xman,

Thanks so much! I hope someone grows it in my zone. Two have sprouted now. Your area is colder than mine. I'd be happy to send you seeds. I bought 50 and soaked about 9, so I do have leftovers and only want 3 trees.

I may erect mini greenhouses over the two that are now sprouted this winter. Still waiting for the third.

I figure if figs, citrus, macadamias, guavas, avocados, etc can grow here unprotected, the Stenopetala will be fine too, but I will protect till established.

The only reason I want it is because I'm so lazy, I hate stripping the tiny leaves of the Olieferra!

Thanks for your reply!

Lazy Susan

Hi Suzi,

Thank you for your kind offer, but I would like to pass :)
I have about 6 Moringa Olifera trees in 32 gallon trash containers that I drag into my garage every winter along with other tropical trees. I keep these trees in the garage for 3 months under lights. I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and these containers are so heavy that this year I tore my shoulder muscles dragging these in and out of the garage. I swore to myself that I will not get any more containiers that I have to drag indoors. I still can't lift my left hand, so I am sticking to my intentions for now.

I use the leaves of the Olifera from 2 of my trees, I agree it is a pain to strip the leaves.

xman

Here is a link that might be useful: helpful-tips-for-harvesting-Moringa-leaves

xman, could I get some of your extra seeds? beal9299@aol.com

My 2 yr old Moringa Olifera is coming back from dormancy..finally! I hear you xman I do the same and looking to build a container hauling platform on wheels this year.

While it's obviously not warm enough here to grow Moringa outside as a perennial, I grow it as an annual from seed... not much different than growing peppers or tomatoes. I do mass plantings (20-30 if enough seeds germinate) and although I only get 2-3 good pickings, those pickings are large enough to put some aside for winter.

And yes, stripping those leaves is not one of my favorite things, but the soup DW makes with the leaves is.

Several years back, I grew both M. oleifera and M. stenopetala (that year, ECHO sold them both). Xman's observation about the lesser cold tolerance of M. stenopetala is probably correct; it grew more slowly, and had more disease problems than M. oleifera. While the leaflets were larger, there were fewer of them, and I found them to be tougher as well. I never grew it again for those reasons. Hopefully it will do better in a climate more to its liking.

Zeedman, it's awesome you are growing Moringa as an annual in Wisconsin. When do you plant outside? How long is your season? I did some high density planting this year by planting a few hundred trees in a 4' x 16' bed. Here is one bed I have documented with a little video series. I have posted the first video taken in March and last (maybe I'll do one more in this series) taken in December.

I wonder if you could start to get seed pods in Wisconsin if you planted PKM1 seeds. My guess is it's too cold. There is a chance if you started your seeds inside and say in March and then planted outside when it warms up you may get flowers and see some seed pods just start... who knows. PKM1 seeds make a huge difference over standard seeds when trying to grow for seed pods though. Check out my website: www.ahealthyleaf.com for more information on all things Moringa :) Happy Growing!

Mark, I've grown PKM1 here; but even started indoors, my season is too short to get pods... only about 100-110 warm days, nowhere near what you have to work with in Poway. I start the seedlings around April 1st, put them into a solar greenhouse when it gets warm enough (generally around mid-May) and transplant them into the garden when the weather has warmed, somewhere after June 1st.

Large potted plants would be my only hope to get flowers, and it would probably take a heated greenhouse for me to get pods. For several years, I grew Moringa in pots; but the yield wasn't worth the hassle of dragging the pots back & forth. I get a far better yield doing mass plantings in the garden. The trees grow remarkably quickly, unless we have a cool summer.
Moringa in garden

Those high-density plantings look interesting. I've always used 18-24" between plants, but wondered if I could space them more closely, given their lacy foliage. I'll have to try that next year.

Incidentally, I know your climate well. I lived in San Diego for most of the 80's & 90's, and had a garden just inside the main gate of NAS Miramar. I miss gardening in that climate, and wish I had known of Moringa then.

Zeedman, Happy New Year!

Very cool to see what you are doing and to hear about your experiences. Thanks for the pictures - love to see Moringa being grown as an annual crop! Growing Moringa as an annual opens up the benefits to a lot of people living in the US.

If you plant Moringa really close together, like the 4" grid I used, you will likely need to irrigate. I would go with a 6" or 7" planting grid next time. Alternatively you might plant 6 seeds or so at each planting site using your current 18" - 24" spacing. After seeds sprout thin to 3 trees per planting site. This will give you cluster of trees at each planting site vs. one. Since they basically grow as a slender, single stem tree this can work pretty well and mimic the results of a multi-stem tree.

Oh wow, yes, Miramar is quite close!

How tall do your Moringa Trees usually get by the end of your growing season?

Mark, the trees generally grow to somewhere in the neighborhood of 4', plus or minus a foot, depending upon the weather that year. Irrigation is not really an issue... in fact, excessive rainfall is my most persistent problem. Moringa does not like wet feet, and my heavy soil drains poorly. If the soil becomes waterlogged, many of the plants will yellow & die. I learned early on that I should not plant them adjacent to plants which are water hogs, for that reason. Last year I put some plants in the garden, and some in large outdoor pots; the potted plants - which were better drained - were a foot taller at season's end.

The number of trees I plant is limited by the fact that they must be started indoors, and the growing space - while fairly large - is shared by hundreds of other seedlings. There is also the issue of germination rates; commercial seed (from multiple sources) typically has only 50-60% germination, 70% is the best I have had. That rate drops off rapidly after the first year, so I need to order fresh seed each year. I should also note that while I can transfer peppers & tomatoes into a solar greenhouse while nights are still in the upper 40's, such temperatures will weaken and/or kill some of the Moringa seedlings... so they need to stay indoors longer.

I am tentatively planning to use 12" spacing between plants next year, in double rows. That will leave enough room to weed easily. Until now, I have always planted a 32-cell tray, but I'll squeeze another tray full in somewhere.