Winter Tomatoes in Fl. (Plus veggies and garden pics)

[MsCowpea]

Self-inflicted damage. Beyond stupid.

Had an inground Carolina Reaper with what looked to be magnesium
and possibly micronutrient deficiencies which can be quite common
in high pH soils. Fertilized with some organic fertilizer but then ran across a small plastic bag labeled micronutrients in the
shed (recommended by a fruit tree nursery when I bought a tree).
So I mixed some up and applied to Carolina Reaper.
BUT, THIS IS THE BAD PART.
Unfortunately had some left over and as it was raining (so it would be diluted even further) I thought maybe my
potted scotch bonnets could benefit from it. Most of them didn’t need anything at all! What was I thinking?
I had 10 pots.

In one night leaves went black and spotted. One beautiful plant now looks like hell.
Years ago I made a similar mistake with micronutrients but didn’t learn my lesson. Very unforgiven —you need very very little.

SCOTCH BONNET: This plant didn’t need anything but I stupidly spritzed it a bit.

92F0990F-C778-4197-BA51-62F1DBDFF649.jpeg

TWO days later.

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This one had slight magnesium def. but still looked good . I thought the micros wouldn’t hurt and I wanted to empty the container.
The very next day the leaves were ruined. There were no spots on the leaves prior to my messing with it.

D4838B1A-6ADF-49E9-8AB4-0954715B85C3.jpeg

I normally don’t have them going now anyway - I just wanted some nice big plants to plant in the fall IF I could get them through wet rainy summer. Guess I will just cut them back and also plant new seeds.

[Ginger2778]

Self-inflicted damage. Beyond stupid.

Had an inground Carolina Reaper with what looked to be magnesium
and possibly micronutrient deficiencies which can be quite common
in high pH soils. Fertilized with some organic fertilizer but then ran across a small plastic bag labeled micronutrients in the
shed (recommended by a fruit tree nursery when I bought a tree).
So I mixed some up and applied to Carolina Reaper.
BUT, THIS IS THE BAD PART.
Unfortunately had some left over and as it was raining (so it would be diluted even further) I thought maybe my
potted scotch bonnets could benefit from it. Most of them didn’t need anything at all! What was I thinking?
I had 10 pots.

In one night leaves went black and spotted. One beautiful plant now looks like hell.
Years ago I made a similar mistake with micronutrients but didn’t learn my lesson. Very unforgiven —you need very very little.

SCOTCH BONNET: This plant didn’t need anything but I stupidly spritzed it a bit.

92F0990F-C778-4197-BA51-62F1DBDFF649.jpeg


TWO days later.

2326D9BB-C5DF-4B8F-B713-C87F2C67C13A.jpeg

This one had slight magnesium def. but still looked good . I still thought the micros wouldn’t hurt and I wanted to empty the container.
The very next day the leaves were ruined. There were no spots on the leaves prior to my messing with it.

D4838B1A-6ADF-49E9-8AB4-0954715B85C3.jpeg

I normally don’t have them going now anyway - I just wanted some nice big plants to plant in the fall IF I could get them through wet rainy summer. Guess I will just cut them back and also plant new seeds.

Wow! I feel your pain! Does that stuff have oil in it? It almost looks like my tomato,leaves did when I sprayed them with neem mid day. I'm so sorry!

[MsCowpea]

Naseberry (sapodilla).

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Have several non productive mango trees but did get about 40 mangos from one tree. Then picked up 40 more pounds from a piano teacher out of work because of shutdown. Really delicious nam doc mai. And got bagfuls from neighbor so they have been frozen. I dried some but
not a fan of dried mangos-only like them fresh. I know, something wrong with me. Waiting for a big crop of avocados if all goes well. (I don’t like them either but makes us popular to give them away.
DH eats a whole one every night for dinner when they are in season. He’s a Huge avocado fan. ).

These are not our main avocado tree which produces 100s —not sure what type these are.

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[MsCowpea]

You know, it does look like some type of oil spray damage but no, there was no oil. The bag had been repackaged into small bag and only said micronutrients and 1 tbl per gallon. But as I said sold to me for INGROUND fruit trees so should have used much much less. I sprayed them all at once and then opened the sprayer and emptied what little was left on some of them. Obviously the rain didn’t make a difference. It was a painful lesson.

[Ginger2778]

I adore sapodilla. Going to have to plant one. That is a very beautiful tree.
Mangoes- I saw a video by Dr. Campbell, a big breeder and grower of mangoes, he showed tipping to get better production. The idea being that when you remove the terminal bud cluster, several of the leaf nodes each grow new bud clusters. More buds = more chances for fruit. I've been doing it and it works really well.

[MsCowpea]

I have taken several workshops with Dr Campbell and other fruit tree experts at Fairchilds. All to no avail. Also did one with Dr. Crane at TREC in Homestead. I have watched a million videos on pruning
mango trees and was tempted to hold a gun to Derek’s head to get him to watch too. He did watch some and SAID HE DOES NOT BELIEVE
IN PRUNING LIKE THAT. Now Campbell does want to keep his trees very small so I found videos where they aren’t pruned so severely and he still
doesn’t believe in pruning. I have shown him professional groves in the Redlands . No dice. DH’s branches break on his huge avocado trees as they are so laden with fruit so he builds huge, heavy wooden ladders to hold up the branches. (Also you will break your neck picking avocados 30 plus feet).
Now the avocados produce no matter how big they get but the mangos do not. Plus now they are very shaded on one side.


He thinks he gets more fruit by letting them get big and the mango trees that don’t fruit is not due to lack of pruning.

We now have several young trees that belong to ME , so I will keep them pruned.

Sapodilla produces fruit much faster than other fruit trees. We have 4 different varieties but foolishly let the labels fade so don t know what is what. It is one of my favorite fruits.

http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/var ... eference-5

[MsCowpea]

Avocados

http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/var ... eference-1

Mangos (some that they carry)

http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/var ... eference-4

[MsCowpea]

Marsha, showed DH your pics of your mango trees and told him you prune your trees. He was impressed with all the fruit so maybe he will
reconsider.

[Barb_FL]

Sorry to see your pepper plants; but maybe they will come back since their roots are probably intact.

----
Marsha - does a mango tree ever get past the point where it can be pruned? Do you prune your big Kent? I would like to prune my Kent after the season if it is possible.

----
So I think I have a new tomato ailment on some of my newer but not new plants. The leaves are tiny / plant is stunted - like TYLCV but it's not because no whiteflies, no yellowing, just little leaves and super brittle stems. Has minimal fruit set, flowers break off easily. I think it is little leaf disease but it could be anything. Except that fruit that does set, is fine and not distorted. I've had some plants that were fine and vigorous but succumbed to the little leaf too. At first I thought it was herbicide damage from plants being on the pool deck too long, people home for the pandemic, etc. But when other plants got it, I changed my view. Any ideas? I'm trying to learn to identify problems.

I think the water in the EB reservoir gets too warm; I remember years ago when I use to grow in the EB on the pool deck I would always put lids in front on the EBs so they wouldn't get warm.

This week, I took down a tomato plant in an EB - it had tons of fruit but started dying and when I pulled it out, it had nematode damage. If it wasn't nematode, it is severe root rot that looks like nematode. The EB is on weed barrier. Plant was doing great, some severe wind damage, then started not needing the reservoir filled.

I'm so ready for this season to be over; I just want to learn from issues so keeping plants around to see if I can figure it out.

----
Does anyone have plans for the fall season? My #1 goal is to have less plants.

[Ginger2778]

Marsha, showed DH your pics of your mango trees and told him you prune your trees. He was impressed with all the fruit so maybe he will
reconsider.

There's hope!

[Ginger2778]

Sorry to see your pepper plants; but maybe they will come back since their roots are probably intact.

----
Marsha - does a mango tree ever get past the point where it can be pruned? Do you prune your big Kent? I would like to prune my Kent after the season if it is possible.

----
So I think I have a new tomato ailment on some of my newer but not new plants. The leaves are tiny / plant is stunted - like TYLCV but it's not because no whiteflies, no yellowing, just little leaves and super brittle stems. Has minimal fruit set, flowers break off easily. I think it is little leaf disease but it could be anything. Except that fruit that does set, is fine and not distorted. I've had some plants that were fine and vigorous but succumbed to the little leaf too. At first I thought it was herbicide damage from plants being on the pool deck too long, people home for the pandemic, etc. But when other plants got it, I changed my view. Any ideas? I'm trying to learn to identify problems.

I think the water in the EB reservoir gets too warm; I remember years ago when I use to grow in the EB on the pool deck I would always put lids in front on the EBs so they wouldn't get warm.

This week, I took down a tomato plant in an EB - it had tons of fruit but started dying and when I pulled it out, it had nematode damage. If it wasn't nematode, it is severe root rot that looks like nematode. The EB is on weed barrier. Plant was doing great, some severe wind damage, then started not needing the reservoir filled.

I'm so ready for this season to be over; I just want to learn from issues so keeping plants around to see if I can figure it out.

----
Does anyone have plans for the fall season? My #1 goal is to have less plants.

Mango trees do not get to that point. You can always trim them. Rule of thumb not more than 35% of a fruit tree canopy at one time, but people routinely pug a poor or unproductive variety and top work it all the time. You can hatrack mangoes too, they come back.

Barb, please take photos if your little leaf problem. I really want to see it.

[MsCowpea]

Barb, problems can be so aggravating especially when you don’t know what is the cause. Echoing what Marsha said : do you have any pics and how many plants are effected at this point. Just a few or all of them? I agree 100 % that you just want to know what it is to avoid in the future.

Do you think the root rot you saw on one box could be happening in the other containers that have the little leaves? If the roots are damaged no amount of fertilizer will help with the uptake. But I would think you would see yellowing as well so that doesn’t make sense. Do you have a cheap moisture meter to stick into the earthboxes and see how wet they are and do they stay that way. Do you have pictures of those rotted roots? I can have nematode damage at the end of the season in the ground but the roots never look rotted, just swollen and bumpy. Creamy white color. How did
the mix look?

I think I have seen that little leaf disease a few years back but not sure if it was the genuine article.
Right now I am seeing very small leaves and light green color developing on that large pepper in the green container that just 3 weeks ago looked great. Looks to be a nutritional issue but I can’t seem to correct it. They stay small.

Are you near Univ of Fl. in Gainesville? If you truly have that little leaf disease , for $40 they would professional and accurately identify whatever disease you may have. You don’t need to do that for diseases that are recognizable but helpful if you don’t know what it is. Way better than extension office which can be really hit or miss. I go to TREC which is diagnosis lab in Homestead.

I was glad when the season ended and I regret starting all the pepper plants so soon- wish I had given it a rest for a month or two.
And yes, every year I say I want to cut back on tomatoes, in order to better take care of what I do grow.


Little leaves on pepper plant. The plant has obvious nutritional issues ( not seen so much in this photo ) that is hard to correct. Maybe pH of mix is effecting nutrient availability??

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I have tried to correct with epsom salt and still regularly fertilize but nothing yet has helped.

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[Barb_FL]

I took pics this am and didn't want to impose on this thread so started a new thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1181

I think the first picture is really a different issue than the other 3 since they were all great until recently.

----

[Barb_FL]

On the experiments with Coco Coir Slabs, I kept one going and it was a huge producer of perfect tomatoes. Then ALL of the tomatoes started getting BER. The entire time I fed the plant Masterblend formula. The plant was strong and had no problem setting fruit.

I read just giving it more Calcium Nitrate doesn't work, so I made the masterblend solution stronger (more of all 3 ingredients) and the new tomatoes were eventually BER free.

My current best plant (looks and quality fruit) from September is grown in a rockwool slab. Unfortunately, ii's in a really bad area for wind.

[MsCowpea]

It wouldn’t have been a problem but I will check out the new thread.
And at least more people into plant problems will see it there.

[Ginger2778]

This is a very excellent diagram of a mango tree with several ways to prune, and what happens when you do. From a mango group I am on at facebook.

Screenshot_20200531-223727.png

[MsCowpea]

Thank you Marsha,

I will take some time and study that.

[MsCowpea]

Lychee. I don’t mind the height on these trees as they look spectacular. Lychees are a beautiful tree. Plus I like them low to the ground. Once had the entire tree covered in blossoms and bees. The bee humming noise was unbelievable crazy loud. Lychee trees are irregular bearers and you do need to clip off the end of the branch. The lychees are excellent frozen and make a healthy treat that way. Mini fruit popsicle. But they are not everyone’s cup of tea.

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Took a class on grafting a preferred cultivar onto hardier rootstock, Everybody got a canistel (egg fruit tree) to graft. Came home with a tiny tree. Graft took. Here it is years later. This is the first year it has a lot of blossoms. Very weird tasting fruit though.

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Canistel blossoms cover the whole tree.

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My favorite flowering tree. QueeN crepe myrtle.

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I really like the ‘jungle look’ but decided my prehistoric pothos was killing (or may kill ) two large oaks by the house. The vine
was literally taking over the whole tree and stretching 30/40 feet to the very top. Getting too many dead branches.
I am hoping just sawing the pothos roots in half will kill the massive plant . Seems to be working as on one oak the leaves are turning yellow.
Sad though as I loved the look on the oaks. Same vine is on our black olive trees but
it doesn’t look as nice on those trees as it did on the oaks. Those vines can stay as the trees are all pretty ugly. Damaged repeatedly by hurricanes.


Oak

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Fruit trees, sadly drop a lot of fruit . As they can’t sustain all the blossoms/fruit that form. You still get 100s and 100s of fruit on a productive tree. Heavy wind and rain the other day left these on the ground. Many,many more scattered about. Avocado.

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Forgotten pineapple.

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[MsCowpea]

Misc.

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Cover crop in vegetable garden

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[Barb_FL]

Beautiful pictures. Is that a huge banana bunch in the 2nd to last picture?

Is your area getting pounded by rain all week? The banana tree will be loving that.

So sad to lose all those avacados. Are they Haas?