One year update

Wow how the year have passed.  It's been a year since my last post.

All my rambutan seedling are dead due to neglect during the winter months.

I should have kept them warmer,  but I decided to test the limit on the temperature.

I kept the greenhouse mostly at 39F(3.89C) to let the other tropical get some chill hours.

I'll wait until the rambutan appears at the local asian grocery market for some

more seedling to test again.

Picture taken Jan 10 2015 slowly dying rambutan seedling

Fruit tree from Florida

I have experienced how the top three mail order tropical fruit tree nursery from Florida package their product.  I ordered from Toptropical, Pine Island Nursery, and Plantogram.  I would rate PIN as the best in packaging for avoiding damage to your tree.  Next in line would be Toptropical, and finally last Plantogram.

I don't have picture of toptropical package,as it was three year ago.  Toptropical use fishnetting to surround and bunch up the tree, follow by peanut packaging in the box.  The tree arrived in good health.  The tree I ordered was a three gallon size by USPS. Toptropical also mail 7 gallon size by UPS/Fedex.  I have not order any 7 gallon, so I can't tell how good the packaging is.

Below is a picture for comparing packaging by PIN and POG.

Pine Island Nursery

Pine Island Nursery - nice wood support to keep box from crushing

Plantogram - 2 tree inside

Plantogram - broken in transit because of packaging

This is just my experience, other might have better results, so do your research and happy growing.

One more week of below freezing

Today is Thursday, the forecast calls for few days next week of temp below 32F.  These guys can go out and enjoy fresh air after that.

Fresh Start

I don't know when will the rambutan will be in my local store, so this time around I bought some rambutan seeds from montosogardens. If anybody is thinking of buying from them, please be patience, they are not a high volume company. I know this from reading in other garden forum mostly gardenweb and tropicalfruitforum. I think I waited about a month for this seed, I put in my order in late July when it's not rambutan season. I ordered some in 2012 but they did not have any on hand, so they refunded my money, so for 2013 I put in the order earlier.

40 seeds August 10,2013

more will be added when I have time.

Testing my new Fujifilm S8350

Testing my new camera I got today. I'm just doing point and shoot format for now until I read the manual for all the other features.

S8200 series 40x optical zoom, 80x digital zoom

S8300 series 42x optical zoom, 84x digital zoom

S8400 series 44x optical zoom, 88x digital zoom

S8500 series 46x optical zoom, 92x digital zoom

Below is some picture of the optical zoom function. I'm standing 28ft(8.53m) from the subject. I measured the distance, it is not an estimate. I have not try the digital zoom yet. I need to read the manual for that, maybe later.

No zoom

10x zoom

20x zoom

30x zoom

42x(max optical zoom for this series)

Temasek Bonsai: Bonsai in Singapore

Great collection of bonsai tropical fruit.  Give me idea to do for my next project.

Temasek Bonsai: Bonsai in Singapore:

Ending dwc hydroponic rambutan

I decided it was time to end my dwc rambutan experiment. The result of the this experiment show the possibility if the setup of this system is correct. There were plenty of root branching, but not as much as I was hoping for. I blame my improper dwc setup for the less than spectacular result. I wonder what a proper dwc setup with correct nutrients and lighting would do. I'll might do one much later.

Below is a photo of the rambutan seed from the one of the dwc setup. Nice root branching, but lacking in leaves as compare to the one in the soil container(last photo) that were planted at the same time.

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The temperature inside my small greenhouse average about 7-10 degree cooler than outside temperature, on average this summer so far, with 75-85% humidity. This summer is not as intense as last year of 60+ days of above 100 degree.