greenhouses, their construction, and growing un-seasonal plants.
I like to grow tropical fruit trees
One cherry makes two beans, about 1/10th of a cup of coffee.
I always wanted to try it, and now that I have I will ditch the plant. The fruit has little flesh and little flavor, and the seeds are rock hard even fresh and have no typical coffee taste. The plant looks nice enough at least
These clone themselves, no need for seeds. I have given away dozens of the babies. Good for Indian cooking
poor production, meh fruit quality, poor "blood" coloration. This was an 8ft tall tree in my greenhouse. It was replaced with some mandarins. Blood oranges are overrated :-/
I'm not sure what type this is, at it was labelled as a white guava, but it is really tasty and large fruited. Grows and produces well in a container
This guy is the likely replacement for the cherimoya if it isn't up to snuff
They call it 'eggfruit' or yellow sapote, I think taste & texture is similar to undercooked white cake
I figure I'll give some context... my brother and I (and father-in-law and some friends) built this from a kit. I hired a guy on Craigslist to excavate, and I bought ready-mix-concrete delivery, but literally everything else we did ourselves. Building concrete forms, managing the pour, insulating foundation, stucco on foundation, assembling the structure, the glazing, running electric+water+gas service, wiring everything, installing heater, fans, thermostats, lighting, evaporative cooling (fogger), etc.
It was the most difficult thing I've ever done but incredibly rewarding. Now I just mess around with plants and stuff.
Again these pictures are from ~2018, I'll post a recent picture soon, now that I have large in-ground trees
This in-ground grafted 'El Bumpo' tree is 3-4 years old and requires regular pruning to avoid hitting the greenhouse ceiling, but has yet to produce any fruitlets until now. Cherimoya unfortunately requires hand-pollination to set fruit, and even worse the flowers & pollen are only viable for a few hours... and I only even bother to try paintbrush pollination when I am already out there and see some fresh flowers.
If this fruit is not fantastic I'm digging this whole tree up and replacing with a Geffner atemoya I already have in a pot that is a better producer, without any hand pollination.
I went out to my greenhouse today and heard the peeping of baby quails. It seems my button quails had a few clutches hatch overnight and my wife and I counted at least eleven babies. A robin seems to have flown in then open door and seems really interested in the babies. I always remember the "birds are dinosaurs" trope and spenta solid half hour chasing him out... the robin really did not want to leave.
