Biwa (Loquat)

Biwa (Loquat) start budding in late October or early November and flower in early December.  

The fruit grows during the months of December and January and ready to pick on early February.

The birds love Biwa, so once the fruit start to appear I cover them with a paper bag.

Biwa have several large seeds and there is not a lot to eat, so you need a lot to really do anything with, but they are tasty. 

This tree is roughly four years old (seeds planted in the summer of 2020) and the second year it produced fruit. I only got a few the first year and a little more this year. I suspect it will continue to produce more and more as it matures. It is in a pot but seems to thrive. I have a tree in the back of the house planted in the ground, and though it is 3 meters tall with a thick trunk, it has yet to produce fruit.  

Japanese Sweet Potato (Satsumaimo)

Still getting a handful of Japanese sweet potatoes (Satsumaimo) every other month. I left these outside to cure for about a month and they were quite sweet. I have some white Satsumaimo outside curing and believe it just about time to bring them in. They should be tasty. 

Potato (Yellow)

 

  (Week 1)

I had two yellow potatoes with three eyes each. I cut them up making six pieces. I planted them about six inches deep with the eyes facing up. Some folks let the pieces dry before planting, but I've never done that. I planted them on 29 January and got sprouts about a week later.

 (Week 2)

 (Week 3)

When I cut the potatoes up one eye on each potato did not have a lot of potato around it, so I planted these two pieces in the center. It took them a little longer to sprout because I do not think they had as much energy.  

 (Week 4)

I removed all the tomato sprouts. I think they were gifts from the birds.

 (Week 5)

To encourage the potatoes to grow larger, there should only be two or three stocks. If there are more, cut the stock about halfway, place it in water and transplant it as soon as you see spuds appear to grow more potatoes. 

 (Week 6)

 (Week 7)

One of the potato stocks flowered, but I could not find a berry. You can technically plant the berry (seed), but it will most likely not grow true and may likely taste differently. I would recommend cloning by planting the potato eye or cutting to ensure you get the quality and taste expected.

 (Week 8)

Because I did not plant these potatoes very deep, some potatoes are starting to pop out of the topsoil. I just covered them with more soil, so they do not turn green.

 (Week 9)

The plants are starting to dye off, so I will harvest them in about a week.

I got bored and decided to harvest the potatoes a little early.

I planted two 200 gram potatoes and got back 1.2 kg, which is not too bad.

I will let the potatoes cure a bit before storing. 

Mikan Orange

One of the Mikan Oranges on my little tree ripen early, but I found a worm damaged it, which caused it. Anyway, I removed the bad part and ate it. It was juicy, but not that sweet since it did not have time to ripen naturally. Sad!

Dragon Fruit

This will be the last flowering this year and got a lot. I pollinated six flowers on 1 Sep, twenty one on 2 Sep and six more on 3 Sep. I hope my pollination was successful. 

My neighbor sent me this picture of the Dragon Fruit at 11:30 pm. This picture is not clear, but she said there were more blooming than this picture shows and they were so beautiful and smelled wonderful. She said she actually woke up another neighbor to see them. Anyway, it has been almost two weeks since I pollinated them and it looks like they all made it. That means I will have 33 Dragon Fruit ready for picking the beginning on October.

Micro Tomatoes

I was able to get a few Micro Tomatoes from a cooking class and planted one.

About a week after planting a Micro Tomato I could see the first sprout.

I dug up the Tomato with all the sprouts and transplanted five of them. This is day four and they are doing well.

Peanuts

The Peanut plants are back and doing well. They are unstoppable. 

Dragon Fruit

This Dragon Fruit plant has tons of flowers. After this picture I thinned them out. I only want one or two fruit per branch, so removed the smallest flowers. Also, I found a fruit on the plant that is growing well. I did not pollinate it, so something was able to successfully pollinate it. Wow!

Green Peppers (Piman)

This Green Pepper (Piman) plant produced a few Peppers, but during the recent typhoon I put the plant in the house and all the fruit and leaves fell off. As soon as I put it back outside it grew new leaves and started to flower. It actually looks healthier, so believe it will produce many fruit.

 

Bitter Melon (Goya, Nigauri)

The typhoon at the beginning of the month destroyed these Goya plants and all the fruit dropped. About a week later I could see the seeds on top of the soil start to grow roots, so was expecting this. I added some fertilizer and Goya plant food and these new plants look super healthy.

Japanese Sweet Potato (Beni Imo)

I planted these Japanese Sweet Potato slips (Beni Imo) on 1 December 2022. These are a white variety, but when baked they will become a beautiful purple inside. 

I removed the vines and set them aside for replanting. 

I flipped over the container to make it easier to remove the tubers. They were quite large, but about half were rotten. We had a typhoon at the beginning of the month and had a lot of rain, which I suspect caused the tubers to go bad.

These are quite large. I placed them outside in a shaded area to cure. 

Asparagus

Though it is okay to pick 50% of the Asparagus the second year, I have left these alone and recently I have noticed the sprouts are getting thicker. Next year they should be perfect and ready to pick.

Guava

We had a typhoon that lasted quite a while (1-7 August). Most of my trees had damage, but the Guava fared well. I estimate 30% of the smaller fruit were knocked off, but many of the larger fruit made it. Go figure!

Canistel

I planted four Canistel seeds in early 2020 and have four trees. Two are in pots and two I planted in the ground. It generally takes 3-6 years to bear fruit when grown from seed. This tree is in a pot and now has buds, but the other three trees do not. 

Canistel generally produces buds between May and July and ready to eat between December and March. This tree has lots of buds on all the branches. Canistel are bisexual and pollinate with the assistance of pollinators. I will spray some honey water on the flowers to help them out, because I really love Canistel. 

Guava

It's Guava season!

I'm getting both red Guava and some Strawberry Guava. 

I picked a few green Guava due to their size. We have a typhoon coming and these will most certainly be damaged.

 

Dragon Fruit

My Dragon Fruit plant has many flowers and this one will blossom tonight; however, I do not have any pollen to pollinate it with so will lose this one. There are more that will blossom them day after nd the next day; unfortunately, we will be hit by a typhoon tomorrow, so not sure I will be able to pollinate them either. Bad timing!

Acerola

My Acerola tree is full of flowers and the cherries are so large and unblemished. 

Every Acerola cherry is perfect and sweet, plus Guava are starting to ripen. This season the Guava are so sweet. 
 

Dragon Fruit

There are so many Dragon Fruit flowers. I have thinned them out and have to remove a few more. As previously mentioned, I do not want more than two flowers per branch. One is best, but no more than two.