Success and Failure - Citrus, Avocados & more!

In this video, I look at some of our successes and failures with fruit and ornamental trees. This includes many kinds of citrus, avocadoes, tamarillos, cherry guava, etc.
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[@johndouglas1848]

Hey John, I've found that traditional citrus varieties seem to like a weekly saturation when fruiting. I've got a drip setup on my orange and then on the weekend, I'll give it a seaweed feed followed by a proper saturation or the soil. Seems to like it!

[@homesteading]

I am inclined to agree that water may be the key...while it is wet here in Tasmania over winter, the remainder of the year can be very dry. The mandarins and tangelo have irrigation on a timer and this could be factor in their success.

[@CPCahill-g7q]

Hi, wonderful channel, thankyou :) Avocados thrive when they are crowded. Whenever I have planted one 'solo' they languish, so I always plant a lot of annual and mid-story plants around them, on the mainland I generally use plants like bananas, pigeon peas, rosella, sunflowers, papaya, basically plants I can easily cut away if the avo needs more space. If the avo is in the centre of a square meter for example, I would normally have at least 6-10 of these plant growing around it within that square meter, yes I know that sounds really crowded lol, but they love it (as long as nothing is towering over them, just alongside. Hope that helps :))

[@simonstone3336]

Great work again mate 👍 🇦🇺

[@SpYucaipaSoCal]

What’s your soil type. Avocados love loose sandy soil. The finer the sand the better. And you spoke of changing the shade settings. My neighbor has 4 Hass trees. All planted at same time. 2 are in full sun and 2 in the shade of a larger tree. The later look like your babies. The full sun ones are 8 ft tall and about the same wide. They need sun to grow but not too hot. I use a kayolin clay powder on young trees till the canopy fills in paint the exposed branched to prevent sunburn. The powder is sprayed on in a liquid solution and actually lowers temperatures the leaves. I hope this helps

[@honeybacres]

You have some pretty challenging fruit trees for a cold climate there. Nice work on your success. I like your decision to cut down the cypress. I am sure your house will be much warmer on sunny winter days.

[@ESPSJ]

Love these videos, thanks for the upload. My father has two orange trees here in Victoria. They're out of control with growing and how much fruit they produce. He rarely prunes them, the trees are so strong and healthy. Funnily enough he doesn't do anything for them, no fertilizer or anything. The oranges are sweet and very juicy, but also quite potent (great for fighting off colds this time of year). We routinely have fruit all year round, there's even still fruit on them from last season.

[@vwbusguy]

John commercial nurseries use a sugar water solution as a foliar spray on avocado, the sugar is absorbed and is directly related to sunlight as sunlight is turned into sugar, so spray the avocado every day from now until early summer, they will start growing, also they might have wet feet, try to lower soil level just behind them to drain water away. Also 1 kilo of gypsum on each tree will give them the ability to grow wood

[@homesteading]

Thanks for the tip on the sugar spray, very interesting indeed!

[@JaimeBird-n8m]

Looking good.here in west Oz we are loosing our citrus trees to gall wasps.its very frustrating

[@pizzapilgrim6525]

At a job site , we got the ice out of the hose it made a big pile, It's stayed there 2 days. 😄 nice video.

[@atnoahshouse]

I have been wondering about those avocado for some time. Love your property…….

[@artantix2080]

Hey John I have avocado trees and I’m in Melbourne. Hover flies are another good pollinator for Avocado. There are other insects that do the job. I have heard that sometimes in cold weather Avocado flowers open at night. Also to something to consider bees don’t like cold and rainy days.

[@davidlillecrapp2960]

Well done. I don't have citrus myself but my neighbour has lemon and mandarins, at this time of year they are always small and thick skinned (I'm in South Hobart)

[@homesteading]

Yes, this is common in Tasmania.

[@Patchypup]

Probably an Orlando tangello which is more like an orange

[@Alonsel3]

Always such relaxing and informative videos John thanks again.

[@QualityGardener]

Excellent and gorgeous looking Mandarins and Citrus in general. The design with the constant manure from the hens and the corrugated iron walls is a perfect design for citrus. I'm curious if that Tangelo you showed after the Navel is actually the scion? It might be the rootstock that took over, just a thought. That cypress pine is gorgeous! sad to see it go down but sometimes it needs to happen as you mentioned. Look forward to your next video, I enjoy these updates. My friend does as well. 😊

[@homesteading]

No, it's not the scion.

[@Aussiehomestead1965]

I've got most varieties of mandarin trees and find the Emperor is slightly better than the Imperial Mandarin. For yellowing leaves mix urine in 10:1 ratio with a small amount of Epsom salts. For thick skins Google 'Uneven watering'. The tips of the roots are always directly under the edge of the plants canopy so water in that circle. People habitually water the stem of a plant and that's not where those tiny fibrous roots that absorb water and nutrients are located.

[@cheapcharlie7]

Consider grafting branches onto the avocado, rather then the entire plant. Potentially the grafted variety is less suited, based on the growth of the other 2 commercial grafted varieties

[@michaelberglin4355]

Hi John you haven't got boron deficiency? I have had this before in citrus. Cheers Michael

[@MrHeymus]

I’d say prune all the lower branches on the sick trees, try to get them to grow a bit higher to get more sun. Second one looks like this could help, first one is really lacking sun because of shed I’d say and maybe not much you can do there.

[@homesteading]

Shed is on the south side (sun is to the north.)

[@weldagirl]

I have a Lemonade tree and I find it to have much less vigor than the Meyer lemons and tahitian limes that I have growing here (NZ). A spindly type that has taken many years to get going. Beautiful tasting fruit but quite a pitiful looking plant. Is this your experience of it too?

[@homesteading]

No the Lemonade has grown fairly well here - not as much fruit as the Meyer, but still OK.

[@Joseph-yc6qb]

Hi John what temps have you gotten down to in these run of cold nights? We were down to -4 here in tamar valley which we don't usually experience.

[@homesteading]

Lowest temp I have seen here is -1C. What is unusual here is the continuous run of frost... but it's all melting this morning and air pressure is falling...so the rain is coming!

[@LeeJahn-ih9xu]

John any recommendations on what citrus I could grow in Westerway? We get severe frosts here, we are about65 klms west of Hobart

[@homesteading]

What are the base temperatures you get? It may be too cold there, but if you have a sheltered spot I would first try a Meyer lemon or a grapefruit. They need to be sheltered from the wind and have good sun.