Garden Thread

[member 3289]

We had some of the fruit from the tree at my MILs, mostly planted a seed just to try it and see how it worked out.

That pot is about 12” diameter I think. This is the third pot I’ve increased to. From my experience with this, it stops growing when it’s time to move.When I went from the planter cup to a bigger pot it took off and doubled. Same when I went up to this one. It’s now kind of stalled again. It’s healthy, but not really growing anymore. If I dig down in there it is packed with roots and they’re coming out the drains. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but so far it’s been working. I really want to get it in the ground though. Supposed to be a full sun plant, but that’s hard in TX because the pots get super hot and then stay warm for a long time even after the sun goes down. Just bakes in there.

Adequate drainage is crucial for potted citrus. Citrus likes sandy, loamy soil, so if you have some sand around when you plant it in the ground, you might want to mix it in with the ground soil.

The plant keeps growing so you're obviously doing a good job. And yeah if the roots are coming out of the holes on the bottom of the pot then it's time to repot.

The reason citrus is so rarely grown from seed is that seedlings have a mind of their own. You might get a plant that is equally as productive as its parent plant but you also might get a plant that takes 10 years to bear fruit, a plant that bears small or infrequent fruit, or a plant that never bears fruit at all. I hope for your sake though that the garden gods are kind.

BGI Citrus Gain is a good fertilizer. Has all the minor elements citrus needs. Someone in a Florida citrus nursery recommended it to me.

 

[Grateful Dude]

Adequate drainage is crucial for potted citrus. Citrus likes sandy, loamy soil, so if you have some sand around when you plant it in the ground, you might want to mix it in with the ground soil.

The plant keeps growing so you're obviously doing a good job. And yeah if the roots are coming out of the holes on the bottom of the pot then it's time to repot.

The reason citrus is so rarely grown from seed is that seedlings have a mind of their own. You might get a plant that is equally as productive as its parent plant but you also might get a plant that takes 10 years to bear fruit, a plant that bears small or infrequent fruit, or a plant that never bears fruit at all. I hope for your sake though that the garden gods are kind.

BGI Citrus Gain is a good fertilizer. Has all the minor elements citrus needs. Someone in a Florida citrus nursery recommended it to me.

cool thanks for the info. For the pots so far I have just used a miracle grow bag soil that is for cactus, palm, and citrus. So far it’s working, and like you said it drains well. I have looked up how to mix your own soil for citrus, and when I plant it I will do that. Our soil sucks here, it’s basically weathered limestone. And it’s hard as shit and doesn’t drain well (i.e. high runoff, not much infiltration). When I plant it in the ground I’ll dig a big ass hole for it to make sure it has enough room to establish.

we had a good size calamansi tree (7ish feet tall), but it got fucked up and died a couple years ago. Not sure why, but several neighbors lost their lime and lemon trees too ??‍♂ Maybe some kind of fungus passed around by bugs?

But, I had mulched around it that winter too (did more research, I don’t mulch around my trees anymore), so I kind of figured that I had created root rot or mold or something that got down to the roots. I had definitely been overdoing the mulch they way I was mounding my trees, and it was a wet winter, so that’s my culprit I think. Mold, etc.

I’ll check that fertilizer out. We had some citrus specific stuff when we had the tree, but I don’t remember what. I do know that our tree produced a ton if it had the fertilizer. It would stay alive and green all the time but wouldn’t put out much fruit. But give it some food and it would light up. One year we didn’t get hardly any, tried the fertilizer the next year and it was cranking. Just needed the right food!

 

[Grateful Dude]

@conor mcgregor nut hugger

With you being in a citrus state, I’d be curious to see if calamansi is something you have available there. It’s very uncommon here, and I’m not even sure you can find it in Tx. MIL was happy and surprised to find it available in Az when they moved there. She has 3 or 4 trees mixed in with all the other citrus everyone grows out there. When they visit, they always bring us a ton, which I guess is why I decided to plant one.

will be interesting to see if this one grows up to be a producer.

 

[member 3289]

@conor mcgregor nut hugger

With you being in a citrus state, I’d be curious to see if calamansi is something you have available there. It’s very uncommon here, and I’m not even sure you can find it in Tx. MIL was happy and surprised to find it available in Az when they moved there. She has 3 or 4 trees mixed in with all the other citrus everyone grows out there. When they visit, they always bring us a ton, which I guess is why I decided to plant one.

will be interesting to see if this one grows up to be a producer.

I've never heard of it. The citrus nursery I buy from doesn't have it listed but I did find a few Google results for it. Apparently it grows well here.

Calamondin

The Calamondin tree bears a small sour orange. The fruit can be eaten raw or used as flavoring in foods and drink. When eaten raw, the peel adds a

www.flnurserymart.com

And man nearly every citrus tree grows well in Arizona. The soil conditions are perfect for citrus growth there.

 

[member 3289]

cool thanks for the info. For the pots so far I have just used a miracle grow bag soil that is for cactus, palm, and citrus. So far it’s working, and like you said it drains well. I have looked up how to mix your own soil for citrus, and when I plant it I will do that. Our soil sucks here, it’s basically weathered limestone. And it’s hard as shit and doesn’t drain well (i.e. high runoff, not much infiltration). When I plant it in the ground I’ll dig a big ass hole for it to make sure it has enough room to establish.

we had a good size calamansi tree (7ish feet tall), but it got fucked up and died a couple years ago. Not sure why, but several neighbors lost their lime and lemon trees too ??‍♂ Maybe some kind of fungus passed around by bugs?

But, I had mulched around it that winter too (did more research, I don’t mulch around my trees anymore), so I kind of figured that I had created root rot or mold or something that got down to the roots. I had definitely been overdoing the mulch they way I was mounding my trees, and it was a wet winter, so that’s my culprit I think. Mold, etc.

I’ll check that fertilizer out. We had some citrus specific stuff when we had the tree, but I don’t remember what. I do know that our tree produced a ton if it had the fertilizer. It would stay alive and green all the time but wouldn’t put out much fruit. But give it some food and it would light up. One year we didn’t get hardly any, tried the fertilizer the next year and it was cranking. Just needed the right food!

Man I thought the alkaline soil in Florida was bad. Limestone just neutralizes the shit out of everything, and citrus needs slightly acidic soil.

The soil you're using is ideal. Citrus/cactus mixes are perfect. And yeah it was probably root rot that did your plant in. Did the leaves turn yellow and then fall off? If so then it was root rot. I know a woman who killed three potted lemon trees because she watered them every day. She was shocked when I told her that she should only be watering the plant once a week, even in summer. With citrus, too little water is actually a better problem to have than too much water.

 

[ThatOneDude]

First Cantaloupe harvest
View attachment 8868
View attachment 8869

How'd you know it was ready? We have some that should be ready soon?

 

[Grateful Dude]

Man I thought the alkaline soil in Florida was bad. Limestone just neutralizes the shit out of everything, and citrus needs slightly acidic soil.

The soil you're using is ideal. Citrus/cactus mixes are perfect. And yeah it was probably root rot that did your plant in. Did the leaves turn yellow and then fall off? If so then it was root rot. I know a woman who killed three potted lemon trees because she watered them every day. She was shocked when I told her that she should only be watering the plant once a week, even in summer. With citrus, too little water is actually a better problem to have than too much water.

you are correct. Leaves turned yellow and fell off. Never came back the same. Really never came back that much, I lost at least 90% of the tree.

sounds like I did over mulch.

 

[Grateful Dude]

How'd you know it was ready? We have some that should be ready soon?

we didn’t think they looked ready, although we didn’t really know what to look for. But this one had a 1-inch long crack start in the rind. Wife pulled it at that point as a guinea pig test and it was perfect. Delicious!

 

[ThatOneDude]

we didn’t think they looked ready, although we didn’t really know what to look for. But this one had a 1-inch long crack start in the rind. Wife pulled it at that point as a guinea pig test and it was perfect. Delicious!

Do you have a picture of the outside? I think, we are going to pick one tonight. I showed my wife yours, we are definitely picking one here in a few minutes.

 

[Grateful Dude]

Do you have a picture of the outside? I think, we are going to pick one tonight. I showed my wife yours, we are definitely picking one here in a few minutes.

since I don’t really know what I’m doing, this is the best advice ever have:

look at this pic, the two on the left that are yellow we’re overripe (look at the big crack n the one). The green one on the right was the one my wife picked. She said it had just started to turn yellow )from the green). It then sat inside for a day or so to ripen. It did turn more yellow in that time. Since we lost a couple up front, my wife wanted that 3rd one to finish inside before it cracked. It was a guess on our part, but it was perfect inside when we cut in. You might have to experiment a little and let them finish ripening inside before they get eaten or crack.

 

[Grateful Dude]

Oops, forgot the picture:

 

[member 3289]

you are correct. Leaves turned yellow and fell off. Never came back the same. Really never came back that much, I lost at least 90% of the tree.

sounds like I did over mulch.

Over watering will do that. The excess water washed all the nutrients in the soil away. Then the roots don't have any nutrients to bring up to the leaves, which causes the leaves to turn yellow and fall off. Mulching might be ok in a very dry climate, but yeah like you said it's prob best not to use mulch with citrus. I read that Italian farmers sometimes go the entire summer without watering their lemon trees so that when they water them some time around August it stimulates a second crop (the first one having been harvested in spring).

I have a potted dwarf meyer lemon and lost a few leaves on the lower trunk before I realized I had to do something immediately. The problem is that I used sand as part of the soil and the pot is 18.5" in diameter. It weighs over 100 lbs when the soil is dry and prob 1.5-2x as much when the soil is wet.

So after I realized that literally no one on the internet had thought of a solution to this predicament, I improvised and bought a commerical garbage can lid on Amazon, cut a hole in the center of it for the trunk, and I slide it over the pot whenever I'm expecting rain.

 

[Rambo John J]

Over watering will do that. The excess water washed all the nutrients in the soil away. Then the roots don't have any nutrients to bring up to the leaves, which causes the leaves to turn yellow and fall off. Mulching might be ok in a very dry climate, but yeah like you said it's prob best not to use mulch with citrus. I read that Italian farmers sometimes go the entire summer without watering their lemon trees so that when they water them some time around August it stimulates a second crop (the first one having been harvested in spring).

I have a potted dwarf meyer lemon and lost a few leaves on the lower trunk before I realized I had to do something immediately. The problem is that I used sand as part of the soil and the pot is 18.5" in diameter. It weighs over 100 lbs when the soil is dry and prob 1.5-2x as much when the soil is wet.

So after I realized that literally no one on the internet had thought of a solution to this predicament, I improvised and bought a commerical garbage can lid on Amazon, cut a hole in the center of it for the trunk, and I slide it over the pot whenever I'm expecting rain.

View attachment 8905

Good solution

I tried to think of a good solution for your question and didn't come up with anything nice looking

your picture is tiny tho

 

[member 3289]

Good solution

I tried to think of a good solution for your question and didn't come up with anything nice looking

your picture is tiny tho

Click on it to enlarge. The post was already long and I didn't want to take up too much real estate.

 

[Rambo John J]

Click on it to enlarge. The post was already long and I didn't want to take up too much real estate.

ya that is a pretty sweet idea

I garden and grow my ass off.....but I don't have much experience growing potted fruit trees so I am happy to learn that trick/method.
I will pass it on and tell them a dude in florida invented it lol

Bravo sir

 

[ThatOneDude]

Well that wasn't even close to ready.

 

[Rambo John J]

View attachment 8907
View attachment 8908
Well that wasn't even close to ready.

how tastes that melon

 

[ThatOneDude]

Shit

 

[Grateful Dude]

View attachment 8907
View attachment 8908
Well that wasn't even close to ready.

I’m sorry for your loss.

Safe to say my wife has tastier melons than you? ?

I guess you have a reference point now.She picked that one because we had lost two to cracks and 3 others to bugs and shit. Guess we got lucky in that one ??‍♂

 

[Rambo John J]

our melons are weak
plants are like less than a foot long right now


We got squash like crazy this year though...grew 5 diff kinds off of seeds from squash we bought at farmers markets and ate.
Running squash vines along hog/sheep panel fencing
All look good but can't much of the fruit/squash to set on the cinderella pumpkin yet...lady has been painting male pollen onto female blossoms to see if that helps

I need to take pictures...so bad at that
we live in a jungle of edible stuff


How is the pepper plants this year? Mine look great, might go take a picture.

 

[RaginCajun]

 

[ThatOneDude]

OK this one was ready!

 

[Grateful Dude]

I found the shithead that was wrecking one of my cherry tomato plants.

tomato hornworm. these guys can mess up a plant quick. Look at the black sludge around his mouth where he was feeding. My son kept him in a jar last night, but I think I’m going to strap and M1000 firecracker to his back when I get home ?

 

[Grateful Dude]

And some more food harvested.

another cantaloupe, cucumbers, and orange and red maters. The carrots were supposed to be multi colored (purple, white, yellow, and orange) but we mostly got yellow this round. Like tomatoes, fresh garden carrots are awesome.

 

[Grateful Dude]

I found the shithead that was wrecking one of my cherry tomato plants.

tomato hornworm. these guys can mess up a plant quick. Look at the black sludge around his mouth where he was feeding. My son kept him in a jar last night, but I think I’m going to strap and M1000 firecracker to his back when I get home ?

View attachment 9440

If anyone cares, these tomato horworms are what turn into a Five-spotted Hawk Moth, which are big fellas. See these moths around fairly often.