Nature and Gardening

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Anyone here growing a fruit forest? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If so, which fruits and other plants are you growing?

What is currently producing?

How do you manage the size of your trees?

Do you make compost, or do you only use mulch to build soil fertility?

Which climate are you in?

I'm interested to know how popular fruit forests are in this community and how others are doing it.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

South Floridian here. We have 2 varieties of avocado, 2 of mango, 2 of coconut (6 trees in total), blood orange, lemon and grapefruit. When they're in season there is too much fruit to even give away, since many neighbors have some of the same growing as well. I use stake fertilizer twice a year on the citrus and keep them mulched as they're still a bit small. The others are well established and take no maintenance other than occasional pruning.

Something is up with my avocados though. They were great producers for years (one is quite old, probably 60+ years, the other is probably in its 30s but not sure), but these past two years there have been so many blooms but almost no fruit. So you get the downsides of massive "rains" of pollen when there's a slight breeze, but none of the upside of free avocados :/

I also have about 2 dozen pineapple tops that have been propagated and planted. Many of them are pretty young, but we get around 3-4 teeny-tiny pineapples per year. Again no maintenance once they're going (I usually propagate them in water until the roots are a good 6-8" long before putting them in the ground).

I'm thinking about adding a banana shrub, but have also thought about sugar cane since then between that, (once I learn how to process and distill it) the coconuts and the pineapples I could realize my life-long dream of making a fully home-grown piña colada.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

You have a ton of potential in South Florida! (Until sea level rise floods everything, of course.) Will you add more fruit trees? The nurseries in your area have some amazing options. Which mangos and avocados do you grow? I'm curious about the quality of 'Monroe' and 'Oro Negro' avocados.

It's strange what's happening with your avocados. Do you know if the bloom timing of avocados in your area has changed at all? If they were previously getting pollinated by trees that now bloom at different times, then that could explain the lack of fruits.

If it's a choice between banana and grass, I recommend banana 100%. Pine Island and Excalibur both sold Dwarf Namwah last I checked, and that should be very productive. Excalibur also sells FHIA-18, which doesn't taste so much like banana. I recently posted about it here, though the linked PDF is in spanish.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

I’m not too sure about varietals of any of the trees. One mango I know is called a lemon meringue mango, and as you might guess is very citrusy. It’s much smaller and paler than the usual Caribbean mangoes at the supermarket. Likewise not sure about either avocado. One is what’s colloquially called a Florida avocado. It’s huge - like bigger than a softball - with a smooth, bright green skin. The flesh is a bit watery, to the point where I use cheesecloth to wring it out if making guac. Milder than a haas as well. The other variety is really interesting. It ripens on the vine until it is dark purple or almost black, like an eggplant. This one is delicious and slightly floral. I haven’t seen any fruits on either tree again this year, so something is definitely up. An arborist was over a few years ago to do some pruning and didn’t mention anything problematic about either, so it will likely take some research to figure out. I’m not aware of other avocado trees in the neighborhood, but certainly one possibility is that they’ve lost their pollinators.