Hi all, after a few years of bad luck, breaking numerous vertebrae, heart surgery a few strokes etc. I am starting to feel a bit more like myself; typing is still hard, chewing is difficult and I am still nodding like a bobble head, drives me a bit nuts! The good news is that I am back managing to grow feijoas. Will be a few years until I’m back in full production. Hopefully be able to buy a small block of land for the farm instead of renting.
More about my health in the previous 2 posts:
Heart Surgery – recovery
Feijoa Farm Closed
A few photos, hopefully get these in the right order.
1: Ginger Rogers keeping me company as I prick out the feijoa seedlings.
2: Seedlings from Scottish grown fruit – 1 – possibly only 2 plants will survive
3: Seedlings from Scottish grown fruit – 2 – they’re grown in the same conditions but more doing well. This is how I sort out the strongest plants for Scottish conditions, from 100 seedlings in a good year I get 10 to 20 plants, a bad year be lucky to get 1.
4: Flower buds on a plant (May 18th 2022), this plant is grown from parent plants that were both grown in Scotland from seed. The fruit are sadly small but it produces around 100 to 200 and starts fruiting very early. My imported NZ plants haven’t even started putting new growth on yet.
5: Young feijoa plants, I planted these just after getting out of hospital in September 2021 a bit late but I hadn’t bothered earlier in 2021. I was still under the understanding that I had severe heart failure and I’d struggle for a while.
Going to stop here, this post has taken me a 3 days to write up and some of it was copy and paste.
Hope you’re all well and may your feijoas be plentiful!
Gav.
Wow glad your back online and hopefully getting heaps better.
I’m a fellow Kiwi living in the UK and have been looking for Feijoa plants to buy.
I was gutted to read about the farm, such a shame, but looking forward everything is coming together for you now.
I’ll keep my eye on this site in the hope of buying some of your plants for my allotment.
Take care, keep smiling it will get better.
Kiaora from Surrey, wow this has made my day finding this site! Keeping an eye on you – cos I want more than one bush for the allotment. Looking at buying seeds from Amazon and starting them off – your photos have inspired me.
Arohanui
I only just found this site. Sorry to hear about your health troubles.
We have fejoa in our back garden and in 10 years have only ever had them fruit ONCE. This was because the nearby plant nursery got some plants in, though they were oblivious to the fact they produced fruit. I purchased one of the last two they had a few years back (quite sad root bound plants they were too) and sadly they’ve not gotten any more in but this year the newer plant flowered and the established female is maybe showing some signs of swelling flowers so fingers crossed.
As it stands, they flower every year and the petals are delicious anyway heh. They’re also forming a beautiful hedge at the back there. Thinking I need a few more to fill it all in nice.
and that’s not just because I want more fruit <_< nope, not my motive at all. Hah.
Hey Ryan, great that you have a few trees. Totally agree the flower petals are very nice, I have one plant that the flowers are particularly good, they have the real “Strawberries and Cream” flavour to them, or a strawberries and icing sugar sweetness. The plant flowers a lot, but sadly the fruit are not great and small, I still eat them. I keep it just for the flowers, the wasps love them, have been stung a few times when reaching for a petal not realising the wasp was there, whoops. It also layers and grows from cuttings better than any plant I have grown before.
As for pollinating a lot of people run the pollen up the style instead of placing the pollen directly onto the tip of the stigma, the stigma is quite a small target. I have found small paint brushes or a blusher brush works wonders.
Hope you get fruit in the next few years.
Best thing for growing to fruit, have the plants in the sunniest position, preferably with a wall behind for warmth and shelter, mulch decently in September/October to keep summer heat in the soil over winter, mulch and feed in March making sure to keep mulch away from stems. A few the plants stems have recently rotted from overzealous mulching by friends helping me. If the weather is dry water from late March through until fruiting, if you get early flowers May, June and Mid July remove any flowers after late July to force the plant to put all effort into creating fruit from the flowers earlier in the year.
Hope it helps.
Cheers,
Gav.
I am 100 m up in SE Cornwall and planted Mammoth and Triumph 4 years ago. Both are now 1.5 m high and fruiting this year for the first time. Although Mammoth flowered first it was slower to set fruit. Fruits on Triumph are now 1.5 cm diameter (early September). The bushes are in a sheltered position and small enough to cover with fleece when frosts come.
I also have 5, 3m high, bushes grown from seed 20 years ago. These flower regularly and the petals are used in salads but they have never set fruit, even though I have tried hand pollination in the absence of visible pollinators.
Hey Paul, sorry for the slow response. Trying to think why the 5 plants haven’t set fruit, very strange. Have you tried pollinating using the pollen from the Mammoth and Triumph? Do the plants grown from seed flower at the same time?
Cheers,
Gav.
Hi I have a few pretty mature trees 2.5m tall part of a hedge that needs thinning out. If anyone would be interested drop me a line (Nottingham) Webb.kev@gmail.com
What kind of growth do they flower on? is it last years growth like a peach, a spur like an apple or new seasons growth? I have a healthy looking plant in a pot but so far nit tried to flower.