Dude, the ice cream bean..... I can't believe how well it's doing! I finally put one of mine in the geound here in Houston, TX. Wish me luck. Been lurking on your channel for past year and learned alot. I think if you saw my backyard now you would be proud of me! A few ice cream beans, longhan, star fruit, plenty of citrus, star apple, figs, muscadine grapes, pear, pomegranate, banana, peach, guava, probably around 10 jackfruit, june plum, barbados cherry, loquats, purple passion fruit, giant passion fruit, sugar apple, lots of pepper plants, morenga and more that I'm probably forgetting. My backyard is waaay smaller than yours. Most of my stuff is in pots but I hand water all this every single day lol. One big thing here is the heat is absolutely a killer. I have lufa vines that grow everywhere. The lufa vines can handle the heat and they provide thick shade to most of my plants. I really want my ice cream bean to make it through the winter lile yours. I collect everyones bags of dead leaves and pile it up. The leaves break down just like your wood chips. Homemade compost from all my kitchen scraps. I hope to get through this first few years like you mention so i can stop worrying about our freezes!
That’s an awesome set of collections of trees you have. Specific to the ice cream bean, they really prefer to be in the ground, as they need the real estate. Same with the moringa. Your summers are very similar to mine. I know folks in Arizona are growing all sorts of tropical fruit trees in constant 115°F during the day time and 90°F at night.
Thank you for the reply. Ok I've got one ice cream bean in the ground now and will see the difference. I am hoping I can keep adding to build up the microclimate like yours. It seems like your microclimate gets your forest through the winters. I can't believe your mangos survive the freezes. I am just not confident enough yet to put everything in the ground like you yet. But most of my plants are 2 years old, so most trees are getting too big to keep bringing under my patio for the winters. I guess I need to take the leep of faith and put more in the ground. Those guys in Arizona don't have to put up shade cloth or anything? My trees here will fry without some kind of shade. Sorry, one last question, one of my ice cream beans is five years old and flowering, but it will not ever set fruit. Do you think it is because it is in the pot? I have it in a 25 gallon pot.
To err on the side of caution, I would work on the creation of a microclimate, particularly for winter protection before putting some of your trees in the ground. I know every once in a while, you guys get crazy 17°F winters; which I’m not sure any microclimate will help. The folks in Arizona do have shade cloth for their younger trees, but most simply rely on the creation of a microclimate produced by larger trees that protect younger ones. In my earlier years, I heavily used shade cloth for the majority of my tropicals in summer time, but no longer have to use it now. The ice cream bean tree in my front yard is only 3 years in the ground and is producing fruits, as is my 5 year old one in the backyard. That said, I do suspect growing them in the ground definitely helps.
Great info, thanks. Do you aim to keep the top few inches of the soil moist at all times? I'm in a more DG type soil, so quicker drainage. Also, what do you use to foliar feed? That is, what do you actually use to spray the feed? Thanks!
Thank you. Yes, I keep the top inch or so of the soil is moist to the touch, with very frequent watering. For foliar feeding, here’s a video I did that touched on the topic: Pruning, Staking Down and Foliar Feeding Tropical Fruit Trees ua-cam.com/video/4Z0237VftY0/v-deo.html
I thought I would take advantage of Hillary. So Saturday afternoon i mixed up a fertilizer batch of time released and citrus food blends . I threw it under my grapefruit , oranges , lemon , avocado , fig and cheremoya , while the 15 year old twin boy and girl raked it in . We've had a steady light rain since 800am with a tiny bit of wind . The rain hasnt stopped and its been going for 14 hrs with a few brief pauses . So i feel great we used Hillary. We never had any downpours , just a steady light to medium rain
Post Hillary update . My 6 months in the ground 4' Big Jim loquat tree was blown over and the support stick snapped at the ground . No damage to the long narrow trunk , so I put a new stick in . Also I had an old potting table cave over and it was full of wood rot . I was planning on throwing it away soon anyways . I walked outside to my neighbors property where the fig tree hangs over as we are on a corner . Found two extra large figs full of the green fig beetles and one was ripe and untouched. So I shared the behemoth with my wife . It was tennis ball size . I hope everyone didn't have serious damage ?
I’m not sure about the rules and regulations, but my city has no issues with the planting of anything in that little stripe of land. In fact, folks who have lawn and do not mow it, the city will say something.
Good morning, I've been following your channel for awhile now and my goal is to a backyard like yours. I recently moved and took alllllllllllllll my potted fruit trees (not fun) lol. Next year in the fall I'll start putting trees in the ground. I'll definitely buy some elemental sulfar. My power company for my city offers free mulch to customers that's that's a bonus. I've had so many of my mango trees die in containers but I'll keep trying, perhaps from seed like you've said in previous videos. So my question was you said you water your trees around them times a day? It's that for just the summer time? Also do you have micro sprinklers or do you water by hand. My new home came with a system for slow release hoses or whatever they're called. Just wondering what your method is for watering them times a day, thanks in advance senor
That’s awesome. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the growing of tropical fruit trees in containers, provided you are able to be consistent with taking care of the trees. In the ground, the trees are more forgiving. Specific to watering, during the winter/cold months, I actually turn off my water, and do not water my trees. I find the rain water provides enough water to keep the trees alive. Remember, during the winter months, you DO NOT want your tropical fruit trees to grow, as any new growth will be susceptible to frost damage. Water makes the trees grow. The idea is to ensure the roots of the trees are just moist, enough to keep them happy and alive during the winter months. For every tree, I have a dedicated small bubbler system extended to the drip zone of the tree. In the hot summer months, I water my trees daily, every hour of the day, for several minutes. I make adjustments as the temperate cools or warms.
Thank you. The application of mulch is a must. In addition to providing the home to the insects, worms and microorganisms, they also help tremendously with water retention.
Wow. What a beautiful front fruit forest. I can't believe the difference between your house and the house to the left. You need to help them with their landscaping. All I see from the aerial view is dead grass. Do your neighbors steal your fruits? I see jujube, guavas, what other fruits?
Thank you. I actually have given my neighbors trees, including a banana which is still very much alive in their backyard. I’ve spoken to and encouraged all of my neighbors to pick any fruits hanging from my trees. So far, non has taken up on the offer. I suspect they aren’t familiar with many of the tropical fruits and are afraid to try them.
Your tropical trees look amazing and thanks again for sharing your experience and info! Yesterday there was a strong wind and my 3 year old avocado tree broke at the base and is dead,I’m so upset. I think the wood steak was rotting and broke so the tree had no support. It looks like all your plants are ok and no damage. I am going to start watering my tropical trees with water that has a ph of 5-6 I have a 50gal container that I lower the ph in. The water is 7.5 ph at my house so I think my mango and avocado tree’s would like the lower ph. Thanks for your videos they are so informative.
Thank you. Sorry to hear about your avocado tree. If grafted, yeah, they will need a lot of structural support. Concerning the watering, if your trees are in containers, the use of lower pH water will help. If in ground, the benefits are negligible. For a long term strategy, it may be more beneficial to apply elemental sulfur and mulch, as both will help to bring down the pH naturally.
On another video you said soursop trees can die if they hit 40F too many times in a winter. Do you protect these trees from frost at least? I'm going to be planting one today.
I do. My soursop is planted in the ground, in an area of my yard that I erect a temporary heated greenhouse over. The section contains my more sensitive tropicals such as custard apples, caimito, Malay apple, wax jambu, etc.
@@TropicalCentralValley Without any adjusting to that pH, this is the water you are adding to your tropicals? My pH sits at the high sevens close to eight. And I believe my mango trees suffer from this high pH.
I do not make any adjustments to my tap water. The only thing I do is run it through a heavy metal hose filter, however, it plays no role in the pH. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the pH level of your water. Instead, I would work to improve the pH in your soil, which has a much larger impact on the roots uptaking nutrient.
I don’t know much but I’ll ask anyways. Have you ever stressed your trees through a mini drought? Like stopped watering for 3 weeks, do you think there would be any benefit from something like that?
Water stress is something I try my best to avoid. Bear in mind, tropical fruit trees in their native climate receive rain water practically every hour, particularly in the Amazon rainforest and the jungles of Southeast Asia. Once mature, the trees are “drought resistant”, however, specific to my situation, as I do need the trees to be in top shape for summer and winter, water stress is something I prefer not to do.
Plants are looking amazing as usual . You are right about the watering I never looked at it that way , over here in Fl it rains about5- 30 min real hard then done for the day and does it again the next day. Also keep a look out some of you leafs may turn yellow and die . I know when we get hurricane some of my plants leafs die back because the hurricane blows salt water from the ocean on them. I’m a few miles from the ocean but hurricane can blow it pretty far depending on how hard the wind was . It usual happens with in the week after the hurricane.
Thank you for the tip. From what I’m told, this is a once in a lifetime event, with the last hurricane hitting California 84 years ago. Luckily, my region only suffered light to medium rain (all night long); not as bad as Southern California. As I’m about 300 miles north of San Diego, where the hurricane made landfall in the US, I do not suspect much salt was delivered, and instead, mostly pure rainwater.
Yeah, I’ve been checking out Hurricane Harold. I suppose it’s better than having Hurricane and earthquake at the same time, as was the case in California.
Your garden looks amazing. It looks like Hawaii. I love it.
Thank you. I think Hawaii is looking more like my yard.
So green🙏👏
Thank you.
Dude, the ice cream bean..... I can't believe how well it's doing! I finally put one of mine in the geound here in Houston, TX. Wish me luck. Been lurking on your channel for past year and learned alot. I think if you saw my backyard now you would be proud of me! A few ice cream beans, longhan, star fruit, plenty of citrus, star apple, figs, muscadine grapes, pear, pomegranate, banana, peach, guava, probably around 10 jackfruit, june plum, barbados cherry, loquats, purple passion fruit, giant passion fruit, sugar apple, lots of pepper plants, morenga and more that I'm probably forgetting. My backyard is waaay smaller than yours. Most of my stuff is in pots but I hand water all this every single day lol. One big thing here is the heat is absolutely a killer. I have lufa vines that grow everywhere. The lufa vines can handle the heat and they provide thick shade to most of my plants. I really want my ice cream bean to make it through the winter lile yours. I collect everyones bags of dead leaves and pile it up. The leaves break down just like your wood chips. Homemade compost from all my kitchen scraps. I hope to get through this first few years like you mention so i can stop worrying about our freezes!
That’s an awesome set of collections of trees you have. Specific to the ice cream bean, they really prefer to be in the ground, as they need the real estate. Same with the moringa.
Your summers are very similar to mine. I know folks in Arizona are growing all sorts of tropical fruit trees in constant 115°F during the day time and 90°F at night.
Thank you for the reply. Ok I've got one ice cream bean in the ground now and will see the difference. I am hoping I can keep adding to build up the microclimate like yours. It seems like your microclimate gets your forest through the winters. I can't believe your mangos survive the freezes. I am just not confident enough yet to put everything in the ground like you yet. But most of my plants are 2 years old, so most trees are getting too big to keep bringing under my patio for the winters. I guess I need to take the leep of faith and put more in the ground. Those guys in Arizona don't have to put up shade cloth or anything? My trees here will fry without some kind of shade. Sorry, one last question, one of my ice cream beans is five years old and flowering, but it will not ever set fruit. Do you think it is because it is in the pot? I have it in a 25 gallon pot.
To err on the side of caution, I would work on the creation of a microclimate, particularly for winter protection before putting some of your trees in the ground.
I know every once in a while, you guys get crazy 17°F winters; which I’m not sure any microclimate will help.
The folks in Arizona do have shade cloth for their younger trees, but most simply rely on the creation of a microclimate produced by larger trees that protect younger ones.
In my earlier years, I heavily used shade cloth for the majority of my tropicals in summer time, but no longer have to use it now.
The ice cream bean tree in my front yard is only 3 years in the ground and is producing fruits, as is my 5 year old one in the backyard. That said, I do suspect growing them in the ground definitely helps.
All your trees look so green nice job
Thank you.
Great info, thanks. Do you aim to keep the top few inches of the soil moist at all times? I'm in a more DG type soil, so quicker drainage. Also, what do you use to foliar feed? That is, what do you actually use to spray the feed? Thanks!
Thank you.
Yes, I keep the top inch or so of the soil is moist to the touch, with very frequent watering.
For foliar feeding, here’s a video I did that touched on the topic:
Pruning, Staking Down and Foliar Feeding Tropical Fruit Trees
ua-cam.com/video/4Z0237VftY0/v-deo.html
I thought I would take advantage of Hillary. So Saturday afternoon i mixed up a fertilizer batch of time released and citrus food blends . I threw it under my grapefruit , oranges , lemon , avocado , fig and cheremoya , while the 15 year old twin boy and girl raked it in . We've had a steady light rain since 800am with a tiny bit of wind . The rain hasnt stopped and its been going for 14 hrs with a few brief pauses . So i feel great we used Hillary. We never had any downpours , just a steady light to medium rain
Very nice. I too have a habit of applying granular fertilizer right before the forecasted rain. It saves me on having to water down the fertilizer.
Post Hillary update . My 6 months in the ground 4' Big Jim loquat tree was blown over and the support stick snapped at the ground . No damage to the long narrow trunk , so I put a new stick in . Also I had an old potting table cave over and it was full of wood rot . I was planning on throwing it away soon anyways . I walked outside to my neighbors property where the fig tree hangs over as we are on a corner . Found two extra large figs full of the green fig beetles and one was ripe and untouched. So I shared the behemoth with my wife . It was tennis ball size . I hope everyone didn't have serious damage ?
Nice.
Virtual no downed trees in my region; then again, my region was not in direct path.
Can you plant trees in the walkway? I thought thats the citys'
I’m not sure about the rules and regulations, but my city has no issues with the planting of anything in that little stripe of land. In fact, folks who have lawn and do not mow it, the city will say something.
Good morning, I've been following your channel for awhile now and my goal is to a backyard like yours. I recently moved and took alllllllllllllll my potted fruit trees (not fun) lol. Next year in the fall I'll start putting trees in the ground. I'll definitely buy some elemental sulfar. My power company for my city offers free mulch to customers that's that's a bonus. I've had so many of my mango trees die in containers but I'll keep trying, perhaps from seed like you've said in previous videos. So my question was you said you water your trees around them times a day? It's that for just the summer time? Also do you have micro sprinklers or do you water by hand. My new home came with a system for slow release hoses or whatever they're called. Just wondering what your method is for watering them times a day, thanks in advance senor
That’s awesome. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the growing of tropical fruit trees in containers, provided you are able to be consistent with taking care of the trees. In the ground, the trees are more forgiving.
Specific to watering, during the winter/cold months, I actually turn off my water, and do not water my trees. I find the rain water provides enough water to keep the trees alive. Remember, during the winter months, you DO NOT want your tropical fruit trees to grow, as any new growth will be susceptible to frost damage. Water makes the trees grow. The idea is to ensure the roots of the trees are just moist, enough to keep them happy and alive during the winter months.
For every tree, I have a dedicated small bubbler system extended to the drip zone of the tree. In the hot summer months, I water my trees daily, every hour of the day, for several minutes. I make adjustments as the temperate cools or warms.
Thank you for replying, that's awesome and will definitely try that next planting season
You’re very welcome.
Great information. Soil health is key.I also add a lot of wood chips especially because I didn’t water daily.
Thank you.
The application of mulch is a must. In addition to providing the home to the insects, worms and microorganisms, they also help tremendously with water retention.
Wow. What a beautiful front fruit forest. I can't believe the difference between your house and the house to the left. You need to help them with their landscaping. All I see from the aerial view is dead grass. Do your neighbors steal your fruits? I see jujube, guavas, what other fruits?
Thank you.
I actually have given my neighbors trees, including a banana which is still very much alive in their backyard. I’ve spoken to and encouraged all of my neighbors to pick any fruits hanging from my trees. So far, non has taken up on the offer.
I suspect they aren’t familiar with many of the tropical fruits and are afraid to try them.
Your tropical trees look amazing and thanks again for sharing your experience and info! Yesterday there was a strong wind and my 3 year old avocado tree broke at the base and is dead,I’m so upset. I think the wood steak was rotting and broke so the tree had no support. It looks like all your plants are ok and no damage. I am going to start watering my tropical trees with water that has a ph of 5-6 I have a 50gal container that I lower the ph in. The water is 7.5 ph at my house so I think my mango and avocado tree’s would like the lower ph. Thanks for your videos they are so informative.
Thank you.
Sorry to hear about your avocado tree. If grafted, yeah, they will need a lot of structural support.
Concerning the watering, if your trees are in containers, the use of lower pH water will help. If in ground, the benefits are negligible.
For a long term strategy, it may be more beneficial to apply elemental sulfur and mulch, as both will help to bring down the pH naturally.
On another video you said soursop trees can die if they hit 40F too many times in a winter. Do you protect these trees from frost at least? I'm going to be planting one today.
I do. My soursop is planted in the ground, in an area of my yard that I erect a temporary heated greenhouse over. The section contains my more sensitive tropicals such as custard apples, caimito, Malay apple, wax jambu, etc.
Would you happen to know the pH of your tap water?
According to the most recent water quality report, it is around 7.4pH.
@@TropicalCentralValley Without any adjusting to that pH, this is the water you are adding to your tropicals?
My pH sits at the high sevens close to eight. And I believe my mango trees suffer from this high pH.
I do not make any adjustments to my tap water. The only thing I do is run it through a heavy metal hose filter, however, it plays no role in the pH.
I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the pH level of your water. Instead, I would work to improve the pH in your soil, which has a much larger impact on the roots uptaking nutrient.
I don’t know much but I’ll ask anyways. Have you ever stressed your trees through a mini drought? Like stopped watering for 3 weeks, do you think there would be any benefit from something like that?
Water stress is something I try my best to avoid. Bear in mind, tropical fruit trees in their native climate receive rain water practically every hour, particularly in the Amazon rainforest and the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Once mature, the trees are “drought resistant”, however, specific to my situation, as I do need the trees to be in top shape for summer and winter, water stress is something I prefer not to do.
Makes sense! Thanks for the reply
You’re very welcome.
Plants are looking amazing as usual . You are right about the watering I never looked at it that way , over here in Fl it rains about5- 30 min real hard then done for the day and does it again the next day. Also keep a look out some of you leafs may turn yellow and die . I know when we get hurricane some of my plants leafs die back because the hurricane blows salt water from the ocean on them. I’m a few miles from the ocean but hurricane can blow it pretty far depending on how hard the wind was . It usual happens with in the week after the hurricane.
Thank you for the tip. From what I’m told, this is a once in a lifetime event, with the last hurricane hitting California 84 years ago. Luckily, my region only suffered light to medium rain (all night long); not as bad as Southern California.
As I’m about 300 miles north of San Diego, where the hurricane made landfall in the US, I do not suspect much salt was delivered, and instead, mostly pure rainwater.
Or you can order them from texas😂We have hurricanes on the regular and if not tornados
Yeah, I’ve been checking out Hurricane Harold. I suppose it’s better than having Hurricane and earthquake at the same time, as was the case in California.
Yes, hurricane harold was dissapointing , our last major hurricane was Harvey.