Growing Fruit

The red Chinese yard long beans from Baker Creek have been red for me. Gorgeous and delicious!

dannytoro1: K-Feldspar is very, very available This is feldspar that’s high K correct? Would make sense it’s super abundant given how common feldspars are. Presumably the main difference in utilizing it versus purer forms of potassium mineral is the cost and how slow it fast acting they are? And quantities of course. dannytoro1: They are in Krasnador Krai. …The soil is amazing. Oh cool! I’ve been to a couple post Soviet countries but never that far south. The soil really is incredibly rich, and gardening and growing stuff is a very common activity in the summer even among average, normal people. It’s a highly urbanized region, but at least the places I’ve been most families own a plot of land outside the city in addition to their apartment. Those plots are clustered in little villages where families traditionally go and spend the weekend during the summer. Lots of vegetables, fruits, berries, not really livestock though since they’re not permanently populated settlements. It’s one of the very few things I think the Soviets actually got right compared to us: most everyone is urban and well educated/cultured, but also most everyone spends a big chunk of their lives in low tech, rural, tiny family farms/gardens in the villages. Anyway, I assume those family friends are more inland but from what I’ve seen the coast along the Black Sea over there is gorgeous, lots of really cool history too like old Roman and Greek ruins, not to mention the Circassians who still live up in the mou

My technique for protecting pawpaw fruit… Just thought I’d share:

Here are some of my purple hybrid that I gave to others: purple tomatoes

These are Chiltepins, I believe I made a few crosses with this variety this year. I’m also trying to make a cross to make a huge non-spicy pepper it still has some good flavor like a habanero. I already made a very small non-spicy pepper that I’m trying to make even smaller by back crossing it to smaller varieties (these peppers have heat-level and flavors like Habanada and Aji Dulce)… But this huge one has huge fruit for habanero-like pepper and also footlong leaves…

I recieved bud wood from the late Bob Duncan back in May, for his reliably cropping variety he dubbed “Cornwall”. I did a terrible job grafting, but luckily the two grafts took! Another local friend just brought me up bud wood from OGW’s “Obusa” variety (legally) - supposedly late flowering. We don’t yet have access to many varieties north of the border so curious if anyone in our region can confirm it’s reliable. Not sure how grafting this late in the season is going to work out so I just did as many as possible and hoping for the best (I have a couple backup grafts on a smaller plant in a hoophouse as well).. fingers crossed

a_Vivaldi: But isn’t that just swapping one mined mineral source of K for a different mined mineral source of K? And a less concentrated one which would require much more mining? Sure, I assume it doesn’t leach as much, but fundamentally it’s still the same kind of activity. And you can reduce the leaching issue by just improving the soil and using better fertilizer practices. K-Feldspar is very, very available. And also includes other mineral inclusion naturaly. Hence it is a good substitute. Crushing it is not a big deal since the refractory industry already does that. Though the fineness ratios would have to be tailored. Even making differing grain sizes can create a time released effect. Where are they located? There aren’t many parts of the world with chernozem since it isn’t stable outside of very cold and moderately dry continental climates. They are in Krasnador Krai. They just put out a new video yesterday showing off their reversible plow array. The soil is amazing.

That is something I am curious about, can they set on their own if there is say enough humidity that keeps the female portion receptive longer? Or do you have the right bugs in south Florida? I hand pollinated whenever I had the flowers at the right stages. I did some googling and the yellowish Thai one is most likely an Atemoya, there’s one that is a 75% sugar apple 25% cherimoya (so it was backcrossed). I don’t think cherimoya can reliably fruit there as it is too hot, same as in south Florida?

Pepper picking yesterday. Those little guys are bird peppers, our supposedly native (or naturalized pre-colonial) pepper. Very spicy.

That looks like a cherimoya, although it could be an atemoya. There is chewy and gritty types of sugar apples, although I’m pretty sure the chewy ones still have grit. Isan’s Indigo is supposed to be chewy I am pretty sure. I gave my largest potted sugar apple to a very good friend of mine who enjoys them more. It flowered this year, but did not set fruit. At the nursery I work at, we had about 6 that set fruit this year (no human assistance). Those ones might be 3 year olds, mine was a 2 year old. Very easy to grow in pots here, but we can also put them in the ground and they will do fine like 80% of years. I still have 2 in pots I think.

They did get the powdery mildew fungicide treatment as the damp in that plot is serious. Even with June July and first half of August being mega hot and dry then getting hit with rains the second half of August. It’s so gloomy today it feels like autumn already.

I should have taken more photos of the fruit but this seller had a great variety. I got some sapodilla from there