The Avacado that never got ripe

I don't remember it ever taking so much time to mature. I've had this one for over a week and it's still very hard. I had to really work with a spoon to extract the meat and don't think I can mash it for guacamole. Decided to give it the juice of two limes, cover it and wait a little longer.

All kinds of info on the Internet on how to ripen an avocado but I didn't think it was necessary because it looked so healthy. Paper bag (where do you find one) and put it in a dark place. Maybe next time but hope there is not a next time. Now I'm hungry :}

Stealing mangoes

Well not really because the owner of the lot next door lives miles away and most of the fruit just falls. Two huge, very old mango trees fill the whole lot and almost overhang my second floor. I have to call CFE (power company) a coupe times a year to cut one tree away from my electric lines.

The first picture is an older one in an orchard but it's basically what I look at from my roof.  I noticed a few were almost ripe and got the "gancho" off the garage roof.  The gancho is just a long bamboo pole (also a hook) with a bag tied to the end for snagging fruit. I got one and Hugo noticed a few more.   Multiple large mangoes was too much for the old bamboo pole and right about mid-point it snapped.  No major damage to the fruit and Hugo says we might be able to get a new "fruit picker" at a hardware store.

Mangoes in nearby orchard

Gancho for mangoes or avocados 

Our score

I did a Google search for "stealing mangoes" and the instances are many and the consequences very serious. Even ran across a game called Steal The Mango which might end in death.  I didn't play it so you are on your own.

Gardening again

I had so much luck with cherry tomatoes last year in these raised beds I had to try it again. Had to pull up and/or transplant a bunch of tropical ornamental plants but this is food that you can eat!! Everything I was growing in buckets made a fast start and then died like they dried up?  Actually the green onions are growing in a bucket but are stunted.

I brought another large bag of coco-peat and mixed it with my compost soil for about 3 inches of good soil turned in to last years dirt.  I'm using that plastic screen over the beds to keep both dog and cat out. Dog like to excavate cool soil and the cat just using it for his bathroom.  So lots of cherry tomatoes on either end, some pepinos (cucumber) in the middle and some green onions here and there. The pepper plant I bought at Home Depot and it's doing well.

Last year the Carambola (Star Fruit) only had one fruit.  Even that was not bad for a tree only a year and a half old.  This year it looks like it may be over 100. There's 4 major branches full of fruit like this and 3-4 branches above filled with flowers.   I may have to support some of them as the full branches droop way down.  Now I have to get the girls to stop eating them green.  Even with the little bit of yellow you see they are still very sour.

The Neem (only one now) is in flower with lots of seeds ready to drop.  Very aromatic with the many small white flowers. Before long I'll either be pulling up baby Neem or trying find places to plant them.   I had thought Neem to be rather exotic but actually it's everywhere in this area.  Even one on the Melaque Plaza.

Now if the Avocado and the Chico Zapote will produce just one fruit blossom.  Both trees are healthy, same age as the Carambola but very slow to develop. . 

Rearranging the garden

Both lots on either side of me are vacant. One is for-sale for too much and the other I met the owner once but don't know who he is. I say that because growing stuff here is so much fun and I just don't have the room with 2 lots. Bananas, limes, star fruit (carambola), Chico Sapote, papayas, sugar cane, various vegetables, flowering shrubs and decorative palms.

The papaya was tired with only small fruit so I replaced it with the small palm that has been hidden under the huge bananas in the back corner.  In front of the palm is the new Moringa which I've been interested in for awhile.  It's grown a few inches there but I'm surprised how tender the "trunk" is.   It will out distance everything around it in a few months but still too young to flower this year I think.   I cut the large sugar cane and shared with neighbors so only smaller ones left.

The second foto was an attempt to show the Star Fruit flowers but they are 3 meters high so couldn't get close.   Makes me wonder how I'll reach the fruit in a few months. The tree is not strong enough to support a ladder.   Will have to consider a pruning plan to keep every thing in reach.  I had one fruit last year and looks like I'll have many more this.

Carambola in the center and higher than the 3 meter wall.   Last Neem in a bucket below it.  Buckets on the left are various veggies.  In the low foreground is my Avocado that has done nothing for 2 years.  It looked sick a few months ago and leaves were weird and falling off.   I sprayed it and all the leaves fell off.   Within a week it had all new leaves and the whole tree was growing like crazy.   Would love to someday have my own Avocados. 

Finally the Laurel tree which used to be totally root bound and less than a meter high when I bought it from a Gringa that was leaving Melaque.  I actually split the pot and have two Laurel plants/trees almost identical. 

Coastal Avocado

Off and on I've been trying to find info about what the nursery guy told me was a "coastal avocado". My little tree is not yet a meter high so I haven't been real excited about it but it seems to be doing better with the rains. I also didn't include a foto but probably posted one in the past.

My interest peaked again when a neighbor said someone has a tree full and we're invited to pick a bunch. In the foto below of the tree you can't see an Avo but it is really full. We used what locals call a gancho to pull the fruit down. It's a long bamboo pole with a basket on the end, same tool that is used to pick mangoes. So we got about 10 with 4 for me. I've been using a gancho to get fruit from my roof off the two large mango trees in the lot next door.

So with all my Internet searching I find there are three basic avocado families; Mexican, Guatemalan and Antillean (West Indian). Antillean, which probably originated along the Pacific coast in Central America, yields well in lowland tropical situations and warm subtropical areas such as southern Florida. The Antillean also has smooth skin and is more pear shaped than round. The Mexican-Guatemalan hybrids originated around Atlixco in Puebla State where avocados have been traced back 7-8000 years. The Atlixco avocado was the one introduced into California as a 'Fuerte'.   Sounds to me like it's highlands vs. lowlands avocados.

Avocado tree

Our avocados

Many types of avocados

Gancho for mangoes and avocados

Plants and trees like the winter weather

Well they must is all I can figure. The compost pile is sprouting tomatoes, a melon and baby Neems. The lime trees were quiet for almost two months and now are full of blossoms. My avocado tree that has done almost nothing since I got it is suddenly sprouting new branches and leaves.

I transplanted the avocado to a more open area and realize that probably shocked it but that was about a year ago. One major branch died and what was left was way lopsided. I trimmed it today to balance it out a bit.

Lime trees are very unruly, with branches going in all directions. The best I can do is cut some of what I call 'suckers' that grow straight up and look to be non fruit producing. I doubt I can keep them at standing on the ground picking level but so far so good.

I'm gonna have a bunch of baby Neem trees if I can get them planted in pots in a month or so. They are just coming up from dropped seeds from their parent tree which is now about 5 meters high. I might offer a few to neighbors if they look healthy.

My 2 Cherry tomato plants are producing 20 or so a day but the neighbor kids are eating them as soon as they turn a little red (with my permission). The cilantro and sweet basil are doing fine. Herba Buena (mint) and Romero (Rosemary) are new and some radishes and chives are just popping up. Gardens are good

Avocado coming alive

Lime blossom

Largest neem baby

More neem

Tomato in compost

Call me a Gardener

Well I'm trying. Been collecting dry material from the yard and around the neighborhood, finally found a place I can buy cheap cow manure and am building a compost. Four bags of manure (like below) for 20 pesos ... I gave him 40.  Mainly I'm just short of plain soil to add to the mix. I gained a bit of soil today digging for new plantings and using compost for fill.    I can enrich the soil for plants that are already in but eventually want a few raised beds for vegitables and need decent composed fill.

I planted one banana a few weeks ago but it suddenly turned brown so I got about 5 more from neighbors. Left the old one in to see if it would recover. This time all with compost fill and fertilizer. Should be the very small sweet and the Chiquita style

The other trees are from a florist up the coast. Very glad my Avocado is coming back after a sloppy transplant. There was nothing but the "trunk" a week ago.

There are too many kinds of Sapodilla/Zapote/Sapote to figure out what kind of fruit this tree will produce ... but supposedly it will reach 20-30 feet some day. just have to keep it away from my dog who likes to excavate everywhere I water.

The Almond tree in front on the street survived hurricane Jova (had to plant deeper) but I'm not sure it will survive the neighbor kids. Two branches are missing on the lower level. Almonds (almendras) are an odd tree and not really a favorite but so many people use them on the street for shade I thought I'd give it a try.

Start of compost

Two lime trees in the back of the garden

New bananas along with 3 more

Almond on street that kids keep breaking branches

Chico Zapote caged from dog

Star Fruit

Coastal Avocado

My new fruit trees

Well the almond tree (almendra or almendro) is not exactly new since I've had it for about 6 months. The winds from hurricane Jova knocked it over and I replanted it a little deeper. Many almendra trees went down during the hurricane. Now that the storms have passed there is a new threat ... the neighborhood kids. The tree is planted just outside my sidewalk on the street to eventually shade the house. This morning the kids were beating at it with a stick. Why they would want to do that I have no idea ... but who knows what goes thru the mind of a 5 year old.

The foto below is not mine but an example of what mine might be someday. You can almost see the layering (levels) of the branches. I always thought you had to "Bonsai" trim them ... but that's the way they grow.

So that got me thinking that I just bought 3 more trees last week at a great vivero (nursery) up the coast in Emiliano Zapata. Huge place and really worth a stop if you pass that way. The three are; Carambola (carambolo) or star fruit, Chico Zapote and a coastal Avocado (aquacate).

I had the idea that a Chico Zapote would be a small to medium sized tree but as you can see below they can get huge. Gonna take some trimming. The Carambola looks just right and I love the fruit when it's fresh. I wasn't paying attention when I planted the Avocado and put it in the wrong place. It's now in transplant shock so I hope it survives.

Almendra (almond) tree

Carambolo (star fruit) tree

Huge Chico Zapote tree

Man, I got bugs

As if the leaf cutting ants weren't bad enough - now I have these, whatever they are. They're in the avocado tree. Not all the way up (big tree) but on the trunk about head high. With the 1000 or so tightly grouped it looks like a nest just burst - or do they swarm and stick together ?? Not sure they are old enough to fly but look like winged creatures to me. They had started eating leaves on a small branch so I sprayed them.

BTW ... the ant powder I've been using on the leaf cutting ants works but without bodies I can't tell if it's just chasing them away. While I was in Melaque for a week my house keeper ran into another nest and poured a 1/4 bottle of Cloro (bleach) down the hole. Hundreds of bodies lying around when I came back

I'm tempted to call them aphids .... but this is Mexico

So .... they are stink bugs.  Not much to worry about.  They do eat fruit but I have no fruit now.  They also may stink but I didn't smell anything. Neighbors recognized them because they've had them