Gardening with Tropical Fruit

April 2006

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

This month everything is bursting out with the spring growth and if you forgot to fertilize last month do so as soon as possible. Use good quality complete fertilizers and make sure that the fertilizer is irrigated afterwards to get it down into the soil where the roots can absorb it.

Some tropical fruits are finished with their bloom period, particularly mangoes, while others are just in the beginning stages. Hopefully there are plenty of pollinating insects in your neighborhood so that this will insure a greater possibility of heavy fruit load this year.

If you haven’t completed pruning and shaping trees, do so as soon as possible so you don’t waste the spring growth needlessly. This is also a good time to install new trees into the landscape and do any type of propagation such as budding, grafting, or air layering. Many people that have container plants should put them in the ground if they were waiting for a good time since we have the whole growing season ahead of us for these trees to get off to a good start.

If you suffered minor cold damage during the winter from our 2 or 3 cold fronts that were low enough to do damage, most plants should have recovered from that with an abundance of new replacement foliage and small twigs and branches.

This month and next month could prove exceptionally dry so if rains are not occurring in your area make sure that fruits that are in flower or have recently set fruit are irrigated once or twice a week to insure that you don’t have the flowers or young fruit abort.

If you have questions about plant care at this time of year or see problems or pests you can’t identify easily, check with fellow members at monthly meetings or contact your local county Extension office.