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Welcome to Magical
Fruit, a website dedicated to the wonders of Miracle Fruit. |
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Welcome
to my "Blog", about my experiences with Miracle Fruit. I'm just getting
started, but I'm learning a lot already. Check back to see pics of my
plants, what I do right, and what I do wrong. |
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First I'd like to thank my sister Diane for her help with this project.
She and her husband Mike are the owners of
Pietrosante Greenhouse, and
without their help (and greenhouse space) I wouldn't have a chance of
growing these things. Diane has been working as a florist for around 30
years, and Pietrosante Greenhouse
has been in business for about 20 years now. Although they do sell a lot of
plants, they do not have Miracle Fruit plants for sale. If you are in
the Millville NJ area, stop by and visit, or maybe check out their website. |
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6/26/08 -
My first plants:
Well, I've made my first mistakes already. Finding a
place to purchase Miracle Fruit plants turned out to be harder than I
would have thought. There aren't many places that sell them, and
everywhere I found, they were out of stock. Unfortunately, the first
place I found that DID have some in stock turned out to be my first
mistake. I won't mention the name of the place, I'll just say they were
in Florida, they charged too much, and the eight plants I received from
them were in terrible shape. Here are some pictures: (click on the pic
for a larger picture, it will open in a new window)
Pretty sad, huh? The soil in the pots the plants originally came in was
like clay full of bark, terrible stuff. What's worse, the plants have an
insect infestation called "Scale", here's a picture: |
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Diane says she will probably be able to cure them, but she wasn't real
happy with their condition when they arrived. She did a soil test and
found the following:
PH = 7 (should be around 5)
Nitrogen = Medium (OK)
Phosphorus = High to Medium (should be Medium)
Potassium = Low (should be Medium)
Now, if I didn't have an expert to help me, I would have set these
plants in the window and they probably would have died in a month or
two. We re-planted them, and will attempt to cure them, but I feel sorry
for anyone without at least some plant knowledge who buys plants from
the same grower. I'll post more pictures later, whether they make it or
not. |
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7/9/08 -
New plants, much better luck
After the problems with the first plants, I was a little
worried about trying again. Luckily, I got real lucky the second time
around, and found a place in Hawaii that sells really nice plants. I ordered 30 of them and they
arrived today. What a difference, they are 1000% better than the Florida
plants. Thank you Jamie, I will definitely order more once I am sure I
can grow these ones. Check out these beauties! |
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Look at the color on these plants (click on them for a much bigger
picture) and compare them to the Florida ones, what a difference. And
check this out: |
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See those white things? They are buds, which will become berries!
Several of the 30 plants I received had bunches of buds on them. It
certainly looks like the folks in Hawaii know what they are doing. There
was no soil to test, as the plants were "bare rooted" for shipping,
which means they were removed from their pots, the roots were cleaned,
they were wrapped in Spag Moss and wet newspaper, and shipped. Here's
what they looked like when they arrived: |
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First thing we did after unpacking was to mix up some dirt to plant them
in. Diane had purchased Biocomp Composted Growing Mix, which should be
the correct medium for these types of plants. It is comprised of peat
moss, composted pine bark, composted peanut hulls, wetting agent,
starter fertilizer, bio control agent for soil borne insects, and has a
45% water holding capacity. It has a bio-fungicide to
keep fungus gnats away, and a the "starter" fertilizer that lasts for 2 to 3
weeks. The only problem is that it has a wetting agent in it, so we had
to get some Pearlite, which is a volcanic material which aerates the
soil and helps it to drain, so the roots won't rot. Also, the PH of the
soil is 5.5 to 6.5, and these plants require a PH of 4.5 to 5.8. The
well water used to water the plants has a PH of 5.5 to 6, a little lower
than the soil, so we're hoping the PH of the soil will drop a little. Here are some
pictures: |
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A little while later, 30 plants in 30 pots. They are in an aerated
greenhouse with filtered plastic so they are not getting direct
sunlight. Here they are: |
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That's it for now. One more thing though, if you are going to grow
Miracle Fruit plants, you have to get have the right soil, and you won't
know if it's right or not unless you test it. Diane found this test kit
for about $16.00, it's definitely worth getting. We won't be able to
test the soil these plants are in for about a month or two, I'll post
the results when we do. Here's the kit we got: |
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