This tree is now about 6 -1/2  feet tall, and it was planted from a 3 gallon size at the end of this past winter. It has  grown about 1-1/2 feet since then, but more impressive is the noticeable increase in trunk caliber. It also bloomed nicely at the first of summer, but I removed the blossoms in order to direct the energy towards more growth.

Here is another variety that I just planted called a ‘Russell’ avocado. Except for the fact that this was the only variety available currently in my area (bought from Home Depot), this would not have been my choice. While the Russell is supposed to have very good taste, it is not cold hardy. I would have preferred a ‘Lula’ as another cold hardy variety, but simply could not find one. Therefore, I will have to take measures to keep this avocado covered when the temperature drops below 30F.  This was the size of the Brogdon above when I planted it, so you can get an appreciation for how well it likes it’s new spot!

Avocados like a well drained and loamy soil, so besides not tolerating any standing water, they are fairly tolerant of soil types and do not have many pest or disease problems (the type of plants that I am currently focusing on). Because they have a fairly shallow root system, they particularly like a thick mulch, and will even send their roots up into the mulch.  You can see in the pictures that I have pilled a layer of compost and leaves around the bases of these trees to take advantage of this fact. Avocados also are self pollinating, but to increase pollination, it’s best to plant an ‘A’ and ‘B’ variety – which is what I have in the Brogdon and the Russell.

One of the best places on the web for seeing pictures and reading descriptions of various types of avocados, is the Pine Island Nursery avocado viewer. I am curious to hear what types of avocados any of you folks are growing – or planning to grow.  So long until next time, and post questions if you have any, as I have done a lot of research on growing avocados.

Out of the six grape vines I now have, a couple had a few problems resulting in a loss of some growth. On one, I had put a little too much fertilizer which killed some of the newer growth. Be very careful to not place the fertilizer too close to the base of these plants, as they are very sensitive.  At the rate these are going, I am expecting a partial crop this coming summer. Not bad for 8 months since starting as bare root whips!

Out of these, a couple did not survive, and I had to buy two replacements at the local nursery this spring. The varieties which I now have are Ison, Noble, Tara, and Southland. You can see that the basic idea is to trim down to one shoot, and then let this reach the top.  Following this, you let one branch (cordon)  go in each direction where it will have 20′ of wire (10′ in each direction) before encountering the next post. Any grapes which tried to form this year, I removed so that the energy of the plant would allow maximum growth. Supposedly, it takes about three years to have a good harvest, but at the rate these are growing (and being in Florida),  I am betting on a decent first harvest next summer.

I basically have 120 feet of muscadine trellis, with 60 feet per row, 20 feet between posts and 10′ between the two rows.  These are 4×4 pressure treated posts which are sunk 1′ into the ground and cemented. Because of the length of the rows, I decided not to implement complicated end supports (such as diagrammed on Ison’s site).  The wire  is #7 gauge aluminum which I bought in one of the home improvement centers in the fencing department. As you can see, I cut some supports to run the vines up on (I used tie down fasteners), and I only buried these in the ground a couple of inches and placed a notch in the top to catch the wire. As the weight of the harvest increases, this will also give some extra support to the wires. To secure the wires at the posts, I drilled a hole through the posts about 1.5″ down (most instructions simply nail the cable to the top of the post and that would work also).

In this picture, you can see that after pulling the wire as tight as possible, I fastened it to the end of the outside post using a V clamp. What I have between this clamp and the post is just a wood spacer with a hole drilled so that I had room to apply a wrench to the clamp nuts. As mentioned, this is a much simpler solution than other plans which I have found on the internet, but I am fairly confident that it will be of sufficient strength. If the cable were to start getting slack in it, I will merely pull it and re-secure the end clamp etc. Of course, you want to let the post concrete set completely and cover the post holes before stretching and attaching the wire. If your trellis ends up being longer than about 60′ feet, it might be advisable to design an end post support system such as shown on Ison’s website.

Here is a final picture showing how two shoots have been trained to split off from the support and travel in each direction along the wire. Basically, when the original single vine approaches the top, you just choose two growth shoots and keep trimming off the rest. Once the tendrils of these shoots get a hold of the wire, it’s off to the races. The next step once the vine travels along the wire, is to then trim so that only one shoot per about 3-4″ is allowed from the cordon  (the main vines traveling out etc). However, I have not  reached that part yet, and this is my first experience growing muscadines,  so stay tuned. BTW, southern muscadines are incredibly healthy in that they have one the highest concentrations of resveratrol, quercetin, and other antioxidants.  It is amazing that these muscadines have accomplished approximately 8′ of growth in about 7 months.

Comments and questions are appreciated!

Anyhow, there were only three fruit trees on the property when I got here – three citrus trees ranging from 8′ to about 5′.  SOoo, here is what I have now.

• 10 blueberry plants (Spring High, Emerald, Blue Bell, and Tiffblue)
• 6 thornless blackberry plants and 2 more thorn variety on the way (Natchez, Arapaho, Chickasaw, and Kiowa).
• 6 citrus trees (Navel Orange, tangerine, grapefruit?, Centennial kumquat, and Murami kumquat).
• 3 brown turkey fig trees.
• 2  ‘Arctic’ Kiwis (male and female).
• 1  4′ mango and a couple more 1′ started from seed (probably a mistake in this NE Fl climate, but I will keep them in containers).
• 2  4′ avocados (one Brogdon cold tolerant and one Hauss started from seed a couple years back).
• 1 3′ lowquat.
• 3 Fuyu persimmon trees.
• 2 plum trees (Bruce and Golden).
• 1 ‘Flordaking’ peach tree.
• 6  two year old dry root muscadines on the way!

I think that about covers it for now (except for all the cool weather greens and other stuff I have planted). No wonder my back hurts!

I will photo documenting and discussing care and problems with these fruit trees in the coming months/years.

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I knew that the small native persimmons were astringent, but having experience with my own Fuyu oriental persimmons, I did not hesitate to bite down into one of these that I ‘assumed’ was ripe. Well, I learned later from doing a little research that these are Hachiya persimmons, and they too are astringent until ripened. Therefore, I had the choice of either letting them ripen for several days, or  attempting to dry them, and because I did not want to deal with a bunch of sweet mushy ‘water bombs’ I choose the latter.

A little reading revealed that drying them would neutralize the tannins which makes them astringent, so I simply used my el-cheapo food dehydrator and sliced them up for drying. I choose to keep the skin on as it was less trouble than peeling them all – and besides, skins are the healthiest part of the fruit.  I simple cut the stem part out and sliced them into 1/2″ thick sections, placed several on my drier racks, and let them dry for about 13 hours. I wasn’t interested in getting them ‘bone dry’ but simply a little chewy, and to sweeten them. Boy was I in for a surprise as to how delicious they are!, and my biggest problem now is going to be staying away from them!

Having just moved in, I only recently planted some new Fuyu persimmons in my yard, so it will probably be a couple of years to get decent fruit off of them. Therefore,  I imagine I will be visiting my neighbor again next year (haha, and he asked if they were “tree tomatoes”).

If you enlarge the picture, you can see that the leaves were developing large brown areas. In spite of research, I could not diagnose the problem, but it was causing the leaves to fall off (and it was not water, sun or fertilizer issues). I tried copper to no avail, so next I mixed a batch of aerated compost tea and sprayed these on the leaves, and voila, the new leaves are coming in nice and full without browning!

In this picture, I have a nursery purchased, grafted, “Brogdon” avocado tree that I purchased a couple of months ago (lots of growth since then!). This is one of the more typical Florida avocados, and I picked the Brogdon because it is cold tolerant down to 24 deg F. Now the mango on the left (and the small one from seed in the pot) are going to be a challenge to protect in the NE Fl climate. Anyhow, you can see how much different the leaf structure is on the Brogdon as compared with the seed started Haas. I am also not sure about how much cold the Haas seedling can handle, and it’s questionable when/if it will flower or produce anytime soon, being that it is not grafted.

These are lovely flowers produced by this bush, and it is probably dropping fruit because the plant is not mature enough yet – and because I don’t have a companion pollinator. Can’t wait till next year, and I will probably get a ‘wonderful’ or other variety to help with pollination. Let me know if any of you guys are having success with growing pomegranates (and getting fruit)  in the humid, hot southeast.

For anyone who has eaten pomegranate, the fruit is kind of messy and a bit of work is involved to get to ‘goodies’, but I find the taste grows on me (and they are great in salads). Also, there is much information available lately relating to the many health benefits. Considering that my area is northeast Fl has becoming increasingly drought prone every year, pomegranates may end up being an ideal plant after all.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1VVCSvwNqg&feature=related

Both of my trees produce well, and also very desirable because they are practically pest free and tolerate my sandy and impoverished soil.  In addition to this, they require very little water and fertilizer once established (my kind of plant!).  They do send down deep tap roots and therefore, do not like to be transplanted. This is one of my favorite fruits and highly recommended for planting (if you enjoy the tasted as I do).

Another final note has to do with the many health benefits of persimmon leaves used in teas: They are found to aid in weight loss by interfering with the absorption of lipids – and also possess anti-hypertensive effects. Here is an interesting link.  Here is another. Partaking of persimmon leaf tea is a common dietary practice in the Orient, and I just harvested and dried a bunch the other day.  I believe that the same rich fiber, flavonoids, tannins, and phenolic content responsible for this is also found in the persimmon skin.

Because it was my first time harvesting these, I wasn’t quite sure quite how to go about it or how many to pick (though I intended to have enough for about 2 quarts). Anyhow, pictured on the left are the berry clusters that I managed to pick off of about 3 full bushes (and still left plenty for the birds and other wildlife).

To get the tiny berries off the little stems, I just gently rubbed them off while tugging on them. This process was a little time consuming because I wanted to make sure not to include ANY stems or green berries.  This is important because everything but the ripe berries is slightly toxic due to alkaloids (these would be destroyed by conventional recipes involving cooking, but that isn’t the intent here). Though I did not weigh them, I would guess I ended up with about 8 pounds of berries.

The main consensus of the articles that I read suggested to make a mixture of 1/3 elderberries with 2/3 of 80 or higher proof vodka.  Because some articles suggested using dried berries, and I was using fresh berries, I decided to make a mixure half and half berries to vodka.  I was only able to find 80 proof and so this is what I used. I also took an extra step and blended the mixture before pouring it into my quart sized storage jars.

Once you have done this, you then place the jars in a cool dark storage area (unless your jars are a dark glass etc.).  You then shake the mixture daily for two to three weeks, and after this time period, you can then start straining off the mixture as you need it. I would advise doing this instead of straining off the entire mixture because it will continue to strengthen with age. 

 If you do not like the taste of vodka, you can also use brandy, but in either case the purpose of the alcohol is to draw out all the desired ingredients and act as a preservative. My understanding is that this tincture will last for a number of years. From the quantity of elderberry shown above, I was able to make 2 quarts and still have enough left over to make over 2 more quarts ( I froze the remainder of the berries).  Later on I will be discussing how to use this tincture to make a syrup – in the case of kids or for those that favor a syrup. 

One word of caution if you are collecting the berries yourself; Make sure that you do a proper ID check before you pick anything that you are unfamiliar with, and also avoid the red elderberry since these can be slightly toxic. These berries are truly red when ripe, so you shouldn’t have a hard time identifying them. Till next time, good health to you!