Christine, do you put paper bags on your fruit to keep away the fruit fly? And what are you using for mulch? I use my grass clippings. Yours sure look healthy.

I have only one lonely red lady. :o)

OMG! How do you and Silvia do that? I don't have one tiny tomato. And they all look so incredibly healthy. My mouth waters to see them. Great growing. Your papayas are awesome just as ornamentals. Great growing, Christine. Please keep showing us pictures when you can.

Anna

Wow what tomatoes! Are you in some special zone that hasn't been getting 90 plus degrees every day? You must have started your tomatoes in June or July and our whole summer here has been 90 plus.

Simply amazing.

Denise

Kudos to you! What a fantastic job.

Do you save papaya seeds for swaps???? My three Red Ladies, from seed that cost me a lot, are blooming but no fruit has set. Same situation with my Solo Sun. (Boy, is THAT name apropos. One plant from 10 seeds.)

Don't think I am going to get lucky this year either....

OMG! How do you and Silvia do that? I don't have one tiny tomato
=======================
I agree Anna , they must open the refrige door at night to set fruit that early in Florida LOL. I've had plenty of blooms for a while and finally set a few fruit couple of weeks ago when it cooled several nights. Looking forward to cooler weather this weekend.
bernie

Nice tomatoes and papayas Christine!

Bernie, you are funny! That reminds me I knew a guy in Arizona who grew tomatoes with air conditioner. lol. That is the reason, I froze a lot of my tomatoes already and made sauce with the rest.

You and Anna will get your chance and Tom too and when you have tomatoes, I won't.

Deland is a few degrees cooler than Orlando and you and Anna zone 10 are a few degrees warmer than me. And I think Tom is even warmer and more humid, because he lives by the water.

So, when it comes to the freezes, it will be in that order and Tom will have the last laugh, no freeze for him! lol.

Silvia

I'm so jealous right now it's not even funny. I couldn't grow tomatoes like that if my life depended on it, lol.
Your papayas are beautiful, makes me want to try them. Are they very difficult to grow for a beginner?

Diane

Hi,Christine.
The tomatoes look great but those papayas,Wow,
is right.
Oh,papaya milkshake,sinful,sinful! But so good, ha ha ha.
Felix

I'm trying to stop laughing so I can answer you guys. You are too funny! I didn't even know that I had that many tomatoes until I cut off the diseased leaves. I never expected such a good fruit set with our high temps. I was actually a little worried --- especially since I forgot to leave the frig door open. lol.

One of the secrets to getting tomatoes in the fall is picking the right varieties that are very disease resistant.

Kate --- Yes, the bags were to protect the young fruits from getting stung from the fruit flies. I use wood chips in some areas but I like oak leaves for the active areas of the garden. There is a tree service company in the area that will dump a truck load of chips in my yard when I ask.

Anna --- Silvia is right. Since you are in zone 10 your time is coming. I love the papayas as ornamentals too. I have a male volunteer that popped up in the garden and I am leaving until it gets killed by the cold. The male flower is so unusual. I'll show you more pics as the season goes on.

Denese --- I started the tomato seeds around July 11th. The early season tomatoes are ripening now. The mid-season ones are beginning to show color too.

thonotorose --- I do save papaya seeds. I haven't brought any to swaps but I could. If you want some email me.

Bernie --- I hope that you get a good crop of tomatoes. Having fruit setting is a good sign. One of my other secrets is to sprinkle the tomato plants every couple of weeks with a dilute solution of bloom booster fertilizer. This goes for the papaya too except I apply it to the roots since I can't reach the top of the plants.

Silvia --- Hopefully I will have a ripe papaya to share with you during the Nov. Tropical Fruit Club meeting.

Diane --- Papaya aren't hard to grow if you give them what they need. Lots of compost, fertilizer (in small doses) and lots of water. Try growing some tomatoes in the spring when it is easier. Keep trying!

Fexlix --- mmmmm, papaya milkshakes. I like that idea. I have 7 producing papaya plants. I need all of the ideas I can get to use up so many fruits. These plants can be seen from the street. People are stopping at my fence nearly every day to ask about the papaya and my big pummelos. People think that they are over grown grapefruits.

Christine

The Red Ladys haven't started to ripen yet but the unknown dwarf papaya that was given to me by a friend has ripened its first fruit. I ate most of it today. Well, I give it a two-thumbs-up. It was the sweetest papaya that I have ever eaten.

Yes, I saved the seeds. They are drying now.

Christine

Christine, Gorgeous photos!! I can't get over all those wonderful tomatoes and papayas. I have a papaya that froze last winter almost to the ground. Its bounced back and has about 20+ fruits, I can't believe it survived let alone re-produce. You can see where the damage was and it has sprouted two branches...it doesn't look very sturdy and I'm afraid it will break in half during strong winds. Only thing is its planted very close to the wall of the house, which does help from the wind.

I absolutely LOVE your dwarf Papaya trees...amazing how small the tree stays with the fruits just hanging so low. Can you please tell me where you bought the red lady or where I might be able to buy the "dwarf" papaya. I would love to plant one. Thanks!

Here's my Papaya trees...unknown walmart purchase? I've been very fortunate...I've never had any fruit flies on the fruits since I've had the tree for almost 3 years now.
{{gwi:968289}}
{{gwi:968291}}

I am loving the tomato and papaya photos. I had to pull out all my 'maters this year because they got too diseased. What are some good varieties that work for you guys?

I have 2 red lady papayas and 3 huge unknown papaya plants in the ground that are 10+ feet tall. I don't know if the fruits on ours will make it this year..How long do they take to mature?

I was looking those pictures with my mouse just hanging open, wow! That looks great, the papaya trees a beautiful, and compliments the garden so well. Outstanding in deed. I would like to know the papya variety you are growing as well. Would love to have a dward in the yard.

My mouse is hanging open, too! I have GOT to get one of those for my dward! --Just poking fun. I make typos, too, LOL!

how do you keep the fruit flies from ravaging your papayas?

i-grow, I have been VERY lucky!! I've had fruits on this tree off and on for over two years and not once have I ever had any fruit flies on any of the fruits...not sure why? I have never covered it...just let it do its thing.I don't even know what they look like...and hope I never see them.

HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Am I reading right that you started those papayas by seed just last year? I am a newbie but would love to have one or two of those in my yard. I planted tomatoes in the spring and had ONE tomato to eat in the summer. I just planted a few last month, hopefully will get some from there. I got a Mr Stripey just because I liked the name!

I was looking those pictures with my mouse just hanging open, wow! That looks great, the papaya trees a beautiful, and compliments the garden so well. Outstanding in deed. I would like to know the papya variety you are growing as well. Would love to have a dward in the yard.

Did I write that? How embarrassing. It was late, I promise..... lol, terrible. The shame, the guilt, the pain.... :) Would still like to know the variety of the dward, or um, dwarf.

OMGosh Christine those toms and papayas are true to your garden name, they are very happy.

I'm with jwhalton I planted tomatos and had maybe two and I quit.
I do the same with the wood chips company. in the spring I have them drop a load of chips in my drivway. Works real well for mulch.
Christine, if you are trading seed of the dward I mean dwarf papaya I would love to have a couple seeds.

Carmen

puglvr --- It looks like you will be getting some papaya fruit to eat in the near future. It's good that the fruit flies are not bothering your fruit. I agree, the plant doesn't look sturdy. The added weight of the maturing fruit may put even more stress on the trunk.

I bought the Red Lady seeds from ECHO. The unknown dwarf was a gift. Send me your home address. I'll send you some seeds of each.

sultry-jasmine-night --- When growing tomatoes in the fall it is best to grow very disease resistant tomatoes. Tomande is the very best for me. Jetsetter is also excellent. I suppose that different papaya varieties take different times to ripen. The fruits that formed in the spring up to mid-summer will ripen for me. It ends when the killing freeze comes.

linchat --- Send me your address too for seeds.

j-grow --- I cover the fruits with paper bags when they are young and secure them with a twistie.

j wahlton --- You read right. I start my papaya seeds for the following year each first day of fall. My next year's plants are started with only a couple of leaves so far. I use a lot of mushroom compost when I plant veggies and heavy feeders like papaya. Hope Mr. Stipey does well for you.

Carmen --- Besides choosing a disease resistant variety of tomato, it is important to spray for insects and fungus regularly. It is especially important with the fall crop. Send me your address.

Thanks for all of your complements. I hope to be an inspiration to you to show you it can be done.

Christine

very nice pictures.....thanks for sending the link...mark

Beautiful Christine, I was at work when you posted this message so Big Brother had it blocked and I forgot to get back to it until today. It's truly amazing how we can have such climatic differences in close geographic proximity. You folks can grow stuff through the summer, we can't. While you do lose the winter months after frost, I'm getting the impression you may have a longer growing period, I know I'm done from June on and can't set until mid-October, that really only gives me 5-6 months of tomato production....mouth still watering for a real tomato, can you send me a few ;-)

Tom

Thanks Christine, appreciate your kind offer. I sent you an email...let me know if you don't receive it.

Tom ---When I grew more fruits than vegetables, I so much wished that I lived a little further south, but, now that I am growing so many more veggies I am so glad to be where I am. I will still always hate it when it freezes though.

But, even though we get freezes, so many of the leafy veggies survive just fine. Thank goodness for that. I agree with you about our growing seasons. We can find something to grow year round.

Wish you were close enough also to taste some of these tomatoes that I picked recently. I made a batch of sundried (dehydrated) tomatoes already and froze them for later. Boy, I got lots more cooking to do and salads to eat!

Today's harvest: (Some of the riper tomatoes were picked a few days ago.)

I picked some yellow Flexum peppers and some eggplants, plants that were given to me from Michael. The marconi, fat n'sassy, and sweet spot banana peppers just keep on coming since spring. The yardlong beans are volunteers. Good thing because the beans that I planted didn't produce well. And the tomatoes, again I say that 'tomande' is the best producer I have ever grown. Taste is good too. The yellow tomatoes are 'Lemon Boy'. Also, not shown, I picked another papaya fruit from the unknown papaya plant. I have come to the conclusion that not only is this dwarf a good tasting heavy producer, it's fruits are ripening earlier than my other two varieties.

Christine

OMG...those look so WONDERFUL and Delicious!! You are sooo
lucky to have such a wonderful garden, well I'm sure luck has nothing to do with it,lol...I'm so envious!

Thanks for the great pics!!

Your Tomatoes and Papayas are beautiful, specially those Papaya, just gorgeous, they look perfect, un blemished.

Those un-identified papayas look a lot like these Thai Papayas,

{{gwi:968299}}

Notice thats its elongated, and has a similar kind of a tip on the end.

I have never tried, although I have ordered seeds for these, a Thai person assured me these are sweeter than those available in the US, I will find out eventually.

anyway the varieties name is called "Kaeg-Dahm" ( redish flesh ) and "Kaeg-Nuan" yellow/orange flesh.

I hope mine grow to be as nice as yours..

tropicdude --- The fruits from my unknown extra dwarf plant were the sweetest that I have ever grown. I have some new super extra dwarf seedlings started right now but I will have to keep them in a pot until next spring. I'll have to wait until next year to see how they taste. (Because of my location I need to stick with dwarfs.)

I hope that you get a great harvest this fall. Show pics if you do.

Christine

Hi Christina,

I'm amaized with your tomatos and especially the papaya. I've been looking for seeds from the following cultivars
Dwarf Solo Hawaian Sunrise
Dwarf Solo Hawaian Sunset or
Dwarf Carica papaya 'TR Hovey'
If you or anyone has seeds from any of these papaya's and wants to share or charge for them it would be much appreciated. I want dwarf because I'm in Canada and I can grow them only in pots.

Thanks a million

Vicky

I had great success ordering from Aloha Seed for papaya. They are cheap (2.50 per pkg) and ship fast with the seeds in nice foil envelopes so they are very fresh. Last time I got some they still germinated a year later so I ordered from them again this year. They have tons of varieties.
This year I got
Solo sunrise
Solo sunset
Red lady
Waimanalo

Lenette

Thanks Lenette, I appreciate your prompt reply, I will e-mail Aloha and request some seeds

Thanks,

Vicky

I save seeds from my extra dwarf papaya each year since I don't know what the variety name is. It was a gift plant. Red Lady is supposed to be a dwarf, but not for me. Last year I also grew Waimanalo. I was dissatisfied with it because the fruits were so small and the plants were getting quite tall. I planted the seeds too late to get ripened fruits so I can't say what the flavor is like.

Christine

hey, have four or five alluminum(SIC).....plants left, if you want one let me know, lot of other stuff, had our sale this last weekend......m

WOW! Christine that is amazing! Very impressive!

Christine, I can only dream to achieve what you have but any chance to buy some of your dwarf seeds if you have any left?
Let me know

Thanks
Vicky

Hi Christine,

I would love to get some of the unknown dwarf seed from you, if you have any to spare. E-mail me if you do and I will send whatever is required.

Luther

Vicky and Luther -- I'll check to see if I have enough extra seeds to share. If not, be sure to ask me in November when this year's fruit produces some new seeds.

Mark - If you don't want the al plants, then I'll take them. I have tons of extra flower pots for you, if you need them for your plant sales.

Christine

Hello Christine, I am looking to buy some papaya leaves from you, I am new to this post just saw that your are in Florida, unfortunately I am in Texas. Let me know if we can arrange something. Thanks nice gardening

Hi Christine,
Beautiful pics. It will be great if you can share some extra dwarf seeds with me. Even 2 or 3 would be great. I got a tainung variety from online vend and it died 2 days ago. I am veer upset.

Thanks in advance,

Vidyaa