Let’s talk about sex…

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I’m talking in context of my Red Lady papaya trees, so please don’t get too excited… :P

We all know what a gamble it is when growing plants like papaya trees, because the flowers need to be pollinated to grow fruits – yet the trees may be male, female or hermaphrodite. So, you have to grow more than one plant to increase your chances of getting fruit. If you’re lucky, your neighbour will have a tree that can help out in this area. But you have to make sure there’s at least one male tree around to fertilize the others. Or, you can hope for a hermaphroditic tree, which is self-pollinating.

Blue for the boys and pink for the gals - my hermaphroditic papaya tree has both genders of flowers!

When I first heard about hermaphroditic trees, I thought the flowers were supposed to have a combination of male and female parts. So, when my most mature papaya tree finally flowered last week, I was disappointed that the flower was obviously female.

For 3 days, I watched as the 5 somewhat curly white petals opened more and more fully, revealing a nice, fat ovary inside. If pollinated, that ovary would have grown into a papaya fruit. Mind you, it looked like a miniature, yellow coconut – very full of potential, but unfortunately, with little chance of a fruitful future (unless insects brought in pollen from someone else’s garden without my knowing – I can dream a little, can’t I? :)).

While mooning over the lost opportunity, I looked at the other developing buds and wondered why some were growing singly while others appeared to be developing in a little cluster. It took a little while, but my brain finally made the connections between the single/cluster of flowers – single flowers are female while the clusters are male flowers! Which means that hermaphroditic trees don’t just produce “all-in-one” flowers – they can produce both genders of flowers on the same plant!

Talk about a lightbulb moment! :o

So, thankfully, I don’t have to wait for my other laggards to mature since this tree seems poised to take care of itself. Thank goodness!

The Red Lady papaya saga will continue…

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Growing chilli plants

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Many Asian dishes seem incomplete without the taste of the chilli in them, so it’s one of the must-have edible plants in a local kitchen garden. The thing I’ve noticed about chilli plants – and other plants that belong in the solanaceae family – is that they attract whiteflies like magnets. So that’s put me off growing them for a while. However, I have a habit of tossing (any) seeds in a pot to see if they’ll do anything, and when some chilli seeds sprouted, I decided to nurture one and see how it would fare.

Underside of chilli leaf infested by whiteflies.

Trying out permaculture principles, I tried to “disguise” the chilli plant amidst a mix of other plants, hoping to mask the plant’s scent among the other plants and throw off unsuspecting pests. So, the potted chilli plant sat amongst basil, marigold, roselle, bittergourd, cucumber and the bean plants.

Did it fool the whiteflies? Nope – maybe the other plants weren’t strongly scented enough, or the whiteflies were just too smart. I had to clean off their eggs from the undersides of the leaves on a daily basis; given a few days without attention, the leaves were consumed by the larvae and became shriveled. A tiny spray of white oil was enough to deter the pests for about a week, then they’d be back.

Here’s the chilli plant’s journey from youth to fruit:

Young chilli plant.

Chilli flower - like tomatoes and other pepper plants in the solanaceae family, the flowers are small, star-shaped and hang facing downwards.

After successful pollination, the petals drop off and the fruit starts to grow.

Chilli fruit growing bigger.

Fully grown green chilli.

Finally there - nice ripe, red chilli.

You could grow the chilli plant in at least a 20cm flower pot, but I believe the size of the pot restricts the plant’s potential – even despite regular fertilizing. Our plant managed to sustain only one fruit successfully, and now that we’ve harvested it, I’m going to move the plant to a bigger pot and see how it fares after that.

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Finally, the first Red Lady papaya flower!

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The first Red Lady papaya flower in bloom

It’s so ironic. After complaining publicly about the abortive flowers on my oldest Red Lady papaya tree, I’ve finally got my wish, and the first flower opened today!

I noticed yesterday that one flower was unusually large and looked like the petals were about to split open – but that has happened before, and the flowers aborted. So, when I noticed the bud yesterday, I figured it was going to be another one of those. Don’t taunt me, I thought, and moved on.

Well, it listened.

The little flash of white caught my eye this evening, and to my delight, I feasted my eyes on the first papaya flower.

It may be coincidental, but this flower opened almost exactly 8 months after the seed sprouted – or 39 weeks and 2 days, to be precise.

A closer look at the papaya flower bud.

So now the next question arises – when will we see some fruit on the tree?

Well, what I thought were hermaphrodite flowers were actually developing female flowers. The base unfortunately fattened as the bud matured, and I realize I have a female tree on my hands. At least, I think so. If this is the case, I have to wait for my other trees to mature, and hope that one of them will be able to fertilize this one.

You know how they say be careful of what you ask for? I should have asked for a hermaphroditic tree to start flowering…

More on the Red Lady papaya saga…

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Sunflowers: Phase 2

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Alright, so Phase 1 of growing sunflowers did not go that well. I did manage to grow the Ballad sunflower successfully – as well as a few stunted others – but I decided to start all over again.

A new lot of Sunspot sunflowers was recently planted out, but in a freakily heavy rainstorm, two of them were battered so badly that their stems broke! :( Plus, a couple more seemed to just stop growing. I hope the fatality rate won’t continue, or I’ll end up with no flowers…

These other sunflower plants are still in the growing stage, and appear to be holding up so far:

Skyscraper sunflower plant - 2 months old, just over 1m tall

Early Russian plant - almost 2 months old

Not-so-gigantic Giganteus yet - 1 month old

I’m also very excited that I finally managed to get a couple of Kong plants growing! The Kong is one of the giant sunflower species. If you’ve ever looked it up online, you’ll remember the famous pictures of people looking absolutely dwarfed standing in front of what looks like a giant, conical sunflower bush. Yup, it’s the “King Kong” of sunflowers, and I hope we’ll be able to show them off in a few months! 8) No pictures today, because when you’ve seen one young sunflower plant growing, you’ve seen ‘em all – and there are two too many already in this post…

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.

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