You can grow Indian black pepper, kali mirch, in a cold climate if you treat it as a container vine that moves indoors for winter. Outdoors year-round it survives only in USDA zones 11 and 12, where frost never arrives.…
Crack 10 jujube pits this spring. That is how to grow jujube from seed: a thorned, drought-proof tree that turns out date-sweet fruit and outlives the gardener who plants it. The rest of this page is 15 moves, from stone…
Rhizoctonia root rot is treatable, but only if you catch it early and fix the conditions that invited it. The pathogen is Rhizoctonia solani, a soilborne fungus that attacks seedlings, houseplants, vegetables, and lawns at or just below the soil…
Plant a fresh Surinam cherry seed within hours of eating the fruit, keep it warm and moist, and you can have a fruiting tree in 2 to 3 years. Surinam cherry, Eugenia uniflora, is a tropical shrub or small tree…
Soak a spoonful of dried goji berries tonight. That is how to grow goji berries from seed: the dried fruit in your pantry already holds viable seed, and the shrub that grows from it fruits for decades. The rest of…
You can grow cardamom from India in a cold climate, but only as a pot plant that winters indoors. Indian green cardamom, Elettaria cardamomum, grows outdoors year round in USDA zones 10b to 13a, and the plant dies back to…
Turmeric needs 7 to 10 months of warm weather to fatten its rhizomes. If you live in USDA zone 7 or below, your frost-free season is too short for that. Here is how to grow turmeric from India in a…
You can grow sarguelas from a branch cutting that is at least 4 feet long, and that single cutting can carry fruit in 2 to 3 years. The seed route takes 4 to 5 years and succeeds less often. I…
You can grow santol (Sandoricum koetjape) from seed in as little as 10 to 21 days to germination, but the honest timeline to your first fruit is 5 to 7 years, and the fruit may turn out sour. A grafted…
You can grow a tangelo from the seed of a ripe fruit, and the tree can fruit in 2 to 3 years if you buy a grafted sapling instead. A tangelo is a hybrid citrus, a tangerine crossed with a…
Yes, you can grow a quince from the seeds of a ripe fruit, and a grafted tree gives you fruit in three to five years. The seeds need a full three months of cold stratification before they germinate. Quince, the…
Yes, ugli fruit is real. It is a natural Jamaican tangelo, a tangerine crossed with a grapefruit, discovered growing wild near Brown’s Town, Jamaica, around 1917. The fastest route to fruit is a grafted tree, which can harvest in 2…
Yes, you can grow a tamarillo from the seeds of a ripe fruit, and a seed-grown tree can hand you its first harvest 18 to 24 months later. No other fruit tree moves that fast. The tamarillo is a tree…
You can grow a white sapote tree from seed, and a fresh seed sprouts in two to four weeks in warm soil. I still find it remarkable that a seed this large wakes up that fast with nothing more than…
Buy a nursery-grown salal plant, set it in shade too deep for blueberries, and expect real establishment in 2 to 3 years. Salal is Gaultheria shallon, a broadleaf evergreen in the heather family native from Alaska to California, where it…
Yes, tayberries need support. Their canes grow 2 metres or more in a single season, and a plant carrying up to 20 lb of fruit will drag itself to the ground without wires. A simple set of wires or a…
Yes, you can grow salmonberries at home, and an established plant fruits within 1 year. Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) is a Pacific Northwest native berry shrub that thrives in wet, partial shade where most fruit crops give up. It grows easily…
Plant bare-root saskatoon stock for a first small crop in 2 to 3 years, with full production around year 5. The same plant is sold as juneberry and serviceberry, and all three names point to one cold-hardy native shrub, Amelanchier…
Plant one red currant bush in a pot at least 45 cm wide, fill it with soil-based compost, set it in full sun or light shade, and expect your first real harvest in year two. Red currants are among the…
A white currant bush in a 10-gallon pot will give you your first small harvest in its second season and a full crop of translucent berries by year three. Pick one of the pale Ribes rubrum cultivars, plant it bare-root…
