Herself’s Houston Garden

Today I went to a talk given by the owner of Pineywoods Nursery on fruit and nut trees and attracting wildlife. Perfect timing as January is when most of the local fruit and nut tree sales take place and after the great freeze of twenty-ten you’ve probably got a few bare spots to fill in the garden.

While Tree Search Farms is a wholesale only tree seller, I’m told the website is an excellent source of information about local fruit trees. Anything they sell does well here.

Useful things I learned at this talk:
If your fruit tree isn’t fruiting it is usually because winter wasn’t cold enough or you don’t have enough pollinators. To attract bees plant various cupheas (Bat faced cuphea, Cuphea ignea, Mexican Heather ) around your fruit trees.

Fruit trees should be heavily pruned, but are easily infected, use sterile tools.

Tips for proper tree planting in Houston

PineyWoods recommends these fruit trees for the Houston area:
PawPaw – fruit is similar to bananas, spoils rapidly, fruit is high theft item from local critters, you’ll need to be quick

Mexican Plum ( prunus Mexicana ) great for dry areas

Chinkapin (Castanea pumila ) Chestnut tree, grows slowly but very tall

Mayhaw (Crataegus opaca) Hawthorne, loves damp areas

Darrows Blueberry ( Baccinium darrowii) stays compact, good foundation plant, need male and female plants to get berries.

Black Cherry ( Prunus serotina) Tall tree, interesting bark

Grapes ( Ison muscadine ) build a very strong trellis first

Mexican Thornless lime- only hybridized limes grow in Houston, this plant is good for pots

Improved Meyers Lemon – best lemon for Houston area

Republic of Texas Orange – only good orange for the Houston area

Rio Red Grapefruit

Blood Oranges

Celeste fig, brown turkey is best

Beauty Plums – need multiple varieties to produce

Red Barron Peaches

Dorsett Golden Apples

Housi Pear

Fuyu persimmons – a great wildlife attractor if you don’t like persimmons

Garnet Pomegranate

Jan 16th
9 am – 2pm Sale/ 730-2pm Symposium
Fruit and Nut Sale ( pdf flyer ) 3033 Bear Creek Drive, Houston.

Jan 23
Program 8-9, Sale 9-1pm
Fruit and Nut Tree Sale Montgomery County Master Gardeners

And if you miss the sales, just drop by Pineywoods Nursery they have plenty of fruit trees for sale.

* Note: When your fruit tree comes back from the great freeze, be sure it’s your fruit tree and not a Flying Dragon which is the root stock most of our fruit trees are grafted to. Flying Dragon is curvy with large thorns, remove immediately or you’ll be sorry.

This year I collected my first crop of lemons from my Meyer Lemon tree. The tree’s been here three years. The first two years it bloomed early and I lost the flowers to a late winter chill. I find it’s not uncommon for newly planted plants to be a bit confused about flowering times for a few years.

Lemon and all fruit trees need hours of full sunlight. If the tree isn’t getting full sunlight the fruit may not reach maturity before the cold weather sets in. That said I’ve seen lemon trees covered in healthy fruit late December.

Pruning fruit trees is very important for good fruit production. Light needs to reach all the fruit growing on the tree. When I prune the lemon tree I first remove any dead branches. Then I remove any branches that cross other branches. These will rub in the wind and create wounds that may get infested. Third I remove branches growing down, or growing straight up. Branches growing down get shaded and tend to be weak, ones growing straight up at 90′ angles to the branch they will take all the energy from the branch they are growing from. Lastly I thin out any branches preventing light from reaching into the tree.

In time the tree can reach 18′ tall. You’ll want to prune it to keep it low enough to easily reach the fruit.

Meyer’s Lemon trees are named after Frank Meyer who brought the tree here from China in 1908. The trees quickly became popular until the Meyer Lemon Trees came under attack from a virus in the 1940s. Banned in an effort to save the rest of the citrus trees a new version was bred that was virus free and brought back in the 1970s.

Meyer lemons have thicker skins and are sweeter than most lemons.

Once settled in the tree will often bloom twice a year and provide year round lemons.

Meyer Lemon Trees also make good balcony plants and will grow well in pots.

( also known as Valley Lemon in Texas )

Reasons your tree might not fruit:
- Too little sun
- Late frost kills blooms
- Lack of pollination, flowers but no fruit

Warning: No one told me lemon trees have very large, very sharp thorns. Wear thick leather gloves or tread carefully when pruning.

Easily grows from cuttings.

Problems:
- scale – treat with insecticidal oils

Meyer lemons are not considered true lemons being a cross between lemon, orange and mandarins.

While I’d heard of this or that giant vegetable winning awards at fairs I’d never really paid a whole lot of attention. But while I wasn’t watching giant vegetable growing has become a serious competitive sport. I expect much of that has to do with the internet allowing far flung devotes to connect.

If you are looking to connect with other giant vegetable growers you might start with Giant vegetables at the Garden Web Forum

Growing giant vegetables is much like growing giant flowers.
1) Start with a good variety, heirloom is best.
2) Remove all other fruits or flowers so all the plants energy into the one you want to grow supersized.
3) Fertilize regularly
4) Water regularly
5) And a bit of luck is need.

Lebanon farmer grows super sized spud
Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers Organization
Seed man offers giant vegetable seeds
Giant Vegetables ( directions for growing from Redwood Barn Nursery )
Fairly Big Gourd: He’s an expert on growing prize winning gourds

Here in Houston we have two tomato growing times. One starts in mid Feb. and ends when the lows for the day are higher than 70′F, one starts mid Aug. and goes until the nights regularly get into the 50’s.

So I went looking for tomato plants last week but none were to be found. Local mom and pop nurseries have tomato plants the big box stores don’t get it and had none. I settled for some ‘Better Boy’ seeds. They have sprouted and I’m proud to say I’ve remembered to water them daily.

I was talking to Nancy at ‘My Garden Spot’ and she told me she had been saving the seeds from the heirloom tomatoes that you find in the supermarket. I don’t know why that thought never crossed my mind, but it hadn’t. I picked up some heirloom tomatoes and will set aside some seeds this week.

To use the seeds from the heirloom tomatoes, save a few on a paper towel and let them dry out for about a week. Then plant as usual.  I tried this last fall and the plants were much sturdier and better producing than the plants I had purchased at the store.

Later I learned on Twitter from Plan Garden that tomato seeds should be fermented first. Purchase your heirloom tomatoes and let them turn to mush on your counter before removing the seeds. This is supposed to help with germination, and is reported to kill disease that may be present in the tomatoes and strengthen the seeds.

I’m told they will not germinate otherwise, but mine did fine with out fermenting last fall. So try it either way or both ways. I did some poking around and most of the old school gardeners recommend fermenting your tomatoes before removing seeds.

You’ll want to put your fall tomato plants in pots or some sheltered section of the garden. There are always a few unexpected cool days early on.

I also only filled the pots half to three quarters full with dirt. Tomatoes are a vine and benefit from having the bottom covered with dirt as they grow.

This’ll be my first fall crop down here. I’m pleased with the summer crop progress over earlier crops so I have great hopes for these guys.

Nancy also tells me there tend to be less bugs and other problems with her fall crops.

So start your fall tomatoes!