Chocolate, inga beans, and mangoes

[Fouwii]

Hello fellow shutins whose only friend is a tropical fruit tree !

About a month ago I ordered a few Inga bean seeds, and the majority of them are doing great, but one is growing significantly slower than the rest. It's grown in the same conditions as all of the other seeds. I'm assuming that it was a damaged seed, but I can't be too sure. It does not seem to be dying. Any thoughts?

I also got some cacao seeds in the mail the other day, they came pre-germinated, but the small stub of the root has turned a very dark brown color. I have them on top of a heating pad in a red Solo cup full of vermiculite. I water them very often, so I'm not too sure what I'm doing wrong.

That brings me on to my next topic: where to order a proper cacao pod. I'm assuming that you just need to get lucky in eBay, but I was just wondering if there was another website that I can order off of where I can find some fresh pods.

My mango tree has been doing literally nothing for the past few months. It has a decent size pot, it gets watered often, it gets the proper amount of heat, and the Ph is perfect. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. It's about six months old and about a foot in height. I would be devastated to loose this plant.

I have an indoor setup, somewhat like Ray's Voodoo Garden (If you don't know about it, check it out on Youtube), and I'm fairly new at this. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[imafan26]

Try this one. Cacao seeds should still be available. I don't know if they sell the pods.

https://www.montosogardens.com/tropical_ ... eeds_2.htm

Logee's sells cacao trees.

https://www.logees.com/cocoa-theobroma-cacao.html

Unless you know someone with access to a tree fresh pods do not keep that long.

[Fouwii]

Thanks!

[Fouwii]

Try this one. Cacao seeds should still be available. I don't know if they sell the pods.

https://www.montosogardens.com/tropical_ ... eeds_2.htm

Logee's sells cacao trees.

https://www.logees.com/cocoa-theobroma-cacao.html

Unless you know someone with access to a tree fresh pods do not keep that long.

Have you ordered them from seeds from the website before? My only concern with ordering seeds outside of the pod is that they dry out very fast. I just now found a relatively cheap pod of eBay. I hope that I will have much more luck this time! I have a heat mat and I'm stopping at Home Depot to try and find a cheap dome. I'll keep you updated. Wish me luck!

[applestar]

Those are great links @imafan with lots of interesting info!

I've been drooling over the Logee's cacao listing for a couple of years now, but I really don't think I have the right house/growing environment and they are expensive, though they have come down in price by about $10 since they first appeared. If you subscribe to their e-notices, they'll send you a coupon.

I don't often buy from them because the things I want from them tend to be expensive, and I've been spending my gardening budget on other things. But I have had great experience and service from them each time I did. They offer a lot of detailed growing information on their website too.

I'm not at all confident that I could grow one from seed, even if I can be sure of getting fresh seeds, so good luck to @Fouwii, and please keep us updated.

[Fouwii]

Update on the cacao seeds

The pod I ordered on eBay has not been shipped late, I'm literally refreshing my email every hour on the hour waiting for the shipment email! The seeds that I already have just started cracking at the top... I'm assuming that's good news. The inga beans are growing very fast, and the inga bean that has not been growing too well has just popped up another plant out of the same seed... Isn't nature fascinating? The mango tree has stayed the same for the most part, except for some little black blotches here and there. Do you think that it's time to give up on the mango, or should I keep it or see what happens?

I'll update again when the pod arrives!

[applestar]

Describe what kind of environment your mango tree is in. Where do you live?

My two seed grown Mangos are basically hibernating. One has grown a new set of leaves unexpectedly. I don't and didn't expect it to grow now -- it's the middle of the winter and I keep them relatively dry. They grow in spurts during the spring-summer months.

I'll see if I can find fhe photos from last summer... Here we go

Pictures of the mango trees last summer were posted in this thread: Subject: My potted avocado is going to bloom! ...now what?

Not easy to tell apart but pictures of mango tree and avocado tree leaves from earlier in the winter:

[Fouwii]

It's actually a pretty funny story. In my first post, I mentioned a youtube channel that grows plants that would otherwise not survive in his area indoors. You should really check him out, just look up the Voodoo Garden on Youtube. I'm trying to do that same thing. The temp is kept at about 70-75 degrees. For now, I'm just going to stick with the whole hibernating thing until summer rolls around.
Other than that theory, I have nothing. The soil PH is perfect, it has good drainage, it gets a fair amount of light, and the temperature is not ideal, but it is also not bad. All that can be done is to wait. Who knows? It may start sprouting a new pair of leaves tomorrow!

[applestar]

I tried to watch two of those, but I couldn't find the description of your mango growing environment. Please do me a favor and post the video with the grow room details if you like, but even a brief description of YOURS will be better.

My big mango with trunk base caliper of about 2.5" -- I haven't measured lately it might be a little thicker now -- and approximately 5ft tall is in my "Green Room" corner of the kids playroom -- I think I mentioned it in that avocado thread. The smaller mango with 1" caliper and a little over 3 ft tall is upstairs in one of the bedrooms which is a little warmer and is less well lit.

The upstairs one is doing less well than the downstairs one. I'm finding that except for some exceptions, even the tropicals typically do better downstairs in the winter where it's cooler than upstairs. I think trees in particular most likely benefit from the dormant period cycle. They are all sent outside in the late spring to summer in order of their coolest temp tolerance (and are brought back inside in the fall, likewise).

[applestar]

I edited my post above to remove unnecessary and off topic remarks. No, no one called me on it, but it bothered me as soon as I posted, and it was nagging at me. Criticism of YouTube videos is not part of this discussion and creates an unfriendly tone to my comments.