We are from South Florida. We are used to picking mangos off all the neighborhood trees. We also get tamarind, star fruit, guava, papaya, sapote (sapodilla), bananas, chilies, and citrus. Now we are looking to move to Tennessee (Cumberland Plateau). Anyone have success growing the above in a climate similar to USDA zone 6? We are particularly interested in mangos and guava. Please mention specifics about your greenhouses--successes AND failures--etc. THANKS!
First of all, Welcome to the Cumberland Plateau!! You will love it here. There is no place more beautiful. Don't know about greenhouses, but we have had much success with a Satsuma tangerine in a big pot that we brought on a move from Texas. The pot is on rollers. We roll it out in the spring and roll it in when the weather is really nasty. (At least as nasty as it gets here, which is not bad.) It has so much fruit the limbs droop. Good luck on your move! Dixie
Thanks for the welcome Dixie! Everytime we scouted Tennessee, we just kept going back to the Plateau! Must be our destiny. In the meantime, I'm wondering where that article was about the Nebraska guy? I'm really curious to know about specifics, techniques, etc. Thanks!
The citrus would be easy enough, there's plenty of people in the citrus forum at the Garden Web that could tell you about the ins and outs of northern citrus. Papaya could probably be done without too much trouble, same for chilies. They grow those everywhere. Guava should be doable, they don't have to be big trees to produce fruits. Not sure about the tamarind or sapodilla. As I recall the carambola isn't all that big a plant so it should be doable. There are dwarf bananas you can grow, but how much fruit you'd actually get I cannot say. Mangoes I don't think would be viable without a large glasshouse. They have to be fairly big before they'll set fruit and I seem to recall pruning them significantly sets them back so far as setting fruit is concerned. Got to have so many nodes before they'll make fruit. Try the citrus forum at www.gardenweb.com and ask there. A lot of people up north who do this sort of thing. I'm in Florida, but one more winter like last year and I'll have to do it too! .....Alan.
