spiceoflife's Blog

quick update
Jun 26, 2008 | 9:04 PM PST

Mangoes 2 out of three dead so far out of the last batch, and the third isn't looking too good.

Pineapple top is dead - the roots never grew.

Opuntia (prickly pear) leaves are doing nothing, not even rotting.  Weird.

Three more longan berry seeds sprouted - woohoo!

Nothing yet on the mangosteens, I'm not optimistic here.

Two Avocado pits are sitting happily in small pots full of moist peat moss covered in a sandwich bag.  I'm cautiously optimistic on these.

I potted up my 4 inch high pomegranate seedlings into bonsai pots - two singles and one group of three.  They are looking good if I do say so myself.  :-)

No action on the lychee seeds at all.

Sassafras is doing great.

My two walnut seedlings are doing great, too.  Those squirrels sure know what they're doing.

My lemon seedling was in trouble there for a while after I up-potted it.  It had dropped all of it's leaves, but has since put out a whole new batch.  Whew!

I found a great little maple seedling, so I harvested it to see what kind of bonsai it might make.  The leaves are pretty small, even for a seedling, so I'm optimistic here, too.

I had put one of my dragonfruit plants outside in the sun and TOTALLY scalded it!  what a rookie move that was!  If I had read the internet pages about it BEFORE I put it out there instead of after I would have known that despite the fact that it's a cactus it doesn't like full sun!  I think there are still a few stalks that aren't dying.  Luckily I still have 4 more pots full, and they root WICKED easy!

I've been enjoying lettuce on a regular basis from those two plants that managed to winter over.  Trim off the larger leaves and the new leaves keep right on coming.  cool.

That's it for now.  I know I've been promising pictures.......well I only lied if I died.  Pictures soon.  ;-)

And again....
Jun 8, 2008 | 8:11 PM PST
Tags: palm pots , new grocery plants

Hi all,

About a month ago I went to Trader Joe's (a sort of eclectic store with a diverse range of offerings, some specialty items, some staples, pretty good prices) and one of the items I picked up was some dried fruit I had never heard of before, called mangosteen.  Since variety IS the spiceoflife, I bought a bag.  I tried and realy liked them.  (By the way, Trader Joe's is the same place that I found my dried dragonfruit.)  I looked them up online and after reading that the seeds were recalcitrant, that the tree is truly tropical, and that the fresh fruit is pretty rare, I doubted that I would ever get the opportunity to try them fresh here in New England, and consequently get a chance to try growing them.

Well, Russo's in Newton, MA proved me wrong.  (This is the same place that I found my nopales, sapotillla, chico sapote, longan berry, lychee, etc.  They had fresh mangosteen!  The price was pretty outrageous at $15.49 per pound!   I got 1 1/2 pounds.  :-O  Crazy, maybe, yeah.  We'll see.  That got me 8 fruit somewhere between the sizes of ping pong balls and baseballs.  The first two I opened were sort of already overripe.  The pulp, instead of being bright creamy white, had started to turn brown.  The next two were good.  They didn't taste quite as good, unfortunately, as the dried.  I think it was all the water in the fresh fruit.  The dried fruit had the flavors sort of concentrated.  Well, I pulled the seeds out of the two good ones so far and have put them in some sphagnum moss in a nice warm spot near the refrigerator and we'll see if they germinate.

At this same place, Russo's, they have LOTS of different stuff like the mangosteen.  Mangos by the boxful (literally, you can buy mangos for $11.00 per box.)  But they're the dark red and green ones, so I havent' bothered.  I've found out that the ones I really like are the yellow.  From what I've seen on the internet, they're definitely one type of Thai mango,  wicked good. 

Speaking of which - Mango Update:  My mango seed rotted again.  I'll try again.

Pomegranate update:  I have 5 new plants that are going great.  I hope they pull through this time.

What else?

Also at Russo's (no, I don't work, own, or have any vested interest in this place, other than that I go there when I want to find exotic and unusual stuff.  They have a very good cheese selection, too) I found two different malanga roots - malanga coco and malanga blanco.  I bought two of each and planted them in the front yard with some help from my son.  You can look them up online, but basically, they're in the same family as the elephant ears, and for $0.49 per pound, I was able to buy for about $1.50 what would have been $28.00 at a nursery.  At least, that's the theory.  I'll let you know how they come out.

And speaking of elephant ears, I just barely managed, by the skin of my teeth, to get my other elephant ear in the ground in time before the spider mites totally killed it!  It was down to one leaf, about two inches long, and that one didn't look too good.  I got it outside and in the ground, and that leaf died.  But in the stalk, I saw that the next leaf was on the way.  I cut off the stalk just above the top of the nascent leaf to release it.  It's now the only one, about 1 1/2 inches long, but there is already another I can see coming up inside the stalk.  I think it's going to be okay.  I dressed the area with some sifted compost and am keeping the area moist.  The leaf is already dark purple (the cultivar was "black magic".  I want to put a sign up in front of it saying "Watch This Space!"  Between this one, my rhubarb which is absolutely gangbusters this year, the malangas when they come up, and the sunflowers that self seeded, my front yard is going to be chockerblock FULL of leaves

Prickly pear cactus leaves (nopales) update:  They are showing no signs of activity, but they aren't drying out and they aren't rotting, so I'm still hopeful here.

I trying two more avocado seeds sitting in some sphagnum moss. 

Someone near me is feeding good nuts to one of the local tree rats, er... I mean cute, loveable gray squirrels, over the winter.  This weekend I found two walnut trees that had sprouted.  I found two last year, too, but only after I had chopped them off with a weed whacker.  This year I recognized them straight away.  I've potted up one to try as a bonsai.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the other.  It's too near the house so it can't stay where it is.  So it will either be bonsai, relocation, or sayonara.

Bananas update:  I think I need to hone my transplanting/dividing skills.  I separated several  of my banana plants a month or two ago, and in almost every case, the original/larger of the two has rotted back down to a stump to be replaced by another smaller plant.  Kind of annoying, but it does mean that I have managed to start out with buying originally one pot for $15.00 at the nursery that had two stalks in it, and turn it into 8-10 plants of various sizes.  And the fun is in the growing, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

I've been reading up on palms, date palms in particular, and I think I have some good ideas pot-wise for propagation and handling.  I still have a couple of kinks to work out, but I think it will work out pretty well.  I'll post more about this more over the next few months if it works out.  I have 10 more seeds to try my experiment with.  Check back later.  I'll probably tag it with something like "palm pots".  That sounds good.

Comments are always welcome.

Regards,

Robert