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Tropical Plants

What's the easiest tropical fruit to grow?

18 years ago

I was just reading about everyone's favorite tropical fruit and it makes me want to get busy and grow some! What's the easiest tropical fruit to grow in a pot that will produce fruit? I would put it outdoors for the summer and bring indoors in winter. Unfortunately, we don't have a sunny window to put it in so that will have to be taken in consideration too. What's the best (moveable) pot size?

Comments (13)

siegel2
18 years ago
I`d say a dwarf lemon, because it doesn`t have to be sweet. If you grow a dwarf orange or tangerine and you don't provide it with the right conditions, they will be sour which means they aren't any good. Whereas a lemon is not supposed to be sweet, so if its sour, that`s how its supposed to be.

Getting a lemon tree to produce good lemons is a lot easier than getting an orange tree to produce good (sweet) oranges. Neither tree is "easy" to grow. All pot grown citrus under "summer outside, winter inside" conditions take a lot of time and energy, but I think a lemon will give you the best chance of edible fruit.
Kameha
18 years ago
I agree with Cagary. Also lemons thrive in indoor conditions because they can tolerate low humidity (they grow wonderfully in arid California and Arizona) and can survive without full sun.

Calamondins are another very easy citrus to grow as a houseplant. Key limes need more heat and humidity than calamondins and lemon trees but are still somewhat easy, and like Gary they'll taste good because they are meant to be sour.

If you're not a citrus fan, I've heard figs are extremely easy to grow in pot culture. I've even heard of people growing them in the ground putting burlap over them and wrapping them securely in winter as far north as upstate New York.
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Gardeners in the true tropics may hate me for saying this but I find the flavor of our native passionfruit to be pretty equal to P. edulis or any of the purple round ones or the large yellow forms found in the tropics. You just have to let them fully ripen (fall off the plant) and start to wrinkle to get the tropical tones to the juice. Otherwise they taste fine but not extra fine. The problem with potted papayas is that flowering and fruiting are affected - you'll see what I mean if you get somewhere that you can grow one outside (even in your zone). The trees just grow better with their roots in the ground. In pots the fruit struggle to size up and ripen. The Mexican types have better flavor when greenhouse grown but those are the ones that get extra tall and have watermelon sized fruit - no way to grow them inside a house. You might want to try the little Strawberry Guava - the bushes don't get covered with fruit like a kumquat but you'll find yourself wanting more and more of them once you start eating them (I think they are even better than regular guavas). They are hardy to like 28 degrees so you can wait until it really gets cold to move them indoors. I don't grow Mango but the few that I have seen only produce a few fruit when grown in pots. I'm lucky that I live near a large Asian market that has all sorts of mangoes to choose from. I'm in zone 7b and move all my potted plants into a simple hoophouse that I only keep above freezing so the winter heating doesn't cost too much. I think the cool winters does a lot to improve blooming in the citrus. It seems to me that the tropicals that produce smaller berry type fruit do best when grown in pots out-of-zone.
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I've started my first proper garden after years of living in smaller places. I'm currently growing: Cape Gooseberry (basically a weed in my garden) Pomegranate Blackberries (don't know the type) White, weeping mulberry (found on the property) Litchi / Lychee (nursery didn't label the type) Avocado (Fuerte & have been advised to get a Haas too) Apricot (Cape Early, a South African cultivar) Apple (Early Red one & looking for a tart, green pollinator/pie apple) Eureka lemon Unidentified dwarf lemon (found on property) Shaddock pomelo, red flesh Peach (Oom Sarel, a large South African cultivar) Two fruits that I'm growing, but I've never tasted before: - Miracle Fruit (3 seedlings about 20cm, under glass & one recently planted outside). I've served the pills for a party. - Pepino Got a whole of herbs, peppers and veggies too. I'm looking to replace granadilla / passion fruit and mangoes that I've grown before. I don't care for the taste of granadilla but I love the Passion flowers. I live north of Johannesburg in South Africa & it's spring time here. I want to grow some of the traditional fruit trees I grew up with, like delicious sweet Marula (sclerocarya birrea). Marula makes a small, sweet fruit that you can eat fresh when it turns yellow, can ferment into a traditional beer and leaves a hard seed with a sweet nut. Other traditional trees are Milk plum (Englerophytum magalismontanum) & Moepel (Mimusops zeyheri)...I don't know it's English name but I see it's part of the Sapoteceae genus.
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Not much on our block, we have terrible soil especially down the back where all the Sun is, I have planted different trees some have died ( waterlogged when we have these huge downpours ) others like Honey Murcott mandarine I pulled out as all they grew were little orange bullets. I replaced it with a Tropical Sundowner Nectarine and that will get pulled out next year too if the fruit have fruit fly in them again and two of the best Mango trees only small but each tree gave us four mango's which we ate two weeks ago.. Gosh I almost forgot the pineapples after four years of no fruit I pulled most of them out but there are still a few near the chook house..
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sinner_gurl
18 years ago
Yes, I agree with the above. I first started out with meyer lemon and a key lime. They are very easy and the lemon blossoms fragrance is heavenly. Also brown turkey fig is easy. I also grow passionfruit in a pot. It is a vine (passiflora edulis.) It needs to be overwintered indoors also in colder areas.
wanna_run_faster
18 years ago
How about mango's? I guess sooner or later they will outgrow their container, but by that time you could have started a couple more on a staggered basis.
Kameha
18 years ago
Hmm...depends on the variety WRF.

Avocado trees are popular houseplants...get the California varieties (like Hass) because those tolerate low humidity.
shiollie
18 years ago
I think the easiest fruit to grow would be the passiflora edulis, this is my first year with them and all I did was water and fertilize and I have fruit going crazy!! I will have to give many away. The flowers on the edulis are beautiful also and very exotic looking.
Gardener972
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks everyone! Just curious about growing avocados. Would a person get an avocado to fruit from the seed of a grocery store fruit? How about a grocery store mango seed? Shiollie, is you passiflora vining everywhere? How do you support the vines?
Kameha
18 years ago
Gardener972, it's highly unlikely to get an avocado to fruit from a grocery store seed...especially if you are growing it in a pot. It takes much longer to fruit and it usually is so horrible it's not really edible.

With mangoes the chance to get good fruit from seed is a bit higher but still highly unlikely.
Gardener972
Original Author
18 years ago
So I take it a person has to buy the avocado & mango from a nursery? I've done some research on the mango for pots and am curious about Carrie. Any other ideas?
bruggirl
18 years ago
Unless you have a place where they can get lots of light and lots of humidity, I wouldn't try Mango or Avocado in pots. These trees can grow to 40' in the ground, so keeping them to pot size would require a lot of root pruning.

That being said, my mother has an avocado she grew from a pit that has been growing in a pot for nearly 15 years, but she never fertilizes it.
jun_
18 years ago
Pineapple guava, you can even plant it in the ground.
Dwarf mango. I have a carrie mango that is 2 feet high and it has already flowered. it grows to no more than 6 feet.
I have an Don Gillogly avocado (bought it from parkseed.com on sale) in a pot and it seems to thrive. they claim it will fruit in a pot in your living room. There are many more.
sinner_gurl
18 years ago
Here's a link for different Avocado varieties. I haven't ordered from this site but I thought it was a good one to see all the different varieties of avocados and growing conditions. I never knew there were so many!

Here is a link that might be useful: avocado varieties
shiollie
18 years ago
Gardener972,Yes they do vine like crazy, but I have put a homemade trellis in each pot that is about 3 ft high and they just love it! The main problem I have is that the edulis and the alato keep grabbing on to each other, I have to untwine them at least once a day.

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