I love The After Dinner Gardening book - so fun! Our kids always dig seeds out of their fruit and dry them in the kitchen window. We have more stuff coming up now. We actually have a lime tree and a lemon tree that are in the ground outside and made it through winter - both from seed! And a tiny baby loquat that's still only about 6" high. I think another lemon or maybe an orange is growing in one of my potted plants thanks to the 4-year-old. And I know for a fact she stuffed apple seeds in another indoor plant. Last year I found a bizarre looking round red ribbed squash at a South American grocery store. I just planted those seeds around the yard, and I'm really hoping some of them will come up. After Halloween last fall, the kids and I garbage picked the Arboretum for fancy pumpkins from their patch. We got a few strange ones - white, blue, chocolate brown... Those seeds have all sprouted out back and the enormous vines are everywhere. Fun stuff - I love it.

The yellow mangosteens are much easier trees to grow and bring to fruiting than the purple mangosteen. There are several species of yellow mangosteen, including the mundu (G. dulcis), the kochin goroka (G. xanthochymus) and the asam gelugur (G. atroviridis). These yellow mangosteens can also tend to be very sour. I don't know about cold-hardiness in particular, but I would think they would be a little bit more cold hardy than purple mangosteen. Really, the insides of these yellow mangosteens look different from purple mangosteen, and I think the Southeast Asian mangosteens can be divided into two broad families. Garcinia forbesii, on the other hand, appears very closely related to purple mangosteen in morphology, and G. malaccensis is almost identical (in fact it is suspected that purple mangosteen may have originated from G. malaccensis). G. celebica is very similar to G. hombroniana, and could be mistaken for the same species. G. penangiana, in fact, was mistaken by a team of mangosteen experts for G. malaccensis, just goes to show how obscure some of these species can be, and how easy it is for even the experts to get confused. Hmm, what else do I have to say... Garcinia globulosa appears similar to G. atroviridis. G. globulosa is sometimes known as Asam kandis, but "Asam kandis" appears to encompass several different species, including G. negrolineata also, so this makes things confusing. G. globulosa is not as sweet or large as G. negrolineata but they are very similar in morphology. Asam kandis (whatever species that is) is common and sometimes cultivated in Malaysia and Indonesia. It bears grapefruit-size fruits whose sweet pulp is eaten raw. Garcinia hombroniana is known as the "seashore mangosteen" because it tends to grow near the shores and apparently has a salt tolerance. It has a bright red-orange exterior and I'd classify it in the same "family" as purple mangosteen, not the "yellow mangosteen" family. Garcinia prainiana is the "button mangosteen", morphologically it's practically like a persimmon, the skin that needs to be peeled off is thin. Well actually once you take off the skin it almost looks like the sections inside a mandarin.

Is your june plum in a pot? If it is then just try to water the fertilizer out. If it's been out in full sun then leave it there. The june plum do not like wet soil for a long period of time. The sun can help dry out the soil faster. Try not to disturb the roots too much. I think the young june plum is very sensitive to over watering, fertilizer, and cold weather in the low 50F. Only water the june plum when you see the soil is dry on top.

Mr. Dubai - I live in the desert outside Los Angeles and probably have similar soil to you, and climate. Super hot (108-110 F in summers) and mostly quite dry. And YES - straw and hay - they are GREAT for mulching and can double as a mix when you make your compost from kitchen waste, if you do that kind of thing. Put it on real thick - 6 inches is not too much. And YES also to the Alkaline soil - I have it too. I believe all sandy soil comes from once being the bottom of the ocean or a body or water. I think my soil is quite salty as well. It does not have many nutrients to it at all. Everything has to be added. Upon further reading of your last post, it looks like you are doing a lot of good things already and seeing results in the texture and feel of your soil. Way to go! Micronutrients may be needed at some point. I understand they might affect flavor of the fruits. I have a MahaChinook that tastes really not that good here, and it is a top tier mango on many people's tastebuds in Florida and in the Los Angeles are. I just don't know how much you'll get of them from mulches, manures and what have you....Looks like you might have to order that stuff on line and have it shipped. Be careful if you use foliar sprays on your plants. They do burn the plant when it's put on when the temps top 100. Better to hand water fertilizer to the base of the plant at your hottest time of the year. Once is cools down a bit, these foliar sprays really do trigger growth for me! I've still got to wait another couple weeks till we start averaging temps in the lower 90's before I try foliar sprays again.....And remember - Mango trees can burn with fertilizer. I try to use a weaker strength-ed mix and use it every couple weeks. But maybe your manure additive is working good for you - just watch out for leaf burn from it - that could mean it's too strong. Oh, I just looked at your weather averages. Your summers are very similar to mine, but your winters, January to be specific, look like you average about 75 as a high and 60 as a low. Mine are more like 70 as a high and 45 as a low. And it looks like you rarely if ever get frosts, so that's great! Lucky you. One last question - do your mango leaves get some summer burn on the hottest days? Mine do.... GOOD LUCK - MyADog