Mango Is Fruiting

It has been awhile since my last update due to a busy life. However, after reading what Bryan Dyson was speaking in one of the world shortest speach, I realise there are more things to do then just works. So, take five from work and here I am.

My mango tree is producing loads of fruits. I learned that baby fruits need to be protected from insects so I used lemon grass juice to spray the fruits when they are tiny. I can not confirm the result as I have not yet harvest the fruits but improvement is seen where fruits are growing bigger than last batch when they fell. Finger cross this time.

Besides mango, my ciku tree is growing well but fruits won't stay even I have tried spraying with lemon grass juice. Something has gone wrong somewhere and hope I will find it out soonest possible.

I Actually Bought A "Pair" of Papaya Plant

A few months passed and the two papaya plants that I bought from UPM, Serdang have grown up to a stage I thin kshould be equivalent to teenagers. The boy papaya has the male flowers and grown taller than the girl papaya. No flowers are seen yet.

I Snapped A Fruit Panikle!!!

I was looking at my mango tree yesterday and trying to pull the panikle down a bit because I saw some yellowish on the surface of the tiny fruits. Then it was snapped!!! OMG!!!
I wonder why the panikle was so fragile I don't remember pulling it hard? Perhaps it is like that. Who knows?

Mango tree Updates

The panikles I mentioned before were about 8 inches long yesterday. There are tiny mangoes on them. Hey, the baby mango fruits are sphere! And there are hundreds of them! How I wish all fruits stay...but any logical people will say this is not possible.

However, besides the two panikles I saw a few panikles are coming....WOW! How exciting!!I couldn't stop imagining my mango tree branches are bending down because of the weight of the fruits it has produced.

Anyway, I can only do what I am best at: wait and see.

Mango Tree is Flowering

At first I thought I should write Mango Tree is Fruiting but then I realised I have not seen the fruit yet so better not. After a few weeks since the flushing of leaves, it finally produces something not leafy. A closed monitoring suggests that this time it mustn't the leaf again by judging the shape of the sprouts. They were about 4 inches long yesterday (3 days after I first spotted them) and they certainly not the leaf. I learnt that it is called panicle. It is the 3rd stage in mango fruiting cycle. The first stage is the flushing where many new leaves suddenly pop up. The 2nd stage is when you see nothing is happening; the tree is in a rest mode. It is also called dormancy period. It is thought that the leaves are harvesting the sunlight to their maximum during this period and so the carbohydrate level is on its maximum after this period. This is the preparative step for the next stage: flowering and fruiting. The number and the size of the fruit my mango tree is producing depend largely on how well it stores the energy during the dormancy period. I should b e able to answer this question later.

Still No Flowers/Fruits

Ai, been hoping for blooming but my mango tree just doesn't produce any flower!!
Plenty of new leaves though! What can I do? ask uncle google? Well, when I have time. Let's wait and see at the moment.

Mango Tree Update

My mango tree was showing sign of growth as mentioned earlier. I can now confirm that it is doing well as new leaves are seen at the end of a couple of the branches. I was a bit surprise on the speed these new leaves are growing; it must be ~3-4 inches over night?

These are my ocra plants. Three of them in the photo. There are two more in my little garden. They are much taller than they are in the photo and it is time to harvest.

Some Pictures

This is my longan tree and this picture was taken a few days after planted. You can see that the fruits are still small.

Sooting New Plants

I found out a couple of new sooting in a pot that I planted some pear and grape seeds. The plants are now standing 2-4 inches tall . Their leaves and sterns are brown. I think they must be the pear seed as I remember I sowed more grape seeds but only a few pear seeds. I will take a photo of it and place it here.

No, no ....I was wrong, the new baby plants are mot likely from the longan seeds I planted together; I have totally forgotten them! There is one similar plant rising from underneath my longan tree where I did not sow any other seeds but longan. That reminds me!

Update: Mango Tree

Finally, after "cangkuk" the soil around my mango tree (the 1st one, I have two now, the other one is in a pot), the setback is over! I can see light green new leaves is produced even though they aren't looked like leaves, just yet. I shall see if they are really leaves in a couple of days. Who knows they might be the fruits of mango? That is even better!

Another link

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/longan.html

This link tells us almost everything about longan, from history to nutrition facts. Have a look!

A link about longan.....

http://www.freshmark.com.my/about.htm
The above link is a company website called the Fresh Mark, located in Kedah. The main crops are longan and rose apple. According to the website, their longan trees bloom in May/June and harvest in Oct/Dec every year. This is slightly different from here. There are two longan trees in my Taman and they both just over the harvesting period. If the time taken from blooming to harvesting is 5 months, that means my longan tree started blooming in Feb 2010. Let's wait and see if I can see my longan flowers in 7 months time.

One longan fruit weighs 17.8 gram

I brought my longan fruit to my laboratory today just to check the weight of the fruit and it weighs 17.8 gram. That means 56 fruits make 1 kilogram. My longan tree has had 15 fruits in total when I bought it or equivalent to 267 gram, slightly more than a quarter of kilogram. I will keep a record and see how much I can get for the next session.

Yet Another 5 Plants

I must be crazy that I bought additional 5 plants making the total of tree within my house compound 9. This time, it was two papaya (2'), one mango (3'), one mandarin (1.5') and one lemon (1.5') that came home with me. I bought them because they are cheap (RM5 per plant) and they are from a reliable source: UPM Serdang. Having bought the plants, I spent RM 20 on soil and RM 60 for 2 big pots. One big pot was planted with the mango tree but the other one is vacant. One of the papaya was planted at the back (the setback) of my house. The lemon was planted in a medium pot that I bought from Tesco sometime ago. The mandarin was in a medium big pot that I obtained from a closed down factory FOC.

New Plants

Two weeks ago, I bought three small plants from the same supplier. The plants are two rosemary and a basil. They are still in the pots they came with and I have not used any of them for cooking just yet. I am now planning for a medium tree to be planted just outside my windows in order to block the sunshine from entering my house during the first half of a day.

My Longan Fruits are ready!

I was amazed at how quickly my longan fruits ripened. I am also amazed by the taste of the longan fruits; the taste of freshness, natural and satisfaction. It was slightly more than a month since I planted the longan tree or about a week after my parent came to my house. My mum was right: the best way to tell whether the longan fruits are ready is by smell. Till date, we have had 4 fruits. There are more to come! More importantly, my son loves the it!

My longan fruits are almost ready!

Went to sniff my longan fruits this morning before work and to my surprise I can smell the fragrant of longan! Really excited!

My Parent's Visit

My parent came to my house last weekend. My brother took them here using his newly bought used car; a Honda ???. I can't remember the model of his car as it is not in Malaysia market instead, it was an import from Japan. Even the on board nevigator displays Japan's map!

Back to my parent's visit. My mum was interested in my little garden. I showed her my 4 fruit trees: mango, ciku, guava and longan. Apparently my longan tree is the same species my brother is having in his garden. I told my mum I have no idea whether the longan fruits are ready to eat since they are quite big. My mum said, the best way to tell whether the longan fruits are ready or not is by using our nose. Yes, our nose! Just sniff the fruits, if smell the longan fragrant, they are ready. Simple!

Longan and guava

Visited the same nursery again yesterday and this time I forked out RM 100 for 3 items: one 6' tall longan tree (RM75), one 3' tall seedless guava tree (RM15) and 4 bags of "good soil" for RM10. At first I was looking for laichi but the guy said laichi isn't suitable in malaysia so he introduced longan which according to him the fruit will be big and the seed is small. 'sweet or not?' was my question to him. He answered: 'very sweet'. So, deal! I was happy with the plant because it has bear quite a number of fruits and they are about the size of guli. Pretty happy with that actually. At home later in the evening, I deepened and widened the hole that I already made a few days ago, poured a bag of so called "good soil" in the hole, followed by the longan tree. I emptied another three bags of soil surrounding the based of the tree and applied some pressure to consolidate the soil.

I did the same to the guava tree. Soaking the soil with plenty of water was the last thing I did before I went in my house for dinner.

My Mango Tree Not Doing Well

Nearly two months since I bought my mango tree and planted it on my home soil no new leaf has been seen. Don't even mention the flower! Let's wait and see its progress.

My ciku tree, contradictory, doing very well. New leaves sighted almost every way and the flowering was just too good to believe. Unfortunately, polinated flowers did not stay. It is sad to see young fruits fell. So far, only one fruit managed to stay and it was the one came along with the plant two months ago. It measures around 1 cm across and I hope it will keep growing.

My Very First Fruit Trees

I bought two fruit trees in May 2010; one Ciku tree (or sapodilla) and one mango tree from a plant nursery opposite RRIM Sungai Buloh main entrance. It costs me RM 40 for the ciku and RM75 for the mango. The price reflects the height of the plant; the mango tree was double the height of the ciku tree. I planted the ciku tree into the land on the side of my house a few days after I bought it. The mango tree was fruiting well at the time I bought it but for some reasons, the fruits all fell down prematurely. I think that is becasue I left the tree on a concrete floor for too long (approximately 1 month). Even with the poly bag still on and I watered it every evening the heat from the concrete floor might have dried the water out the limited amount of soil in the poly bag.