Hi, Ajaysr5! That's alot of mango fruit to look forward to. Yummy yummy yummy!!! Your trees look spectacular especially with the heat wave on us too. :-) Happy gardening!

Congrats Ajay...some awesome mangoes you have to look forward to...Unfortunately we're done with Mangoes in FL, but glad you guys in CA are just now getting to enjoy them. Great pictures, cute little hand on those huge leaves!

Great pics of your mangoes but the leaves on your honeyheart cherimoya are decisively large and very impressive! Did you use any fertilizer? Also, love the cute little hand.
Are you closer to LA or Sacramento?
Bo

thanks guys,that little hand is my 2year old little hands.

Bo,I am in Los Angeles(90745),I think big leaves are characteristic of honeyheart cherimoyas.the only fertelizer I used in all my tropical plants are fish emulsion.I also throw potato peels,banana peels,watermelon and cantaloupe peels,old vegetable leaves fom my refrigerator,and egg shells.

Hey ajaysr5, I always get so excited to hear of mango success stories in CA. Your plants look beautiful and I'm surprised they are fruiting for such small trees. I can't believe how large the leaves on your Honeyheart are. I just purchased a grafted honeyheart but the leaves are still very small because it was recently grafted.

Aside from my grafted Honeyheart, I have a grafted Dr. White, some seedling Dr. White, seedling Selma and also seedling Hybrid Cherimoya from Calimoya. For mangoes, I have Alphonso, Carrie, Glenn, Nam Doc Mai, Tebow and I'm trying to sprout some Champagne mango seedlings. All my plants are newly purchased and still in pots but perhaps we can swap some scion wood in the future.

Let us know how the Carrie tastes!

Love your mangoes in pots! I wonder why I never try growing mangoes until now. Thanks for sharing.

I would remove those Honeyhearts asap..it's obvious they were grafted near a nuclear powerplant.
And send to this address of Hayward ca...for uh,safe disposal.

Ajay:

Now come on, you expect us to fall for the old trick of making something look bigger by optical illusion.....having a little person's hand next to that leaf for perspective??? I'll bet that those Honeyheart leaves are barely 2 feet long....if that long. Seriously, how'd you do that?????

Harry

that is pretty freak, right up there with Harrys malay apple leaf size

hmhausman
the leaves are about 12in and 7in wide....The little hand is my 2 year old son;-) who loves the cherimoya tree.

ajaysr5

Where did you get your mango trees from?

Trees are looking great Ajay, fruit is starting to ripen nicely. I cant wait for your tasting update.

I have one lonely Graham mango starting to change color, it is not happening fast enough though.

thanks for posting,
-Ethan

Hi AJAY (and everyone) Happy to see another Californian in the Mango mix....they are now my passion, my days and nights and excited dawns....just like when I was 5 years old and hopping out of bed!

Just ordered 4 new varieties from the famous Pine Island Nursery in FL - Pickering, Glenn, Lancetilla and Choc-anon.(I've "only" got a 6 year old Home Depot Manila - 60 beauties this year, the last one falling on 9/11 - and a 2 year old Rosigold - 1 drop dead deliciously devoured orphan!).

I suppose like some of you, I'm looking for mangoes to fruit throughout the year, so have ordered the Choc-anon and just planted a Nam Doc Mai and the ordered ones included early and late fruiting varieties - I believe. I'm headed out to Green Arrow nursery in L.A. in a couple weeks to pick up a couple more varieties they said they had on hand...

I understand Thai Everbearing and Si Siam are multiple bloomers and fruiters, but hard for me to find - any help in that area would be...ummm....helpful.... :)

Oh, and Ajay where do you live? I'm in Palm Springs, CA.

(and sorry everyone for the droning rant thru mangoland....but as you know, kids will be KIDS!!!!!!)

myamberdog

Hey ajay, how was the Carrie fruit this time? Do you have any pics of the fruit cut open?

myamberdog, nice to see another CA mango grower. I live in San Diego and I'm growing Glenn, Nam Doc Mai, Alphonso, Carrie, Tebow and a Champaigne seedling. Do you have any pics of your Manilla Mango?

Great job Ajay!

Your Florida mangos have come a long way since I saw them in the cloudforest last years. I have 4 florida mangos in the ground since May and they have flowered and fruited but I snapped of the fruits. I'm going to wait for a couple more years until I let it hold the fruits. Here is my Malika in a 24'pot....I let this one hold 2 mangos this summer.

Hey Simon, how big is your Nam Doc Mai tree? It's good to know there's a mango enthusiast locally who isn't growing Manila. Can I get scionwood from your Nam Doc Mai?

Hey esco, actually I am growing a "Champaigne/Manilla" mango seedling. I just ordered my trees and they are all small and leggy. I can give you some scionwood probably next year when it gets larger. Too bad I didn't know you wanted some scionwood earlier because I just topped all my mango trees last week. What varieties of mango do you have?

Yes.....Simon......I can take a digital pic of the Manila, but I don't know how to post it with my limited techno abilities....any easy instructions??????

(I changed from myamberdgo to mangodog as I couldn't remember my password and had an email problem with the email address I had originally registered here with....)

Simon:
I have two small Manila trees which I don't plan on keeping. They're at 3' & 3.5' each. I only plan to use them as rootstocks, two of the cultivars I would like to get are Nam Doc Mai & Pickering for their manageable sizes. Is NDM the small & leggy one you just ordered?

If anyone has interest in Manila and have something to offer, I'm open to swapping one of my trees.

Tim

Hey Ajay,
I assume you have all ready picked your mango fruits? How were they?
I am hoping to buy a few more fruit trees in a fwe weeks. I have to see if they are available. I am hoping to get my hands on 2 more cherimoyas and also a starfruit.
I wanted to ask you a question about my cherimoya trees. I have a grafted Findo de Jete that is almost 4ft tall. It has branched out very well this year and I wanted to know how many more years you think I would haveto wait for fruit. I was thinking maybe next year. I never thought they would grow so fast but even my seedlings grew fast. I have one seedling that is almost 1.5ft tall now and that was from seed I planted towards the end of last year. I am thinking I may get fruit next year on that one too.
Andrew

Andrew,

You should get fruit on the 3rd year of growth on the Cherimoya. Which starfruit variety were you looking at? I was planning to get a Sri Kembangan starfruit sometime next year.

My Julie mango has one fruit on it about the size of a racket ball atm. I am hoping for a harvest of the single fruit sometime around January (if the critters don't get to it). Seems this year is very weird with my container fruit trees. I have recent apple blossoms that just started to set fruits 2-3 weeks ago. Would be nice to get mangoes every year in fall and spring...

I just picked one of the Carrie mango of the tree today.Carrie mango is juicy and very sweet.Sweeter than a Ataulfo or manila mango brought in the store.here is a few pics,I picked this off the tree when it was just soft to touch.

wow...impressive. Was it fiberous or that's just the picture. thanks for sharing ayay

Tim

Looks just like Carrie. Hard to judge the size of your fruit. Are those 4 inch square tiles in the background (I am assuming) becuase if they are 12 inch square tiles, then your fruit would be of remarkable size. You said it was sweeter than other mangoes, how'd you like the flavor?

Harry

I have always wondered how California mangoes stack up against Florida mangoes. Since the humidity and climate differences change the fruit taste so much.

Hey ajaysr5, your Carrie looks delicious, I hope my tree grows very large next year so I can start letting it hold fruit. Thanks for sharing!

Ajayrs5,

Wow, that's a beautiful looking mango! I think I'm going to grab me a Carrie and grow it from a box like my Mallika. Question for the Florida mango experts about Mallika. When do you know when a Mallika is ready? I saw a video from Dr Crane and he said you should pick it two weeks before it ripes but how can you tell? BTW, the mangos are about 1 pound now and building some shoulders. Here is a pic of mine about three weeks ago:

Here is a close up.

different people pick them at different times. when they are full size but before they start to turn yellow they should take about two weeks in a cardboard box or paper bag to ripen

My method is to await the first fruit that falls from ripeness or is chewed up by the local animals. Then the rest of the tree can be picked. Of course that solution is problematic with only one fruit. While the conventional wisdom is to pick Mallika green and ripen it off the tree, I would let your sole fruit ripen on the tree. Look for subtle color changes (a slight yellowish tinge) and then pick it. If you feel the fruit for firmness on a daily basis, pick it as soon as there is even the slightest give to pressure. Good luck. Please post pictures of what the fruit looks like on the inside. It is hard to tell from pictures, but your Mallika is a bit different in shape than the ones I have seen. But not so different that I am concerned that it might not be a Mallika. The inside of the fruit will confirm.

Harry

Harry,

My two Mallikas fell two night ago because of the unseasonably crazy weather (95-100F)we been having this week. I put them in a paper bag like you told me and I'll check it in two weeks and I'll post the pics.

Thanks
Joe

Harry

One of my Mallika ripened up today, after one week. It was fiberless and a very unusal taste: nectory, creamy, rich not too sweet, a little of chirimoya, Booth variety, oh yeah, highly aromatic it ripened up really nice. I'll try to take a better pic of my next Mallika in full before my wife and son get to it.

joe, looks delicious!!!

The inside does look like mallika. Your description of the flavor, while very personalized, sounds similar to some descriptions that I have heard others give about mallika. Glad to see that you conquered the ripening issue. Thanks for posting.

Harry

Harry,

My second Mallika had a different taste, it was even better. It had a deep citrucy tone, as you see in the pics,and the taste was more complex. Mallika has to be one of the best tasting mangos. I've had Alfonso, Nam Doc Mai, Ataulfo, Keitt, in California, just to name a few.... as well as many Mexican varieties i.e panameno, corriente,petacon while in Mexico. I grew up eating Haden and Haitian mangos in Miami FL so I would rank Mallika in the top 5 of all times in my list.

Joe

those look perfectly ripened, Mallika really is a one of a kind mango. its one of the few true Indian varieties we can grow here

Joe:

Mallika is an excellent mango...for sure. The degree of ripeness can affect the flavor and give any mango a citrussy flavor mixed in with the other complex flavors the particular mango has. Looks like you have gotten the ripening of mallika down to a pretty good science. I was very impressed with mallika the first time I tasted it. In fact, I grew the seed from that fruit and now have a fruting Mallika seedling that has given me fruit for the past 4 or 5 years. My seedling actually is even more intensely flavored than its parent...but, unfortunately, it doesn't have the fiber free flesh that mallika has. The seedling has considerable fiber. While I am generally not a big fan of fiber inmangoes, I have overlooked that quality because of the intensely delicious flavor. Keep up the good mango growing work! They are very rewarding...and juicy.

Harry

Wow, dreams of mallika...I had a few grow and one even made it to about 4" in height but like the others, they all end up cracking down the middle. I was perplexed and thought it was normal or something.

Ours looked a little different than the pics and had that charasteristic little bend at the bottom....

Thanks for sharing.