mine flowered like crazy last year. i put it in the ground in spring, its been growing like mad, but hasnt flowered until yesterday, i saw 8-10 flowers. its big enough now to support a handful, so i am hoping to get a few to try anyway. Last year i had 1 fruit, barely ripe, im sure the taste wasnt normal

i am curious as to what was eating them. i always thought grasshoppers ate green foliage ? i can see them eating fruit, but, leaving all the foliage behind doesnt sound like them.

i cant really see a squirrel climbing out on the thin limbs

Small birds ?

Congrats- I like the crunchy taste and exotic look of the whole fruit and tree. I saw one last year..but at $175 I had to pass. Maybe,I should have used the "birthday/Christmas day thinking.

I finally got a few flowers too.

hope the fruit hold on before it gets too cold.

Very nice photos....Carambola flowers more times during the year and can have both flower and muture fruits together..:-)

Looking good Greenman, best of luck with them.

tropicbreezent

where are you located ?

Do you deal with cold wather ?

im in New Orleans, we get 28-30F one or 2 times a year normally... some years it never freezes, but, some years it gets to 26F or so. (usually just a few hours)...

I figure if the forecast is for under 30, i will prune it back and cover it. I have several plants i will need to protect this year.

Greenman, I'm in Australia, in the north west. The climate here is equatorial savanna, so we have a hot wet Wet Season and a hot dry Dry season. On average we get 350 days per year over 30C. Lowest minimum temps are during the dry season, generally 15C to 17C but can briefly spike down to 10C. Highest temps are end of Dry Season and during the transition into the Wet season, although the heat often continues early into the Wet Season. At the moment we're in the transition into the Wet Season after an unusually dry (low relative humidity) Dry Season. Mangos are one of the major industries here, it's the ideal climate for them. There's other tropical fruit, like Rambutans, Jackfruit, Mangosteen, but when we get dry heat it can be a bit difficult for them.

Carabola can withstand very light frost....sometimes it can lose leaves during winter (in cold climate)

last year my tree experienced 30F

it lost leaves and looked bad, but stnapped back strong

this will be its first year in-ground.

i hope its not a hard winter.

Last year it flowered much more, even though it was a much smaller plant, i still got 2 fruit...

This year it started flowering 2 weeks ago, and nothing has stuck yet. everything has dropped as soon as it was formed. Maybe its because the roots were contained ? i know watermelon will fruit on a 4ft vine if you keep it in a small container.

Most of the fruit on mine has dropped, but it's still flowering like crazy.

hi

i grow a variety that I bought on impulse during a visit to a nusrery. They let me taste several fruits and I selected one that was very deep yellow ,very sweet and larger than the other types . Now I feel it was a mistake as it produces way too much fruit twice a year.Almost the "ideal fruit tree for me as it gets no bugs no disease and the fruit can hang for weeks without rot. Even the squirrels and birds don't bother it.

I give away 5/6 bushels every year eat a lot but still enough to fall on the ground and rot.. Wish I'd written down the name because people are always asking about it One more complaint lol Was told it was a "dwarf" and have removed the crown 3 times and it's still around 20 feet tall.

If only my citrus trees were a third as productive!!! Wish I could sell them for the dollar each they get at the grocery store . I could buy that summer house in the mountains lol

Something I've wondered about. Some times it produces 6 pointed ,rather than the usual 5 pointed fruit . No difference just the extra side. Any ideas why??? gary

Hi Gary

you should talk to some people at your local fresh market and find a vendor that sells fruit. Im sure you could work something out.

My large satsuma does this. i gave away about 10 bags of fruit last year, and still some fell and rotted. I have a friend who makes Popsicles from fruit and sells them at the local market, he took most of them.

We should trade scions so we can both have 2 varieties on our trees, since they should produce at different times, it can help spread the fruit over the course of the year.

several sites mention the number of ribs can be from 3 to 7 , but none of the sites mention why, or if it has to do with variety or anything else.

Hi

Tried that once .They'd give me 10 cents each IF I delivered lol Also tried giving them to "Food for Families" They wanted me to pick them and deliver them to 5 different locations for free . While I didn't expect any money I thought they'd at least pick them up or a buck or two for gas money?? lol

It is in full fruit right now and in full flower these will start ripening around late Jan. If it doesn't get cold it will flower again!!. Barring a frost there are fruit at least 9/10 months of the year lol Also have 3 neighbors with trees ,equally as productive but the fruit is not as good nor is there a winter crop. One is a very pale yellow color very tart almost like lemon.

I will probably will cut it down except that I'm using it to grow epiphytes so have hesitated but it's now dropping fruit into the water garden in spite of my severe pruning.. I think animals are moving the fruit but haven't caught them yet lol

remember being so excited the first time it flowered lol At least the fruit doesn't sprout like some other fruit trees. Suriname cherry being the worst.lol

Enough of my ravings lol gary

Fortunately mine are dropping more fruit than are getting large. And all the time there's more flowers and more fruit developing.

Hi

Do you know which variety??. I hadn't realized there were so many cultivars

until I tried tracking down mine for an ID. I'm so bad about keeping names and records . Two thirds of the stuff I grow has no ID at all lol gary

Mine are B10. Years ago (in another place) I had a number of self-sown (probably birds) trees without IDs. They fruited a lot but the fruit wasn't worth eating in my view. I bought the B10's hoping they might change my views about Carambola. Let's hope they're worth it.

Here is a pic of a small section of the tree . Incredibly dense canopy in spite of all the pruning. lol Note how the fruit is in various stages of development. so you can get fruit over a long period of time plus other sections are just now flowering . Think rather than cutting it down will remove about two thirds of the canopy and give it another shot lol. Has a lot going for it and I do like the fruit

though less than a bushel at once lol gary

Are bitter or sweet cultivars ??