What fun to live in a place where you can grow such things! I could live off fruit..... well and bacon.....

Will the trees grow in the barrel? Don't they need to be in the ground? I had a small dwarf alberta spruce in a container and it died after a couple years. The roots grew to the point where there was no media for them to get nutrition.

What is a mamey tree? Good luck with your new purchases. Maybe you'll have to open a fruit stand.

Your backyard sounds like Eden. I wondered the same thing as Pam. How long will trees do well in barrels? Some things do better than others, I'm sure. I was told I could happily grow a fig tree in a half barrel. I've used half barrels for planters in the past. They fall apart after a few years I found. And then become a disposal problem.

Eileen

Lars, I'm curious as to why your lemon tree died - DH says we are losing an orange tree to Asian citrus psyllid. Apparently this pest is doing significant damage world wide.

We bought a fuyu persimmon tree at Moneta. I have to wait five years for fruit, waaaah. I'm sorry your Cavendish didn't work out - we were told Moneta has good customer service and would take care of problems.

Here is a link that might be useful: Asian citrus psyllid

All the trees that I planted in barrels will do well there for their lifetimes, except perhaps for the Cherimoya, but I have a place in the back yard for it, if it becomes rootbound. Citrus trees do very well in barrels, but I will put the papaya and banana in the ground when they roots that are established well enough. Bananas are very hardy, and the one I have has a good root system. I'm not sure how well papayas do with repeated repotting, as they last ones I planted did not survive, but I think that they did not have large enough roots to make it in my hard clay soil. The bananas don't have a problem with it, and I already have an ornamental banana that is thriving.

I found out this morning that cherimoya will only grow in Southern California in an area that is 3-15 miles from the beach, which means that I am in the perfect location, being about 4-1/2 miles from the ocean now. They will not grow in Florida because of the humidity, and they are native to the highlands of Brazil which has an eternal springlike climate with temperatures never straying far from the 60s. San Gabriel (where I bought the tree) is more than 15 miles from the ocean, and so the range might be larger than what the agriculture department thinks.

I have no idea what killed my lemon tree, but I could not discover any pests on the leaves, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with the soil. The rest of my citrus trees are thriving, and so I think it must be that I got a weak tree. I hope the non-dwarf version will do better. I will keep a close watch for the pest you mentioned.

Lars

Here is a link that might be useful: Cherimoya in California

We are new to New Mexico, and bought our house based on the great location right up against the mountains. This spring we have discovered that the trees on our property outside our backyard wall are fruit trees. We picked about 11 lbs of cherries last month. Yesterday DH picked over 60 lbs of apricots. I made jam, chutney and am dehydrating as fast as I can. I'm really afraid that the apple tree which is loaded with branches touching the ground is going to defeat me. Even after we trim back the clusters, it looks like it will have over 100 lbs of apples. Our full-sized freezer is packed to the gills already.

My Meyer is in a container where it's lived for about 8 years. The move stressed it heavily, but it's putting out new leaves and I see some small lemons on it. I'm looking forward to lemon pie this fall.

Cheryl

Pam, mamey is a fruit that grows in southern Mexico and Central America. The trees get to be 20 feet high and taller (the ones I've seen), and that is a bit large for my back yard. The fruit is football shaped, but much smaller - about 6-8 inches at most. The skin is tough and peels off very easily, revealing a deep vermillion flesh and a pointed oblong seed that is easily removed. When ripe, the flesh is very sweet - almost sugary - and the flavor resembles canteloup and strawberry. When mixed with milk or ice cream, it tastes very much like a strawberry milkshake, but no sweetener is needed. I generally eat them by themselves either at breakfast or as a dessert. I've only had fresh ones in Mexico, but you can get mamey ice cream and licuados here. I have a healthy white sapote tree in my yard, but it is not similar to the mamey, although the zapote negro is similar. Don't know when it will get fruit, but I expect some in the next couple of years.

Did I mention that my grape vine is finally putting out grapes? This is the first time it has put out fruit in the three years we have had the house, and the vine was established when we moved in.

Eileen, I think fig trees are way too big to grow in wine barrel planters, which is why they would break through. I selected planter that have very secure looking rings without any rust. I'll have to see how long they last before they break down. I really do not have much choice, since I put the trees on the concrete part of the patio, across from the hot tub and in front of a cinderblock wall that I want to hide. The wall has a climbing fig vine on it, but it has not yet climbed over the entire wall. I'll take a picture of the wall when everything is in place. I have found that trees do better in planters than they do in my poor soil, and they are much easier to feed and take care of this way.

Lars

Here is a link that might be useful: Mamey licuado recipe

I am growing all my citrus trees in containers. My Improved Meyer Lemon was defoliated by red spider mites late last winter, but has bounced back nicely. I also have a Limequat (cross between lime and kumquat) and an Australian Finger Lime. The latter just arrived this week and I just repotted it yesterday.

Citrus is so much fun to grow and even though I bring my trees inside during the winter, they do well in my south facing Florida room.

Good luck with your new trees, Lars.

Alexa

Cheryl, you can juice your excess apples and freeze the juice in plastic bottles. We made several gallons the year before last, and it was perfectly fine in the freezer a year after it was made. You may need to buy another freezer, however! The people who had your house before you probably sold the fruit.

Lars

Sorry to hear about your Meyer lemon tree. I couldn't live without mine. It is a semi dwarf but I have to keep it pruned or it will grow to be over 12 ft. tall. It was here when we bought the place 26 years ago. I had to move it because it was in the middle of a whole area of ice plant and was being buried by it. Later the ice plant died from a frost.

I also have a Eureka which produces few but very big lemons. I use that when cooking with fish. It is not as juicy as the Meyer which I use for my lemon curd, desserts and marmalade. I envy you able to grow all those other tropicals. I am too far north to do so here.

I get so many lemons, I just give them away. I put them in a box and leave them at the end of the driveway. Some people leave thank you notes and once we got a bottle of wine.
Clare

Thanks, Alexa! You may be able to spray your lemon tree with an organic treatment to control the spiders, although I'm sure they are more of a problem when you bring the tree indoors. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the cherimoya because the leaves got some wind damage on the drive back from the nursery. The banana tree got wind damage also, but bananas tolerate wind very well, and I'm not so sure about the cherimoya. The new growth was undamaged, and so I think it will be okay, but I do not have experience with it. I'll have to ask at the California Gardening forum here - they have several threads on cherimoyas.

Clare, my Meyer lemon in Venice never got above five feet high, and it seemed to get some sort of scale on the trunk and limbs that weakened it. Still it put out lots of lemons. I had an organic gardener treat it with something that he created himself, but he would not tell me what it was. That helped for a while. When I don't have Meyer lemons, I end up buying Eureka lemons at the store, and so I thought it would be okay to have that as a backup tree. It would also be nice to trade lemons for a bottle of wine!

Lars

Lars - I would also check the Citrus Forum. Lots of very smart people over there who are very happy to offer advice on container grown as well as in the ground citrus trees. They are the ones that helped me through the spider mite infestation - I ended up spraying the tree with a blast of water them misting with Neem Oil. No sign of those awful little beasties since.

And post pictures of your new babies - I would love to see them!

Alexa

Hi Lars. Do you have OSH near you? They have lots of citrus trees - lots of dwarf trees. I drove by my local store this week and there were a bunch of trees outside.

I like Moneta - I got some fruit trees there and all my floribunda rose bushes as well. Get a Pakistani mulberry - I love the mulberries and the foliage is nice too.

"----freezing chunks of cherimoya (after removing the many seeds) and then pureeing the chunks with a bit of cream. ---"

Good idea. Cherimoya seeds are toxic.
Excellent for making ice cream.

I am looking to plant a pawpaw tree and a yuzu orange tree.

dcarch

Lars, what a wonderful assortment of fruit trees. I'd love to have a greenhouse or sun room just so I could grow a Meyer lemon. Maybe in the new farm house.....

I can hardly wait for that, I'm having Dave cut down the old overgrown orchard and pull the stumps, then I'm planting Seckel pears and Bartletts, apples and plums, cherries and apricots, peaches and blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, more grapes. A REAL orchard!

So all of those citrus trees are self-fertile and do not need another variety for pollination? Or maybe that's why the cherimoya needs hand pollination?

Hooray on the grapes, I have a Canadice that just won't produce, it's 5 years old. The seedless concord can't be stopped and the Muscat at Amanda's was planted by my Grandfather at least 50 years ago, so grapevines can be very long lived and still be productive. I'm working on learning the correct way to prune them.

Enjoy those trees, I'd love a fig but there just isn't a way to grow them here.

Annie

Theres a catalog called Logees they have all kinds tropical,oranges,lemons etc.good company to work with

Logee's is here in Connecticut & they are the oldest continuously operating greenhouse in the U.S. We have been making annual pilgrammages in February for 20 years. They've got, I think, seven greenhouses.

Logee's is famous for their 'Ponderosa Limon' tree planted 110 years ago. The 'Ponderosa Limon' grows fruit reaching 5 lbs. each. That original greenhouse where the 'Ponderosa Limon' grows is my favorite - the tree is surrounded by their orchid collection.

Logee's grows a wonderful selection of tropicals as well. If you love houseplants - you'll really enjoy their catalog.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: Logee's (type Ponderosa Limon in the search box)

Most trees lend themselves to the Bonsai method.
I've got an orange tree that is over twenty
years old, and growing in a 12 inch pot.

Gina, I do not have an OSH that close - the closest one is in WLA on Bundy near Olympic. We used to go there a lot when we lived in Venice, and then we were close to Sawtelle and Olympic and the Japanese shops/restaurants over there. Our closest nursery (besides HD, which is 1.1 away) is Armstrong's, and it's a bit pricey, but I did buy the wine barrel planters there because they were in much better shape than the ones at HD. If you want more rose bushes, you could have some of mine - we've been trying to get rid of them because they are difficult to control, plus they clash with our overall scheme. I've never had a mulberry, and I think I do not have room for one. Don't they make a mess?

I saw yuzu orange trees at San Gabriel Nursery, but I do not know what to do with the oranges. I know you can use the juice in Ponzu, but I find that regular lemon juice and/or lime juice works well enough. My kaffir lime tree now has a lot of fruit on it, and I do not expect to be using that either.

Annie, it sounds like you have a wonderful orchard planned, but it will certainly keep you very busy during harvest season. Right now, only our apple tree seems to get a whole lot of fruit ripe at just one time - the citrus trees produce fruit for most months of the year, which is very convenient. I'm afraid my grapes won't be very sweet because our summers are not hot, but the grapes at the Centinella Adobe were very sweet, and the vines were huge.

I might try the Bonsai method on the cherimoya, once it gets established. We planted that and the Meyer lemon yesterday when I got home from work, and so my planting is done for a while now. Kevin is now used to the idea that we have six wine barrel planters lined up on the concrete across from the hot tub. They significantly increase our planting area, and I had planned to fill that area with some kind of planters from the very beginning. I took pictures yesterday and will try to post some today or this evening.

Lars

Lars, I plan to have jut two or three of everything, so with the "help" of my family members, it won't be so bad. Both the girls like to can and freeze things, as I do, so if anything is left I have three widowed aunt that live within a mile of the farm, and there is my mother and my stepmother. No one in the family has gardens or fruit trees except me any more.

Plus, the State has turned a part of the Manistee National Forest into horse trails, all groomed and sprayed, so we have lots of "horse people" going right past the farm every day. I'll let Makayla and Bud sit in the yard with baskets and sell produce, LOL.

Annie

The mulberry tree does get big, but it isn't messy at all. Armstrong is the most expensive of the nurseries, but they are good for finding exotic plants sometimes.

I have a kaffir too, and last season I made the mistake of tasting one - OMG - it was highly volatile like petroleum or something. Gross. The leaves are great - just takes one leaf to flavor a Thai curry dish.

I'm fine on roses now, no more room, but thank you for the offer.

Here is a preliminary picture of the wine barrels, right after we finished planting the last tree. From left to right:

Hibiscus, Meyer Lemon, Bearss Lime, Eureka Lemon, Blood Orange, Cherimoya

You can see the grape vine at the extreme left. The hibiscus usually has flowers on it, but its best seasons are really autumn and spring. You can also see that I have not swept the floor yet, and so it is littered with dirt and bark. I think I want to clean the barrels a bit also. They are in a more out-of-the-way part of the yard so that they not seen most of the time, except for the hibiscus.

Annie, I wish I could have sold figs when I had them, but they only keep for two days at most, and so I just gave them away. I kind of miss the fig trees now, but they were quite large and very messy.

Lars

Lars, what a nice little orchard you have started there!

I would think that having them in pots would make them easier to rearrange if they didn't like their spot, then I realized how heavy those must be.

I see the grapvine on the left. You could always make stuffed grape leaves...

I know figs don't last, Nancedar tried to mail me some and they were already starting to ferment by the time they arrived, the box smelled kind of like fig wine, LOL. I sure did appreciate the thought, though, and I sent her back some rhubarb in return, it's a bit less delicate so I think it shipped fine.

I love fig jam, though. Jessica first sent me some with vanilla beans and it was delicious, then Nancedar sent me some and I didn't even share, I ate it all myself!

Annie

Annie, I used to make fig jam also, and I added both orange and lemon to it, which gave it a somewhat different flavor that I especially liked. I gave most of it to my father because he would eat it every day.

I thought about making stuffed grape leaves, but these leaves are shaped more like an extreme maple leaf and each leaf appears more like three leaves than just one leaf, making them a bit more difficult to stuff. I might still try with some of them anyway.

The planters are extremely heavy when full, but they are still movable, and we have a dolly that we can use if we want to move them to a different part of the yard. I have to let the soil dry out before we can lift the planter, however. They cherimoya is the only one that I plan to move without taking it out of the planter. I think it might get too tall where it is, but I do not know for sure yet.

Lars

The wine barrels look very nice for planters, but they don't last. Painting helps, but that takes away the natural look.

You can paint them with penetrating epoxy, which is clear, that will preserve the wood for many years. Cure-Rot is one brand of penetrating epoxy.

dcarch

They look really nice Lars. Wish I had the weather in my area where I could grow those. Good luck with all of your fruit trees.

Lars, I remember you made fig jam for your Dad, and that he loved it, he probably still loves it.

those barrels do look very nice and if you treated them with some kind of preservative to keep the wood from rotting they WOULD last longer, but some things are going to negatively affect the plants in them, so I'd be careful. They're lovely, and i hope they grow you a jungle!

Annie

Annie, I will not be treating the barrels with a preservative at this point. I perhaps should have put some sort of liner inside, but it's too late for that now also. I expect the citrus trees to grow well during the life of the barrel, and if the barrel wears out, then I can consider putting the trees in the ground (if I can find space) or else get a new planter. The cherimoya will not grow well in the planter for very long because it makes a long tap root, and so I plan to put it in the ground in about two years, providing it makes it that long. It had weak roots when we planted it, and we should have left it in the pot from the nursery for a few more months, but it was not easy to tell that until it was too late. I planted a bunch of cherimoya seeds, and so maybe some of them will grow. The tree will get fairly large when mature, but I have a spot in the back yard that will accommodate it. I don't trust the soil in the back yard that much, which is why I want to keep it in a planter as long as possible, to give it time to develop good roots.

I should get a good jungle feel if the papaya, avocado, and new banana tree do well. I'm not worried about the banana - they're hard to kill - but the papayas are somewhat sensitive to soil types.

Lars