Anyone into rare or exotic?

[Czech's_chicks]

I just joined the California Rare Fruit Growers and there will be a speaker on Pitaya / Pitahaya / Dragon Fruit that I am really looking forward to hearing.

Does anyone else do rare and exotics? I'm interested in hearing what you have. as for me, the ones that qualify me for this group are:

Persian Mulberry
Ice Cream Bean
Pitaya / Pitahaya / Dragon Fruit
Mango
Guava (2 varieties)
Cherimoya
Banana (2 varieties that I know of)
Passionfruit (Passi. f.)

I'm still adding to my collection and started some cassabanana, which is a vine. There are lots of trees I am interested in, but the expense is what is slowing me down.

Wendy

 

[flgardengirl]

I have about 8 varieties of dragon fruit. The chickens pulled the tags up so until some of them set fruit, I am not gonna know which is which but I do have a list of what I have lol. I have started to write the names right onto their branches with sharpie so the stupid chickens can't mess it all up.
Lots of different passiflora -some edible, some not.
I have to protect my tropical trees in the winter here in NE Florida. I have mango, longan, starfruit, lychee, all kinds of bananas (most are edible varieties some decorative), I went to the farmer's market here and tried a jackfruit and they gave me a few seeds to try so I just recently got those planted. I have a large monstera deliciosa plant and a couple variegated ones as well.
Guava- I think it is a pink guava (hasn't fruited yet),
Cocao - yellow and orange fruited varieties
Vanilla orchid
Papaya -several varieties
Lots of inedible but pretty tropical vines, flowers, trees (like sausage tree/kigelia pinnata), plumeria etc.
Lots of gingers (some edible). Probably more stuff that I forgot to list lol.

 

[Czech's_chicks]

That sounds marvelous!! I have 2 papaya seedlings that I started, but have to go through the long wait to see if I have both male and female. My dragon fruit was never identified so I have no idea what it is but it grows the deep purple/fuchsia fruit. My son-in-law has some seedlings from last years fruit that are about 7" high. I've tried germinating the white fleshed fruit from Vietnam without any luck.

Problem with me, is I have been just growing without bothering to label - now I am regretting it because I want this to be more than a hobby, I want to be self sufficient, too. I'm starting to put together a spread sheet of everything I have to include varieties because I want to get down to the nitty gritty and start following a proper feeding schedule and over the next 200 years or so, I'd actually like to get the whole mess in order and looking good. My yard is a mess.

 

[fluttervale]

I would like to have indoor lime & lemon trees (maybe orange, though I don't eat them) because I think they are pretty. Here in Michigan they could never do well outdoors year round. Maybe once I have a house.

 

[Czech's_chicks]

I would like to have indoor lime & lemon trees (maybe orange, though I don't eat them) because I think they are pretty. Here in Michigan they could never do well outdoors year round. Maybe once I have a house.

There are dwarf varieties and you can also get a 'fruit cocktail' where there are grafts of different citrus on the same tree. I bet that would smell wonderful in the house

 

[flgardengirl]

That sounds marvelous!! I have 2 papaya seedlings that I started, but have to go through the long wait to see if I have both male and female. My dragon fruit was never identified so I have no idea what it is but it grows the deep purple/fuchsia fruit. My son-in-law has some seedlings from last years fruit that are about 7" high. I've tried germinating the white fleshed fruit from Vietnam without any luck.

Problem with me, is I have been just growing without bothering to label - now I am regretting it because I want this to be more than a hobby, I want to be self sufficient, too. I'm starting to put together a spread sheet of everything I have to include varieties because I want to get down to the nitty gritty and start following a proper feeding schedule and over the next 200 years or so, I'd actually like to get the whole mess in order and looking good. My yard is a mess.

You could try some of the hermaphrodite varieties of papayas. I have Red Lady that I grew from seed as well as a few others. The Red Lady stay reasonably small and have both female and male flowers on the same plant. I get my seeds from aloha seed co. they send them in sealed foil packages and I have very good germination rates from them. They are pretty reasonably priced.
I tried some new varieties this year.
http://www.alohaseed.com/

 

[flgardengirl]

I would like to have indoor lime & lemon trees (maybe orange, though I don't eat them) because I think they are pretty. Here in Michigan they could never do well outdoors year round. Maybe once I have a house.

Since you live in Michigan you can probably order from fourwindscitrusgrowers which sells citrus grafted onto dwarf rootstock. They have excellent trees. I used to order from them before I moved to FL now I can't get citrus from anywhere else due to the laws here lol. Luckily there is a good variety here and I have since learned to graft my own.
This is a fun site that you can learn alot from about growing dwarf citrus in pots even if you aren't ready to order anything yet. They have a lot of neat varieties.
https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/index.php

 

[Czech's_chicks]

Thanks for the info. the ones I grew are the yellow papaya. got it from one of the MANY fruit stands on the side of the freeway exits and thought I would give it a try. I've heard of the herms before and am now having a complete brain fart on another plant that has those, too. My firbomialgia sometimes blocks my brain completely!!

What does the fruit taste like? the kids wont eat any of the varieties that we get here in the stores because it either tastes or smells like meat. I have heard there are some that are actualy sweet. The ones I am growing, I was going to use for fodder and maybe even skincare purposes. I'd like to actually have one that I can eat and not have that aftertaste.

 

[gunnarwordon]

elephant ear just starting to sprout...... two leaves so far.

 

[flgardengirl]

Thanks for the info. the ones I grew are the yellow papaya. got it from one of the MANY fruit stands on the side of the freeway exits and thought I would give it a try. I've heard of the herms before and am now having a complete brain fart on another plant that has those, too. My firbomialgia sometimes blocks my brain completely!!

What does the fruit taste like? the kids wont eat any of the varieties that we get here in the stores because it either tastes or smells like meat. I have heard there are some that are actualy sweet. The ones I am growing, I was going to use for fodder and maybe even skincare purposes. I'd like to actually have one that I can eat and not have that aftertaste.

Usually papaya is very sweet. I haven't had any that taste like meat lol. Maybe it is a hybrid Mexican type papaya or not completely ripe? Usually the Mexican varieties get very tall and have large fruits that can sometimes have a fribrous texture to them.
I like the taste of the Red Lady and Sunrise Solo varieties, and Waimanalo (a popular Hawaiian market variety). They also stay smaller. Some of the really large papayas can get so tall that the fruit is hard to reach.

I just noticed yesterday that one of my Jackfruit seeds sprouted

What kind of sheep do you have?