I would like to introduce Henry from Hornsby.
Henry has shared some great information with us on how he grows his dragon fruit in the Sydney region.
Henry grows his plants quite naturally trying to avoid chemical and uses buried food scraps as a natural fertilizer.
I too love to bury food scarps and let the worms feast and then fertilize and aerate the soil as they move around the garden.
Thank you Henry for sharing.
What suburb and state are you located?
NSW, Sydney, Hornsby
How long have you been an avid gardener for?
Personally 2-3 years but generally the garden is my dad's territory for the last 40 years, I help out a little now because he is getting old
What is your history with gardening and horticulture?
Our family mostly planted Pomelo, Mangoes and Persimmon for the last 40 years, we started dragon fruit about 10 years ago when we got a few seedlings as a gift. We also have a lot of orchids and peach tree (for blossoms and non fruiting)
What drew you to Dragon fruit?
We had them as gifts (cuttings) and they never really had big fruits that were edible for the first few years, we weren't super fans of store-bought dragon fruits so we never invested time into it. It was after the plants we had somehow managed to gave us edible ripe on the plant fruit that we realise how good they can actually taste so we started dividing and fertilising properly for them
Can you please walk me through your history with dragon fruit?
As above
What was your 1st dragon fruit experience eating?
I don't remember exactly, but before we had our plants we do have store bought ones which we don't mind but also didn't love. The first home grown one was red skin red flesh, and it was amazing, like a little fruit salad with a hint of floral undertone
What was your 1st dragon fruit experience growing? It was a gift, it was potted, we left it outside to fend for itself, pretty much no watering and no fertilising for the first few years.
What is your Favorite variety and why?
We all love the white flesh ones better than the red ones because it is less sweet but have a wonderful taste profile, we also purchased a Palora a few months ago that we were very excited for but it is not doing too well
Best tip for growing dragon fruit. Biggest no, no for growing dragon fruit.
Trim and cull infected branches right away, most of the time it is a better prevention than treatment, our household try to be as chemical free as possible so we generally don't want to treat problematic branches with drugs
Biggest challenge for growing dragon fruit you have had?
We don't have them all planted in areas where we can control rainfall, if we have a bad storm during fruiting at least half the fruit will burst open prematurely
How do you fertilize?
Raw kitchen scraps inside buckets or bottles that are buried around 20cm away from roots, they are covered in holes and we just let they seep slowly into the soil
How many varieties do you currently have?
There are a few that we received as gift 10 years ago so we don't know the names but we have at least 3 red flesh variety and red skin white flesh variety. We also purchased an orange skin variety (rooting well) and a Palora (half dead) this year about 3 months ago
What soil did you pot your cutting in?
The original soil of the backyard is quite sandy, we top it up with Garden Mix from Bunnings from time to time.
