winds. There is also the issue of plants starting to leaf out too early when they are kept warmer, so I have to remove the plastic and time it right. Still it does help for some things. Its a learning experience. I've also tried a combination of remay and plastic for better insulation. Also, spray paint plastic gallon jugs of water black and half sink into the ground for passive solar during the cold months. The water can help even out some of the temp changes.
I must confess to being obsessed with growing tropicals. Do I dare list my plant habits. These are just the fruit. OK, here goes.
30 citrus plants
2 mangoes
1 miracle fruit
1 starfruit
2 Barbados cherries
3 bananas
1 loquat
2 papayas
1 mangosteen that I watch like a hawk.
I am all of the time thinking about what I can add to my tropical menagerie. Do we have a 10 step for this? LOL!
OK tell me the how to of Mangos... I would love a Mango!
Papayas too - do they fruit for you in pots?
43 tropical fruit plants!! WOW!!! lol.
Wow Cynthia that sounds like a great selection....where did you get your mangosteen from, I've been looking for one for quite a while.
I have a miracle berry and love teasing unsuspecting neighbors/friends with it...quite a laugh.
I just recently bought a Strawberry Tree (Jamaican Cherry) which tasts between a sugar cube and popcorn! Also recently added a Cherry of the Rio Grande, Lychee and a Dwarf Weeping Mulberry, I can't wait for the next season.
This message was edited Feb 9, 2008 8:26 PM
Hi Everyone! Sorry to be so late posting back. My mangoes have not bloomed yet. I am hoping for fruit this year. I bought the Mangosteen from an Ebay seller from Puerto Rico, last summer. It is still hanging in there. It has not grown very much. I have read that the mangosteen is a very slow grower. The Papayas should fruit this season also. They are the small trees that should get about 6ft. The only ones that I have gotten fruit from so far are the citrus. I have gotten fruit from all of the citrus. They seem to fruit at pretty small sizes My list of citrus are:
Blood Orange
Bloomsweet Grapefruit
Citrumelo
Buddha’s Hand
Calamondin
Etrog
Improved Myers
Key Lime
Kumquat
Lemonquat
Lisbon Lemon
Mimmelo Tangelo
Navel Orange
Owari Satsuma Orange
Ponderosa Lemon
Pummelo
Red Navel
Ruby Red Grapefruit
Sambo Lemon
Satsuma Orange
Star Ruby Grapefruit
Ten Degree Tangerine
Kimbrough Satsuma
Ichang Lemon
Thornless Lime
Valencia Orange
Variegated Pink Lemon
Yuzu Lemon
Citrus - that list is stunning - wow... did you grow any from seed or???
They were all bought as plants, from different growers. As small as 1 foot up to 5ft tall.