Hi everyone!

I saw an add on Craigslist for a nursery offering grafted fruit trees for $9.99.  We went for dwarf citrus, and came home with one Tropical Pink Guava, one Mex-Grande Avocado, one Manila Mango, and one Kadota Fig!  Kadota is one we don't have, so against JD's protests, it came home with us.  They have it trained into a one trunk tree, which I love!  This one had one almost ripe breba and a couple more on their way to ripe.

 

I found out why they sell so cheap.  They get the leftovers from the commercial growers AFTER the regular nurseries take what they want.  We'll be going back for Blood Oranges and Pistachios.  He said to call every 3 weeks.  Gave us his private cell.  AND they have shrubs flowers and anything else you find at a regular nursery. 

40 minute lazy drive through dairy farms and countryside.  We're happy to have found this place!

Suzi

Nice Suzi.  Please post of a pic of the inside of the fruit before you devour it. :)

You Ca guys are so lucky, not only with your weather but the plants you can just go out and buy and day of the week! I would love to be able to just walk to any nursery and see fig trees and citrus! In Nj, you will be lucky If you saw one Meyer lemon tree at a fancy nursery half way down the state.

Even though I am in NJ, I grow a lot of citrus along with my figs in the greenhouse.

What kind of citrus do you have Suzi? You are so lucky, you can get so many cool citrus in Ca that you cannot even order in NJ. Although, I was lucky and recently scored a Red Finger Lime!!! I want to taste a Fingerlime so badly.

Christy, I'm a native Californian, but I've been to your beautiful state many times as part of my job as a sales manager.  I loved my visits there except for the fact there are no left turns!!  You can grow many things we cant, but it's true we can grow all things Mediterranean. 

To answer your question about citrus, we now have a full size Bearss Lime, A dwarf Mandarin Orange, 2 Ruby Red Grapefruit, 2 unknown orange trees (hopefully one will be navel), one Valencia Orange, and 2 unknown full size lemon trees.  We are hoping to find a couple blood red oranges (semi-dwarf), and a couple tangelos or tangerines.  The one lime we have provides enough lime juice for an entire year, so no more limes.

I will take a picture before I eat that Kadota fig.  It probably won't truly be ripe until June or July.

Suzi

How hard is it to grow mangos?

Suzi,

Tangelos are awesome! To start, you must get a Minneola Tangelo (aka Honeybell) tree! I have 2 blood oranges as of now, but I have not gotten fruit off of them yet. Probably my prettiest tree is the variegated Pink Lemon tree. The foliage is so beautifully variegated with green and white, and so is the peel ( like a Panache fig) and the inside of the lemon flesh is pink! Oh, I think I have a pic I will post.

I have ordered serval of my citrus from Four Winds Growers, and they are in CA, I wonder if you are near them? I think they are in Winters,Ca? But I believe they have their trees at nurseries all over Ca. They have the best selection of dwarf citrus trees, which obviously I need because mine are all in pots. Not to sound like an advertisement for them, but maybe you can check them out. They have many high ratings and a vast variety of citrus. If they are not near you, you can probably call them and find out what nurseries near you sell their trees.
https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/about-us/where-to-find-our-trees.html

Pics of one of my Variegated Pink Lemons

Ps, sorry! I did not know the pics were going to be so huge! I did not mean to take over your thread with the pics! Maybe someone can tell me how to make them smaller?

I've never grown a mango, Gloria, but in Southern California the type we bought appears to do well as long as the temps don't drop below 28 degrees.  That is a rare if never occurrence, but we are getting some weird weather.  They need protection while young, so we are going to put it close to a block wall so it will get stored heat from that on cool nights, and reflected heat from the concrete driveway.  It can grow big, but can be kept small.  6' - 10' is about average, but it is a wide tree too!  Multi-trunked, like figs can be.

I have to do more research on the mango and the guava. 

Suzi

That's a very interesting lemon, Christy!  Is it sour, like lemons, or is it sweeter?  I'd go for it, but 2 standard lemon trees make more lemons than we need for sure!  Nice photos!  We are alternating roses and Semi-dwarf citrus along our frontage in twos or threes, and we have room for 4 citrus.  I'll be sure to try to find a minneola tangelo!  Thanks for the link!  I really want two blood oranges for the juice, so we'll see what we can find.

The nursery dude explained that trees on dwarf stock stay small and produce less, but you can keep a semi-dwarf small and it will produce 3 times the fruit of a dwarf, so we are going that route!

If anyone has input on the Kadota fig, I'd love to hear!!

Suzi

ok i tasted a kadota right out of a tree and it is one of the best figs i have eaten.

i wonder how are the preserved  kadota's taste like compared to the real thing.

Elin!  Thank you!  That fig is so huge!  It's not even ripe!  I know you can't explain the flavor profile when you tasted it a long time ago, and I know it's very sweet.  Just wondering if it is honey nutty, or just sweet rich figgy?  Anyway it happens will be fine with me!  I have never tasted the preserved kadotas, so no clue about that thing.

I think the tree grows big, so we will place it at the bottom of our hill so it won't block anybody's view (except our view of the ugly solar panels on the dude's house below us)!  LOL!  Shhhhh  We are getting solar installed this month.  Sort of necessary with electricity constantly rising in price, plus there is a tax rebate here in the USA.  The neighbor above us will have a nice view of our solar, but doubt that he cares.  His decks don't face our house.

Suzi

Suzi, get a Bream Tarrocco if you want a true blood orange. Widely accepted as the best out there. Smith Red is a fantastic blood color navel orange (not actually a blood orange)

Tylt33, TY!  I will do the homework and get a couple of those!  Citrus are naturalized here.  We do take precautions for that idiot Asian Citrus Pysillid because there are many commercial citrus orchards in the valley below.  We had one tree infected, and I called the ag people out here.  They took samples, and instructed us to always use Imacloprid on all our citrus.  THAT is not organic, but it prevents infestations.  We already use it on our vineyard because we are in wine country.  All our trees susceptible to that or any other evil pests, get a dose now and then.  Happily figs are not among them!!

The Ag people did come back and give us the "all clear."  The bug bit, but it didn't carry the disease that kills.  Whew!!  They would have pulled our trees if that was the case.  They are really nice people.  They just protect our crops and recommend solutions to pests.

I am now on a quest to find semi-dwarf Bream Tarrocco Orange trees!

Still, any info about the Kudota would be welcomed and relished!

Suzi

more info here:
http://www.forgottenbooks.org/download_pdf/The_Kadota_Fig_1000169307.pdf

or online ver:
http://biodiversitylibrary.org/item/83279#page/17/mode/1up

Elin!  That was like watching a Oscar rated Movie... In words!  Wow!  I DID SCORE!!  WOO HOO!  Thanks so very much!

Suzi

Congratulations!

Thanks Bob!  I'll be spreading cuttings around in a year or two.  This baby has to get it's sea legs, but wow!  I really didn't know about this fig.  On this forum, it's mostly about boutique figs, but this seems to be the mother of all, and I welcome her to the fold!

Suzi

For New Jersey have you gone out to Well sweep Herb Farm?  They have some citrus plants and even a few figs trees. 

Well, schaplin, I couldn't make a left turn, and they are on the left!  :-))

Variegated lemons, guava, Blood oranges, guavas, figs, Nice weather, Oh my that sounds nice ..............

JD would disagree!  He has to dig the holes, put the gopher wire in there, and plant the things.  Then he has to hook up the drippers.  And me?  I have to feed him!  Oh my!

Might be a year or two before we get to taste the guava, mango, avocado, but that pretty sweet Kadota fig... yep!  This year!!

Suzi

Guess what happened to that beautiful yellow, not yet ripe fig at the top of the tree.  :-(  BIRDS!!  Yikes!  I walked down the hill to visit the tree which is now in-ground, and although the fig is still there, it is half eaten!  JD was shocked!  I was so looking forward to tasting it.  I'm going to start pinching it to get more branches and more figs and may even cover it with bird netting...

Suzi