Varieties of Avocadoes

A favorite for our dips and a must have for our meals, this fruit is primarily pear-shaped, but some varieties are also almost round. They can weigh from 1 ounce to up to 4 pounds each.

The most common types are: Bacon, Fuerte, Gwen, Hass, Pinkerton, Reed, and Zutano, with many chefs having a particular preference for the Hass variety.

Avocados are used not only in salads and the ever popular guacamole, but also in breads, desserts, main dishes, and in non-culinary creams for facials and body massages.

The Taiwanese eat avocados with milk and sugar. Indonesians mix them with milk, coffee, and rum for a cold libation. Filipinos puree them with sugar and milk to make a dessert drink.

Even the avocado tree leaves are used in some parts of Mexico. Both green and dried leaves can be used for wrapping tamales, or seasoning for barbecues and stews. Dried leaves will keep for several months in a tightly-closed container.

For more fruit trees growing tips visit us

www.buyfruittree.com

Growing a Grape Tree

buyLook for the optimal location for planting your grape tree. Tropical plants do better in southern areas, near overhangs or under extending canopies of tall trees.

Till topsoil to loosen it to a depth of 6 inches. Dig a hole twice the size of the grape tree's root ball, but not deeper than the root ball. Mix the soil taken from the hole with compost. The backfill should consist of half soil and half backfill.

Water the bottom of the hole. Place the grape tree inside of the hole and re-pack the hole with the compost and dirt mixture. Build a berm around the grape tree 1 foot in diameter and 4 inches high, using the rest of the compost and dirt mixture.

Visit us for more tips

www.grapegrowing.buyfruittree.com

Fill the berm with water. Keep your grape tree's root ball moist, especially during the summer. Grape trees cannot survive any periods of drought. Press your fingers into the first 3 inches of soil to feel if it is moist. Apply water to the inside of the berm. To keep the root ball moist, you may need to water your grape tree up to three times a day.


Fertilize your grape tree annually at the beginning of its growing season by applying 4 inches of compost around the tree and about 1 foot away from the base.

Avoid spraying a herbicide anywhere near your grape tree, which cannot survive applications of chemicals like fertilizers or herbicides.

Guavas

Guavas are evergreen, shallow-rooted shrubs or small trees, with spreading branches. Guava leaves are opposite, oval or oblong-elliptic, somewhat irregular in outline, 2 - 6 inches long. Guava fruits may be rounding, ovoid or pear-shaped. The flesh may be white, pink, yellow, or red.

Soil: The guava prefers many soil conditions, but will produce better in rich soils high in organic matter. They also prefer a well-drained soil in the pH range of 5 to 8. The trees are also well adapted to both summer and winter rainfall conditions.

The soil must be loosened as deep as possible before planting. The filed for planting is prepared during summer season. The pits of 1m x1m x 1m size are dug and filled with a mixture of farmyard manure and soil. The planting is done during the rainy season.

Pruning: In every growing season, a large number of new shoots emerge on a guava tree and majority of these are lateral. These shoots produce fruits. Pruning is usually recommended after harvesting or in spring. Pruning also takes place during harvesting as the fruit is plucked along with the shoot on which it is borne.

Fertilization: Guavas are fast growers and heavy feeders. Mature trees may require as much as 1/2 pound actual nitrogen per year. Apply fertilizer monthly, just prior to heavy pruning. 600 g nitrogen, 400 g Potassium have been recommended.

For the first 4 years the nitrogen should be divided into 4 equal applications viz. 2 weeks before pruning and then at two-monthly intervals.
–1/3rd weeks before pruning
–1/3rd 4 weeks after pruning
–1/3rd 10 weeks after pruning.

Potassium and phosphate
Half the quantity of potassium and all the phosphate must be applied together with the first nitrogen application. The rest of the potassium must be applied 4 months later.

Zinc and boron
This element must be applied every year. – Zinc oxide at 200 g/100 liter water. Many guava orchards are also low in boron and it is desirable to spray the tree every 2 years with 100 g borax /100 liter water.

Pest: Fruit flies are a major pest in guavas in most production areas. Female flies lay white, oblong eggs in groups just under the skin of mature, ripening fruit. A few days later the maggots hatch and feed on the fruit flesh. The maggots are creamy white, reach a length of about 6 mm and have no legs. Pierced fruit is characterized by small holes in the skin surrounded by a bruise. Such fruit soon becomes soft, and can decay and drop early.
For more info visit
www.guavafruittree.buyfruittree.com

Kumquats

Kumquats are slow-growing, evergreen shrubs or small trees, that can grow up to 2.5-4.5 m tall, with dense branches, sometimes bearing small thorns. The leaves are dark glossy green and the flowers are pure white, similar to other citrus flowers, borne singly or clustered in the leaf-axils. The edible kumquat fruits closely resembles that of the orange but is smaller and is often oval, 3-5 cm long and 2-4 cm wide. Depending on variety, peel color ranges from yellow to red. The fruits are extremely juicy and tasty and usually have a sweet outer skin, with large, conspicuous oil glands, accompanied by a tart, inner flesh. The fruits are considered ripe when they reach a yellowish-orange stage, and have just shed the last tint of green.

If you live in a warm climate, you may want to consider the kumquat. It offers an attractive plant and delicious fruit all in one evergreen tree. You can also grow kumquats indoor, in pots, if you live in a colder area. If grown in pots, they must be dwarfed, not be allowed to become pot-bound and need faithful watering to avoid dehydration and regular feeding.

Kumquats are much hardier than other citrus trees. They require a hot summer, with temperatures ranging from 25 to 38 Celsius degrees but can withstand frosts down to about -10 Celsius degrees without injury. The trees also differ from other Citrus species in that they enter into a period of winter dormancy so profound that they will remain through several weeks of subsequent warm weather without putting out new shoots or blossoms. Despite their ability to survive low temperatures, the kumquat trees grow better and produce larger and sweeter fruits in warmer regions.

Visit us for more tips

www.buyfruittree.com

Kumquats are rarely grown from seeds as they do not do well on their own roots. They are grafted onto the trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata). This has been found the best rootstock for kumquats and for dwarfing for pot culture. For this reason they are often known as "Dwarf Fruit". Sour orange and grapefruit are also suitable rootstocks. Rough lemon is unsatisfactory in moist soils and tends to be too vigorous for the slow-growing kumquats.

Steps for Planting a Landscape Lychee Tree in Your Yard

Find a nice spot for your lychee tree in your front or back yard that has full sun, adequate irrigation, well drained soil, protection from wind and enough room to grow.

Don't plant right next to your house (less than 10 feet) unless you are absolutely sure that you want it there. While you may want the cooling shade that a lychee tree can provide, your house will shade the lychee tree and this can inhibit growth and fruiting.

Dig a hole about 6 inches wider and about 2-3 inches deeper than the size of the container the lychee tree is currently growing in.
If you live in an area with shallow soil or little to no top soil,  you should increase the soil depth by planting the tree on a mound. Due to the increase in drainage and runoff that occurs with mounding, you will have to increase irrigation and fertilization appropriately.

Visit us for more tips on fruit trees

Remove your lychee tree from its container and aerate the roots. This is an important step. If the tree has been growing in the container for an extended time period the plant may be "root bound". This situation can prevent the roots from absorbing water and nutrients in the soil which will stunt or kill your tree.

A root bound plant has a mass of intertwined roots growing circularly around the inside of the pot. Make an effort to unwind some of these roots and if the mass is very dense you should make several vertical cuts to allow aeration into the center of the root ball.

Treat with mycorrhizal fungi (like Myco-Stim) by shaking it into the hole and onto the roots of the tree. You won't need NPK fertilizer for about 4 weeks because the Myco-Stim already contains an organic fertilizer from fish emulsion and kelp. Mycorrhizal fungi will help your newly planted tree to establish a healthy root system and to adjust to your trees new location.


Back fill the hole with the remaining soil. If the soil is composed mostly of rock, sand or gravel with little to no organic matter you can mix some topsoil or potting soil into the material that you back fill into the hole. Be careful not to bury the root crown of the lychee tree.

Mulch heavily out to about 1-2 ft past the drip line of the canopy of the lychee tree. Don't put mulch closer than 6 inches from the root crown.
The mulch will provide organic nutrients, as it deteriorates, to the roots of your lychee tree. Mulch helps to reduce the daily temperature stresses to the lychee's root system and provides an excellent growing environment for mychorrhizal fungi, earthworms and beneficial insects, bacteria and other important soil organisms.

By covering the root zone in mulch you will help to slow the growth of plant species, such as grasses and weeds, from becoming established beneath the leaf canopy and competing with your lychee tree for important nutrients.

Soak down really well with water. Water the freshly planted tree 1 - 3 times per day for about 3 - 4 weeks until it becomes established. Then irrigate regularly depending on your irrigation system, rainfall, humidity and soil drainage characteristics.

Spray the leaves with liquid phosphorous fertilizer (like our Phyto-Fos) until runoff. Foliar spraying of phosphorous acid is recommended for supplemental use when there are high demands for phosphorous, such as transplanting, new root and shoot growth, flowering and fruit production. This gives your lychee tree an energy boost while it is adjusting to it's new location. If you decide not to use mycorrhizal fungi you should also apply a good time-release NPK fertilizer at this time.

Tips for Planting your Lychee Tree - Soil

Mounding:

 Do not mound the soil around tree(s), which is like growing your tree in a raised bed. While this may be fine for vegetables and certain other row crops it is not good for lychee tree(s): The root systems of air layered lychee trees are typically shallow and spreading, not much deeper that the height of the planting mound.

More tips on fruit trees


Mounding decreases the area through which lychee roots can grow and spread, it increases the exposed soil surface area that is subject to water loss and it exposes a cross section of the root zone to direct invasion by pathogens, such as fungi, nematodes and root damaging weevil.


Fertilizer:

Use organic fertilizers that contain compost extracts, seaweed or kelp. Avoid using artificial fertilizers (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) that will kill many of the essential organisms in the soil ecosystem of your lychee tree. NPK fertilizers, if misapplied (which is very easy) can burn your lychee tree(s) roots and cause soil particle aggregation, which, over time, negatively affects water drainage and impedes the microenvironments where essential soil food web organisms thrive. Fertilizer by products such as nitrates, sulfates and phosphates cause ground water contamination and regional environmental degradation and should not be used if there are alternatives.

Tips for Planting a Lychee Tree - Dangers

Mycorrhizal Fungi:
Mychorrhizal fungi are a very important part of the soil food web and play a significant role in improving lychee tree root health and efficiency, especially in the natural mountain rainforest environments from which lychee trees originated. Fungi convert dead organic material into fungal biomass, carbon dioxide (CO2), and small molecules, such as organic acids. These fungi generally use complex substrates, such as the cellulose and lignin, in wood, and are essential in decomposing the carbon ring structures in some pollutants.
Mycorrhizal fungi enjoy a symbiotic relationship with lychee trees by feeding off of root exudates and providing the lychee tree(s) with a vastly improved transport system for water and soil nutrients through their extensive network of microtubules (hyphae). It is estimated that mycorrhizal fungi can increase the effective root system absorptive surface area by as much as 500%. You should apply (inoculate) mycorrhizal fungi to the root systems of your trees at the time of planting.

Earthworms:

Earthworms are the most important invertebrate member of the soil food web. They are major decomposers of dead and decomposing organic matter, and derive their nutrition from the bacteria and fungi that grow upon these materials. They fragment organic matter and make major contributions to recycling the nutrients it contains. Earthworms dramatically alter soil structure, water movement, nutrient dynamics, and plant growth Earthworms stimulate microbial activity in the soil they tunnel through. They mix and aggregate the soil as they consume organic matter and they increase filtration through burrowing. Earthworm tunneling provides channels for root growth as they bury and shred plant residue pulled from surface material into their burrows.

The bottom line is that the presence of earthworms is a good visible indicator of a healthy soil. If you do not have earthworms you should add them to the soil surrounding your tree. If you do not already have an existing population of earthworms in the surrounding soil you can readily purchase them from any local bait and tackle shop.

Tips for Planting your Lychee Tree

Location:
 To grow a healthy lychee tree, start by planting it in a good location. Lychee trees need full sun so you should plant them away from other large trees and you should plant the trees at least 10 feet away from buildings. Shaded areas of the lychee canopy will generally not produce fruit so if you are planting the tree for it's future fruit production you should pay attention to your tree's level of sun exposure.

The new growth of lychee tree(s) is very delicate and easily damaged by the wind. Wind damage can severely impair the development of a small lychee tree and destroy new growth before it has a chance to develop and mature. Plant your tree in an area that receives some measure of wind protection.

Soil:

Lychee trees originated in the rainforests of southern China, where it is not unusual for trees to reach heights up to 100'. For best results, you should attempt to simulate the soil environment of the natural lychee habitat, which is rich in organic matter, moist with good drainage and free of artificial components like perlite or vermiculite.

Visit for more fruit tree tips

A lychee tree will provide some natural organic matter to its soil zone through leaf and occasional branch litter and any fruit drop that occurs. However, you need to supplement the area above the root zone (slightly out past the drip line of the tree) with mulch and organic composts.

Origin of Lychees

Big Tree Farms Lychee Blossom Honey, 11-Pound Unit

An attractive and rare sub tropical fruit tree that bears a luscious red fruit, the Lychee originated over 2000 years ago first in the north tropical rainforests and mountain forests of Southern China, where it is a dominant tree species.
The second place wild lychee trees began to emerge was in the southern sub tropical low elevations of Southern China in the provinces of Guangdong/Kwangtung and Fujian/Fukien primarily along rivers and near the seacoast.

These lowland lychees are most likely a result of fruit/seeds that were washed down rivers from the mountains or were transported by birds and then were deposited naturally in great conditions for lychee growth.

There are still villages in Southern China today with lychee trees that are over 1000 years old! There is some evidence to suggest that wild lychees may have also originated in northern mountain regions of Vietnam.

Commercial planting and growing of lychees in China is primarily in the provinces of Guangdong, Gangxi, Hainan, Fujian, Yunnan, Taiwan and a small, special area of Sichuan/Szechuan with a unique micro-climate. Guangdong is called 'the Kingdom of Lychee' because the province has the highest and best lychee production in China and lychees are grown almost everywhere in the province. In Guangdong there is a grove that has a lychee production record of over 2000 years!

With the developments in lychee production techniques and technology in China since the early 1990's lychee production in China has doubled. More than 1/2 of the acreage of lychees in China have been planted out since 1994 and 1/3 since 1999.

Lychee production in China is in primarily the northern tropical and southern sub tropical climate zones between 19 degrees and 24 degrees north latitude. The northern tropical climate includes southwestern Guangdong, Hainan, southern Taiwan and Leizhou Peninsula. The southern sub tropical climate zone includes central and southern Guangdong and Guangxi, southeastern coastal Fujian and central, southern and western coastal Taiwan.

Lychee farming spread from it's native China to neighboring areas of southeastern Asia and offshore islands, India, the West Indies, South Africa, Madagascar, then to France and England. The Lychee spread to Hawaii in 1873 and from there to Florida in 1883, and then from Florida to California in 1897. However, successful fruiting of the Lychee tree in the U.S. did not occur until the early 1900's in southern California.

There are currently about 33 varieties growing in the US, and Lychee trees have now spread to most subtropical and many tropical areas of the world.
In recent years, Australia has become a major producer of lychees in Queensland and New South Wales. Lychee trees were brought to Australia in the 1850's by Chinese gold miner workers.

Between 1903 and 1906 Reverend W.M. Brewster imported Chen Tze or Royal Chen Purple lychee trees to South and Central Florida from the northernmost growing region of Fukien. This lychee variety/cultivar was renamed Brewster. There is even part of an original 'Brewster' grove in Davie, Florida.

The most popular varieties grown in South Florida are the Brewster, the Hakip, and the Mauritius. The first commercial nursery in South Florida to sell lychee trees was Reasoner's Royal Palm Nurseries.

What is a lychee?

A lychee is a rare sub tropical fruit originating in South China where the lychee is very important in their culture and is famed as "the King of Fruits".
The lychee fruit is about 1½ to 2 inches in size, oval to rounded heart shaped and the bumpy skin is red in color.

Once you peel the skin off, the crisp juicy flesh of a lychee fruit is white or pinkish, translucent and glossy like the consistency of a grape, but the taste is sweeter. Lychees have a sub acid sweet taste and have a wonderful freshness to them that is hard to describe. Lychee fruit is high in the antioxidant Vitamin C and the essential mineral Potassium.

Visit us for more fruit trees tips

Lychee trees are beautiful hardwoods that can grow 20 to 40 feet tall in a primarily dome shaped habit of growth with dense, evergreen leaves. Lychee trees are popular landscape trees in South Florida and other areas of the southern U.S. and container, atrium or greenhouse growing of lychee trees is becoming popular throughout the rest of he country.

Big Tree Farms Lychee Blossom Honey, 11-Pound Unit

Lychee trees are grown commercially in the US for the highly sought after fruit in primarily South and Coastal Central Florida where it is warm and there is some winter chilling, but little or no risk of hard freezes.

How to Prune a 5 Year Old Plum Tree

Inspect the tree in the spring before it begins actively leafing out. Cut out dead or winter-damaged branches with a pruning saw. Cut them flush with the nearest healthy branch or the trunk.

Trim out any crossed branches that are rubbing together, as the damage caused by rubbing can lead to disease or insect problems. Cut the branches back to the nearest main branch from which they emerge.

Visit us for more fruit tree tips

Locate any water spout branches on the plum tree. Water spouts grow straight up from one of the side branches, often crowding the upper branches and weakening the branch they emerge from. Cut out the water spouts flush with the branch of their origin.



Cut back the top and sides of the tree to maintain the shape and size. Cut back each overgrown branch to a leaf bud nearest the desired length of the branch.

How to Plant a Grape Seed

Growing grapes from a grape seed will not give you vineyard quality fruit. It will, however, be an interesting gardening project and provide you with a striking garden ornamental that will eventually bear fruit. Grape seeds are a challenge to germinate and must be stratified first, according to Cornell University's Grape Breeding Program. Stratification is a process wherein the gardener mimics the conditions that nature provides the seed so that it ends dormancy. Begin stratifying your grape seed in late December or early January

Cut the grape in half lengthwise and pick out the seed with a knife or other pointed object.

Rinse off any grape pulp that is clinging to the seed.

Place the seed in a shallow bowl and cover it with distilled water. Allow it to soak for 24 hours.

Drain the water and place the seed in a handful of moist sand. Place the sand into a plastic bag, seal the bag and refrigerate it for three months.

Mix equal parts of sand, peat moss and perlite and pour the mixture into a peat pot. Place the pot in a shallow tray and pour enough water into the tray to reach 1/2 of the way up the side of the pot. Remove the pot from the tray when the top of the soil is moist.

Remove the bag from the refrigerator and the seed from the sand.

Combine five parts of water to one part of household bleach and pour it into a small bowl. Drop the grape seed into the solution and allow it to soak for 15 minutes. Stir the seed twice during this time.

Pour the contents of the bowl over a strainer to drain.

Push the seed 1 inch into the soil in the peat pot and cover it with soil. Do not pack the soil down over the seed.

Place the peat pot in an area where the temperature remains between 80 and 85 degrees F. A greenhouse is ideal. The grape seed does not require light to germinate. Keep the soil in the peat pot moist at all times.

Move the peat pot into an area with bright light, but not direct sunlight, when the grape seed has germinated. This should occur within two weeks of planting.

Visit us for more tips

Plant the entire peat pot into the grape vine's permanent location in June. Keep the soil moist while the grape becomes established.

Planting a Strawberry Tower

Strawberries can be grown in nearly any type of container – hanging baskets, pots, tin cans, pocketed strawberry pots, and in tiers, to name a few. A tiered strawberry tower design (layers of pots stacked on top of one another, graduated in size) is the most versatile, as it can be easily adapted to the amount of space you have and the number of plants you wish to grow.

Space and Location

First, decide how much space you have for your tower. Select a location with at least 5-6 hours of sun a day as strawberries like sun. The more sun you can give them the sweeter the berries will be.

How Many to Grow?

Once you have determined your space, decide how many plants you would like to grow. Ten plants or more will give you a nice little harvest for regular snacking – if you would like a crop for freezing then consider 25 to 50 plants or more. Plan on 1 cup per plant in the first year and 4 cups in subsequent years. Strawberries can be planted quite close together in pots so don’t hold back!

Visit us for more tips

Types of Strawberries
Next, decide what type of strawberries you want. You can plant several varieties according to your needs and desires. See the article on Choosing Which Strawberries to Grow for help in your selection – the link is supplied below.

You can order bare-root strawberries for Spring delivery and planting, and your local nursery may have six-packs, 4” pots or even flats of a few varieties for planting later in the season.

Selecting Your Containers
Next, determine the shape(s) of pots you would like and how many tiers. Strawberries only need about four to six inches of soil for their roots so shallow bowls will work, as will the more commonly shaped conical pots. A relatively inexpensive large three-level tower can be made using a 24” diameter plastic pot at the base, a 16-18” plastic pot in the middle and an 8-10” pot on top. Just make sure you have at least a 4 inch band of soil all around each layer for planting when your pots will be stacked and filled with soil.

You can also make beautiful towers by stacking layers of low bowls on top of taller pots. Experiment! Go to the nursery supply or landscape shop and pull out all different shapes and sizes of pots and stack them up to see what you like. Strawberry plants will produce for several years as long as they get a dormant period each winter, so design a planter you will enjoy to look at.

Preparing Your Pots
If you are using deep pots (taller than 12”) you have two choices: fill each layer completely with soil, or partially fill the lower layers with smaller pots, a tray, or something else to take up the space that won’t be needed by the strawberry roots. Whatever size or shaped pots you use, make sure they have adequate drainage holes in the bottom.

Planting Your Strawberries
1.(Optional) Place a 'filler' pot or other material in the bottom of your base pot to take up space if the pot is deeper than 12 inches. Make sure the pot will still drain well.
2.Fill the base pot with soil to within 4 inches of the top.
3.Position your second pot in the center of the base pot and add some soil to weigh it down and hold it in place.
4.Plant strawberry plants all around the rim of the base pot about 4” apart, keeping the crowns just above the soil level and packing the soil down well around each plant. Water in.
5.Plant your second, third, etc. layer of pots as you did the first, nestling each layer into the one below and watering well with each layer.

Water your strawberries whenever the soil is dry to ½ inch depth. Do not over water as constantly damp soil encourages disease, but don't allow the plants to dry out. Give your plants monthly feedings of a good fertilizer such as compost tea. If your plants produce runners train them into the pots so they will take root, then plant the runners into new pots to start fresh plants. Be sure to keep the soil around them damp until their own roots are established.

Your plants will grow quickly and most varieties will give you a nice harvest the first year. Your second and third years will yield the best harvest, with some varieties producing well for up to five years or more. When the plants no longer produce well, re-plant your tower with fresh soil and new plants.