Absolutely...stunning!

I tried to grow 3 varieties of dragon fruits but I didn't have the elaborate cold protection set-up that you have. Very nice. The tomatoes couldn't be any finer and I bet they'll taste great. Thanks for sharing your garden pictures.

Christine

Oh Sweeeeet! I love your dragonfruit set up. That's what I need to do with mine. I have several diff. varieties. Are you growing yours in full sun? Are those wood posts with burlap around them with velcro straps?
What do you fertilize your dragonfruit with?

I also like how you planted the garlic in the cinder block holes...very creative.
Your whole garden is just gorgeous!
~Lenette

that is incredible dragon fruit! have been playing around with it here, but those are nice!

Beautiful, you've done a wonderful job. I am in awe. Tell me about the Creole garlic, if it grows here I love to try some myself.

I have been growing dragon fruit for several years, and I get flowers but never any fruit. How do you do it?

Well that is just fantastic! I am so jealous of your tomatoes!

Hi Michael

Beautiful setup! You are not only a good gardener but a very skilled and crafty person.

Good to know that you are enjoying the fruits of your labor, everything looks very healthy in your garden. Keep us updated on what you are growing.

Silvia

Awesome!

Thank you for the great responses. I will try to stop lurking and start participating.

Lenette -
My dragon fruit only get ~8 hours sun; they get a lot of shade from the shed and the fence, and I have been debating 15-22% shade cloth as I have two that are heavily stressed. American beauty, Natural Mystic and Delight are my most sensitive. They need the sun stress to flower, but become more susceptible to disease/bacterial rot if they are heavily stressed.

Wooden posts with burlap will work fine. Just remember they will get big, upwards of several hundred pounds. In my area, pressure treated wood does not last very long in the ground. I have seen people paint/seal to help prevent rot. Some people pour a cement foundation and bolt the 4X4 to the cement. I guess you could say I took it one step farther. I am king overkill on everything. My supports are 10ft long 4" diameter PVC that is buried 4 ft and filled with fiber reinforced cement with a rebar core. The PVC was painted to help prevent UV degradation. I just finished my second dragon fruit area and you can see the supports better here.

As for fertilizer I think you can do anything you want. I have visited a handful of commercial growers, and each one seems to have their own philosophy which is completely different then the next guy down the road. In my opinion they are very hardy and are tolerant to about anything, except frost and standing water which causes rot. Mine are rather pampered. They get seaweed and diluted fish emulsion bi-weekly. Miracle grow (tomato) on the burlap for the aerial roots occasionally along with 8-3-9 on the ground. From Oct-Feb they just get seaweed. May/June/July I try to cut back on the nitrogen and give them extra bloom fertilizer 2-10-10 or similar.

By far the best resource on the net for all things dragon fruit is the yahoo Pitaya group forum. Several growers from all over the world participate in the forums.

Katkin - I am sorry to hear you are not getting fruit. My first 30-40 flowers, none of them set fruit. The first flush I had more than one variety flowering, I had 100% fruit set from cross pollination. I am finding few varieties are truly self fertile, and all dragon fruit benefit from hand pollination & cross pollinating. It is very easy to do, and you don't have to do it in the middle of the night. My flowers are usually still open 9-10am. If hand pollination does not work, then you likely have a self sterile variety. Perhaps you can find someone to trade/share pollen with.

I love the color of your cages. Did you paint them or buy them that way?

Burpee sells the tomato cages online in Green or Red. I have no complaints they are made quite well.

Michael19B - You say that you use seaweed fertilizer. Does that mean kelp, such as the dehydrated product that Peaceful Valley sells?

Michael, that is one fabulous garden! Jaw dropping awesome.

Would you consider a short conversation with my hubs regarding the benefits of slightly over engineering?

joking

.... maybe!

~dianne

If I have time and remember, I use Maxicrop seaweed 1 cap to a gallon once a week, and rotate in Neptune's harvest fish-seaweed blend at least once a month.

I attended a lecture that a UF master gardener gave on organic gardening. They really promoted the weekly seaweed saying it had numerous minerals/micronutrients/natural growth hormones. They even said it could lower frost resistance of tropical fruit tree leaves if applied prior to a frost.

I started using seaweed a year ago, and noted a significant increase in the health of my vegetables and fruit trees. Since then, I put it on everything. I have also tried it as directed several times soaking seeds prior to germinating, and have had negative results every time.

If you do decide to use fish emulsion, do not to mix it any stronger then recommended, and mix it well. I have donated a few plants to the school of lessons learned, scalding them with end of an insufficiently mixed batch.

Hello Michael,

I love your dragon fruit and gardening setup. My sister loves it.

I hope you still subscribe to this thread.

Can I get some of your input? I'm a set of new dragon fruit from a cut stem that my mom gave me. It started growing new stems. This one branch was growing about 12 little stems coming out from it so I broke all the little ones from the bottom off. Now, I still have about 2 on each side. My question is...should I remove all of them except for number 1 and number 2 in the picture? What do you think? Should I remove it all and leave only 1 stem climbing upward?

And when is the best time to remove them? when it's a baby stem or a more mature stem?

Also, one more question. How come your dragon fruit is meaty (fatty)? A lot of my new stem...it's thin all around..not as fatty as the original ones that my mom gave me. Am I not giving it enough fertilizer? Ever since I planted the dragon fruit, I never gave it fertilizer until I read your thread. I just started feeding it seaweed mix water every week.

Thanks in advance,

saw your post last year and refer all my customers to go view it! incredible! m