In 2013 I pioneered a style of video series that documented my newbie plant growing experiences and casual scientific observations. Over the next 2 years these early plant growing series grew in viewership to account for the bulk of my channel traffic, so plant growing will be my focus going forward. I also have animal, plant, and fungi videos with scientific editorial, as well as travel, scenery, hiking, art, and cultural videos, but most of those didn't appeal to the public save for some cute animal videos, so I will make changes to my video formats of these topics until I find something that has lasting appeal to new viewers. I have my vast video collection arranged in playlists for your viewing ease. Make sure to read the notes in the descriptions first so you can understand what's going on and my thoughts on the topics presented. Some of my videos have brief subtitles as the bottom to clarify what I'm saying or explain other salient points.
Some of the best plants were from root bound plants that my mom removed from a planter and threw away under a nearby orange tree. I too definitely dislike spider mites, yet i never get around to spraying for the insects when there's an infestation. By the way that fig root ball would likely survive if you threw it away in a shady location onto soil.
If someone at the compost processing plant took it out of the pile it may have been planted somewhere. All of my most successful plants had solid root balls. It's a sign of vigor.
Beer traps might work on snails. You take a plastic cup, bury it in the pot, and fill it with beer. Slugs and snails will fall into the beer and then you dump it out.
Unfortunately, the multiple shoots are not indicative of polyembriony. It’s just something that happens with a small percentage of avocado pits. It’s apparently more common with the Mexican cultivars than the Indian or Guatemalan types. You are better off just snapping off the weaker shoots and letting at the energy go to the most vigorous.
@@TheMelvinWei you could experiment with it. By the way my first blood orange seed (out of 4 I found in an orange) just sprouted I`m exited about that (irrelevant lol)
No, I haven't done any soil analysis. I use 100% coco coir these days, so I figured whatever I fertilize with is what's in it. If I water too much or it rains too much, that seems to flush all the nutrients out of the drainage holes, which leads to my plants faring poorly. Do you do soil analysis? What kind of growing medium do you use?
@@TheMelvinWei I used to do soil analysis occasionally. I'm wondering if you were able to go to a local nursery they would be willing to determine your soil nutrient makeup. As for using Coco I've never tried that particular medium. I always found it difficult using bagged soils and soil mixes. I could never get the right combo to work. That's why I find your research so interesting. The reason I mention that a nursery might consider doing a soil analysis for free, is because of their motivation to sell you some nutrient. I definitely dislike the gnats generated from moist soils. I couldn't ever seem to get the right combo of soil, nutrients and irrigation for larger plants. I've never tried this but a soil, that retains more water, irrigated less frequently to dry out and prevent gnat life cycle and possible use of a soil moisture meter might be the right combination. What I have neglected to do is study the gnat life cycle in order to stop promoting the gnat population. I've always been told the county cooperative extension service would be helpful but when I would call them they frequently acted so arrogant in my county. However, the cooperative extension info may be available on the internet. My mother used to take classes at the extension and attained Master Gardner status. You're a good teacher, I really enjoy watching your videos. Keep up the great work.
Coco coir is made purely of shredded coconut husks. Usually from India. "Coconut coir is inert, meaning it has no nutrients. It may look like soil, but it is not soil. This means you must add hydroponic nutrients and control the pH when using coco coir." One area where I am completely negligent on is pH testing and control. Coco coir technically can break down gradually but at a rate much, much slower than anything else. Also, I read that coco coir is insect neutral. I once had local ants nesting in one of my pots but that was just one pot containing coco coir. I haven't seen any other cases of insects burrowing into my coco coir, although I did try germinating some lychee pits in sealed plastic cups indoors and somehow there were fungus gnat larvae in them. That was because I hydrated the coco coir and had it sitting outside exposed to all the pests out there in a big plastic tub for weeks, so maybe fungus started growing on the wet coco coir and gnats laid eggs in my tub. I have seen some fungus gnats but they could be from the landscaping or other people's plants nearby too. When I used to use potting mix I had huge problems with spider mites, fungus gnats, and root rot. Coco coir holds a lot of water.
@@TheMelvinWei I recall your video about the various pests that attacked your plants. Indeed it's a challenge to combat insects. I decided to do a search on Coco coir and ran across a website by Advanced Nutrients that mentions the unique traits of 3 types Coco coir and the unique nutrient needs of Coco coir. The company happens to be a cannabis fertilizer company wet an office in West Hollywood that markets some unique combination of nutrients for growing in Coco coir. Might be worth a read they emphasize Ca, Mg and Fe as vital for plant growth in Coco coir.
Lemon trees and other citrus trees get spikes on them when they’re stressed.. my Dads lime got spikes and it didn’t end up doing too well and my grandmothers lemon tree never had spikes on it and grew really well.
Any tips for how to repel spiders and other insects from my Joshua tree? It is about 14 inches tall and spiders and other little insects love to hide in it and make webs.
I have the same problem. When I prune the dead blades I use them to clear out the webs and other detritus. Hosing the foliage from all angles with strong jets of water helps too.
Heads up can I let you know something Mike flower if you take flour and put it in a shaker bottle preferably in the evening you won't need any other kind of things to keep the bugs in the snails away because they don't like flour you won't have any bugs you won't have any snails regular cooking flour just regular flour bug killer that you can make it's all natural so make sure if you don't have flour with ego by any just regular flour I was having a problem with my orchids and spiders and I had some old lady quit using all the expensive stuff that you can get from the store she told me not self-rising flour just regular flour and protect your lemon trees because when a bugs get on them play suffocate good luck just remember when it rains for when you wanted them like you do don't water the plant that way you won't take off the flower I hope this works for you it worked great for me
High ppm or ec levels in feed with burn ur plants up in the sun. Synthetics and sunlight dont mix specially if u feed it in the middle of the days sunlight. Dump it all study organic growing and ull never look back. Get urself a ppm/ec meter and a ph meter it will help u in the best ways
Glad to see the autopsy of the plant at the end. I'm surprised that the root system was still strong after the top was completely dead. When I removed the soil from my one attempt, there was a 1.5 ft tap root (the plant in the tube that I did). But not much other roots. Seems like it's not possible to grow mangos in your climate outdoors without constant supervision, which is unfortunate. Loved all your mango growing series. My climate isn't conducive either here in NJ so I only grow mangos indoors, so no pests to worry about. But using coco coir as the sole soil medium requires more skill than I have with plants. My attempt with 3 mango plants all failed, either due to incorrect watering or nutrient addition/fertilization. I'm going to just try different ratios of soil/perilite/coco coir for my next attempt, since it's less finicky than going soil-less. Anyways appreciate all the vids that you have put up about mango plants, it has taught me a lot and I'm glad to see the different clever things you have tried, mango plants with root system exposed, sprayed with water in plastic wrap, mango plant in tube, in coco coir, grinding up multivitamins for extra fertilization etc.
Hey, I'm glad to see you're experimenting and verifying some of my findings. The more people who try my methods, the more we can know with certainty what works or not. Real soil is always preferably to potting mix and coco coir since it has the right mix of nutrients and the proper microbes/fungi to work with plant roots. It's just that my huge planters would take over 1000 pounds of silt/clay/sand to fill up, and the planters aren't built to handle that kind of weight anyway. The pest problems were much less on apartment and condo balconies than on the ground floor. I saw a yellow warbler visit and examine each one of my planters yesterday for bugs to eat. There are two or more lizards that patrol my front yard as well. I smashed two katydids that were eating holes in my ice cream bean leaves; they came out of hiding after I watered the planter and hosed down the undersides of all the leaves. I sprinkle iron phosphate pellets after I water everything to get rid of all the snails and slugs that come after watering or rain.
You killed that tree with all those pills you using in it. I did the same thing and my three died. You'll have to use piece of one pill for that little drop of water you using. The plant is a tiny thing compare to you and your size that using that pill so the plant don't need one whole pill.. water down that pill at least in 3 or 4 gallons of water.
Sorry about your mango tree loss, my grafted Mallika mango tree also died earlier this year. I kept it indoors like I did last winter and it survived that winter but it didn’t make it through this winter for some reason which I’m not sure why. It’s leaves were becoming sticky probably due to some kind of pests or something, it dropped its leaves and the stems also completely dried up and the whole thing became completely dead. Mangoes are definitely a challenge to keep alive here especially during the winter and plus they’re slow growers here.
Mango Tree tips: I grow successful mango trees and I suggest the following... 1. I do not use sand as soil. I use a mixture of potting soil and bark chunks for aridity. In fact, I have never been successful using sand! Sand condenses/compresses and kills roots. Maybe in nature they do ok...don't use sand! 2. When you were re-potting the mango tree, I was screeching while you shoved the sapling into the sand...have you ever rubbed your feet into the sand on the beach? It scrapes your feet and gives you a pedicure! So as you shoved the poor plant into the sand, I bet you tore off any tender remaining roots while you shoved it into the pot! Yikes! 3. Don't use refined table sugar...its natural honey which contains natural antibiotic/anti fungal properties and food properties for the plant. Good luck!
All we can do is keep trying, don't give up. I'll keep watching cause I've been trying to grow stuff and no luck, but I have got 3 lemon trys so so good and tomatoes as well. So far, so good after years of trying. Wish me luck.
Hi there! I’ve currently got a decent sized JT and recently transplanted it from my home to our new home.. long story! BUT it’s not showing any signs of new growth and the leaves/swords are showing light yellowing with brown speckles.. what does this mean? Any help would be most appreciated!
@@codiejcollins The root system could have been damaged when the tree was dug out of the ground, depending on how it was done. In my experience the taproot goes very deep. If the root ball was cut out in a convenient small cylinder of dirt for easy transport or transplanting into a pot, then it's possible that too much of the roots were cut away and the tree is dying. I surmised this because a viewer once told me all the JTs he bought online died after a few months. It sounds like your JT was moved twice, how long ago was the most recent move and how did you do it (was it in the ground at your old home or in a pot)?
@@TheMelvinWei I believe you’re right.. when I transplanted I didn’t see a large tap root still connected and there are very few remaining.. I took it out of the ground which was still soft and cleaned it all up. I cut back some of the roots and applied that rooting hormone and then reset the plant.. hoping I can stimulate something ☹️
