I'm here! Just taking a break from putting a new vegie patch in for my autumn sowing. Have heaps of seeds lined up. :)

The tomatoes are still doing well, thanks for asking. *winks*

My tomatoes are doing really well too, thankyou. I'll be starting bottling this week. Yes! Pictures soon...

The concrete is in for the greenhouse, up she goes next weekend. Then I can share tales of trying to grow tommies & other veges thru the Winter - and *earlier* seedlings in the Spring.

Tomato mania finished? Perish the thought!

Amanda

What! I thought this was the tomato forum.
Mantis *to pinch a Finbarism, Miffed*

Would white sapotes grow in Armidale do you think? How frost hardy are they?
BTW, there's no need to stop posting just because the word tomato appears. Fruit freaks too are allowed to have their say. In fact, it's valued.

Hahaha, nice one nicefrog! So, do you like tomatoes? *grin*

PP, who's nearly tomatoed out... not quite... still enjoying roasted toms with olive oil, basil and garlic, mmmmmm, and whose latest addiction is sweet chilli tomato sauce as a topping for icecream!

I'm still getting tommies. But I think I'm heading for the first of two Watermelons. All I need is a bit more sun.

ray

I'm growing a white sapote here in southern tasmania...It is going ok, but it yet has to face winter. It can take up to -1 and to be sure I will be covering it and my avocado to protect them from the frosts. So have a try. My white sapote comes from Diggers. It is a self pollinating variety...others need another tree for pollination.

ps where did you get your Ison's muscadine seeds from?

I've never had/eaten white sapote. What does it taste like? What can you do with it? Is it something I should have? :)

All the best for your white sapote and avocado, mercury. Hope they'll survive the winter and come out all the better in spring.

Helen,
I got the Ison seeds from a friendly American. I posted a question on the Fruit & Orchard and a chap contacted me and sent me quite a few.
I also got sent a mix of other varieties and have only just sown them. I put them in the fridge and completely forgot! I now have 6 very healthy muscadine vines. They grow rather more rapidly than I had anticipated. Happily they're deciduous so I can trim them up over winter.
Because I'm in the middle of a move, I'm not sure where my Ison seeds are just at present. If they turn up again I'd be more than happy to send some your way.
I noticed just recently that Daley's Nursery in NSW now offers muscadines.

nicefrog: i am jealous of your white sapote!

ray: thanks for the offer of the muscadines...anytime when you are settled

spatz: I havent eaten white sapote either, but some say they are heaven in a fruit, so I decided to give them a chance down here...I just love pushing the plant zone envelope!

Mercury, I don't know if you remember but I live just across the sea from Tasmania with a very similar climate, anyway here some Sapotes of the "Pike" variety, the picture is few weeks old or so, they are a bit bigger now. I don't think you will have any trouble with getting fruit but it does take some years and some cross pollination (on half? of the varieties). Took me maybe 3 years for flowers on the Pike and another 2 for the pollinator I bought later on (Ortega) to flower and to get fruit set on the Pike. The Pike is about 10 feet tall now and has 40? fruit on it but it's struggling with that much fruit and has grown only about a foot this year which is much less than normal. I'll thin the fruit out next year. Raymondo, some varieties will take -6c or so without damage to the tree, I'm not sure what temps the fruit can handle but if you have warm enough summers you'll see the fruit ripen well before the normal mid Winter to early Spring time. Pike is well known to be one of the worst tasting white sapotes but it's the only one I've tasted so far and it's plenty yummy, so I can only imagine how a good one tastes. This tree would be my first choice for a heavy bearing Winter fruiting tree for Southern Australia (yep it's better than a Citrus :) (much easier to grow for a start) )

{{gwi:2115744}}

Hello tomatoers. I'm champing at the bit for a bumper crop next year(after Spatzbar's incredible photo! still dumbfounded..) Do I leave a good section fallow or can I sew some lettuces etc there in the mean time. Perhaps some blood and bone etc? How early can I start to seed in Sydney and what should I start with?

I usually grow peas and broad beans in the tommy patch over winter, renovating the beds with some cow manure and home compost before tommy time. For a fert, I use a home-made mix of blood and bone and potash in a ratio of 10:1.

I'm in Sydney, too. I tried a timing experiment last year. Traditionally, I'd always put the first crop into the ground mid-September, meaning I started the seeds early- to mid-July. Because last year's winter was so mild, I tried putting the first crop into the ground a month earlier - mid-August - to see whether I'd get fruit any earlier. I didn't. In fact, the first fruit arrived later than my traditional mid-September plantings produced. I put it down to the coolness of the August and early-September nights hampering the plants' development. So I'd recommend planting out in mid-September, meaning starting the seeds in mid-July.

For my first crop, I plant out a mix of early-, mid- and late-season varieties to give me a continuous supply from around the end of November (for the earlier varieties) onwards.

Finbar, how do you go with Broad Beans?
Mine have always been a disappointment, I don't really get enough to make it worth while. I've put it down to temps rising too quickly here, maybe it's milder on the coast, or maybe it's the variety.
I agree with the advise re not putting things out too early, after last years mild winter we had a very late frost that did a lot of damage to my potatoes & would have knocked off the tomatoes if I'd put them out 2 weeks earlier.
I start my tomatoes inside in August & plant them out in September & that seems to work well for Richmond. If you're not sure try staggering your plantings. If you do lose the lot due to over enthuisiastic early planting there are sure to be plenty of spare seedlings available from the tomato evangelists!

My BBs didn't work last season, Sarah. Murdered by something like rust. But I've had great success in other years. I've finished up making BB puree I've had so many. I just poke them into well-prepared soil and leave them. They don't need much attention, and especially not too much water.

My BB's are about a foot high and looking good so far. Picking butter beans and climbing beans and loads of capsicums.
On the tomato front, a Kellogs Breakfast started from a cutting is going beserk in the greenhouse with little fruit all over it. Hope they get to size.

Nicefrog, thanks for posting that pic of the Sapote fruit and tree! Man, they look huge, like quinces... but if you eat them fresh I imagine they are nothing like quinces in texture. Do you eat Sapotes like mango or pawpaw? What is the texture like?

PP

Patrina the texture is like a super ripe Avocado, silky smooth no such thing as fiber in a sapote. But no oil or anything like that, 30% sugar and smooooooooth not juicy but still wet, kinda a weird fruit, something like custard. It's much softer than a mango or papaya, tastes like.... white sapote : ) I don't think there is another fruit that tastes similar. Although based on the smell of the drink, I think Marula fruit from Africa might (from the drink Amarula) by the way that tree should/might?? also grow in the same kind of climate as sapotes. Most grafted sapote trees don't grow very large it also depends on the variety because some weep and some don't so much, in the end they would be lucky to ever get over 30 feet. Seedlings with a bit of upright DNA could pass 30 feet somewhere between 5 and 10 years old and they live for hundreds of years. I've seen a 50 year old one well over 60 x 60 feet, when they are that kind of size you are looking at 3+ tons of fruit a year. I think 80 feet and and a Oak tree sized trunk is the limit though

Just wanted to throw this one back into the middle of tomato season:)

Why? To rub it in that I still haven't got a White Sapote yet? *winks*

Custard Apples sound nice. Might look into those, too. :)

I didn't know there was a tomato called White Sapote!!
Sounds great. *chortle*

Did someone mention tomato mania

HEE HEE hawwhaw weeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!1

Oh bummer, I just remembered - I didn't sow any white tomatoes.