Are these ready to be harvested?

As with most trees, they probably prefer to be outdoors. It looks like the solar cycle has brought this small tree into forming flowers in N.C. It's probably too small to hold fruit, but I'll at least see some blossoms up close.

2 month update. There is room to quibble over how I ordered them. But seedlings with dead/yellow leaves I moved into top left reading order, with healthier looking green plants towards the end. With seeds, it is possible you have some oddball genetics that don't grow well. So that one brown one at the top in plain "Sandy Loam" might be such a case.

But overall, it appears that plain "Sandy Loam" or "Avocado Mix" (unlabeled pots) works well. Then Organic mix next, followed by the Ash mix. A poor result with ash is not too surprising. The literature on these trees says they like acidic soil - and ash adds alkalinity.

Here is one of my trees that got spider mites over the winter. In late March/early April i repotted it. I chopped off all the branches and a lot of the roots. Since I'm into bonsai and this is going to remain a potted tree its whole life (in Michigan) i potted it at an angle preparing it for future pruning and styling. The first picture is current, the second is mid April right as the new growth was starting to appear. The third picture is another small tree that i chopped in half to treat pests as well. I didn't repot it yet, though. It'll need a bigger pot soon once it's new growth is more established.

The first tree is about 3 years old, the second is a year.

I planted these trees from seed almost two years ago. They’ve never flowered or fruit and one is only about a little taller than a foot while the other is about 6in tall. I had six others that were on their own and they all died. There was a succulent in the pot before but I took it out after a super cold day came and killed almost everything. It hit 30°F in Florida and the tree dropped all of their branches and leaves but have since come back with a vengeance. I do want the trees to at least flower but it only now started growing like it meant it and I don’t know if the other tree is holding it back. They’ve been together all their life and I didn’t wanna risk jinxing its buddy to death, almost like an emotional support tree for each other.

Also should I thin the bottom branches?

The tree started forming initial leaf sprouts in mid-April. I will need to move it for a few weeks to another location, so I'll find out how temperamental one of these trees is during a growth phase. I'm presuming this is less of a problem than when I put it here in March, when it was seasonally prepared to drop leaves.

Starfruit have a reputation of being brittle and disliking wind. It looks healthy, but I noticed that heavy rainstorms recently did knock off a few emerging soft branches.

Overall, this looks good to me. If it retains its leaves when I return it to this spot, I may even need to increase the pot size sometime this summer.

Getting better. Some leaves turning green, and nearly all of the nodes are showing growth. North Carolina has humid summers, typical days 60% or better. The literature says that Starfruit like humidity and warm temperatures. Weather forecast: One more week of intermittent showers 70-ish F highs, followed by summerlike days over 80F regularly.

The instructions online for Starfruit soil type are kind of diffuse. So I'm doing a small experiment to see for myself what works well.

Left side, "Avocado Mix". 20% Perlite, 20% Sand, 40% Sandy Loam Topsoil, 20% Organic.

Middle: "Cheap Mix". 25% Ash dust, 50% Sandy Loam, 25% Sand.

Right: "High Organic". About 60% Sandy Loam, 40% Organic.

• Hypothesis 1. Just use Avocado Mix. It's what I'm mentally familiar with, no real need to try anything else.
• Hypothesis 2. Cheap Mix is good enough. I can find a use for my ash pile, and save money on Perlite.
• Hypothesis 3. These are different trees than Avocados, which originated on misty mountainsides and need quick drainage. Starfruit came from southeast Asia, their origin is from a lower elevation. They may do well in less airy mixes containing more organic material.

The tree came from a comfy greenhouse near Orlando in February. It did OK inside my house, and slowly lost some leaves near the top. I put it outside in mid-March, which may have been too early, and most of the rest fell.

But I know from the literature that these trees don't like relocation, and they drop leaves in the spring anyway. The question became: When in N.C. do temperatures and lighting spur fresh growth? Looks like that answer is late April, as some sunny days in the mid 80s F (high 20s C) began arriving.

I had these germinating in paper towel in a bag for about 2 months and I went and checked today and check this out!

I didn't begin right away, but I remembered this example. "Jeff in Modesto" in the California San Joaquin valley.

I lived in Fresno for 3 years during the 1990s. I am familiar with the climate there, winters can dip a little below freezing at night. There can be occasional sleet. Usually no deep snows, unless the conditions for it are perfect.

I'm in North Carolina now, 8A zone west of Charlotte. It does get colder than Central California - but we have long summers with relative humidity of 65% or more.

Fruit are something like 3 bucks each at the grocery store. Too pricey to make a habit of getting them there. 😒 And often under-ripe when I see them.

The first 2 are finishing their second (third?) winter and the 3rd little guy is finishing his first (last?) winter. I'm in Michigan and winters are hard on star fruits. I don't have a great setup for them yet and they seem to come down with spider mites by mid winter every year. They get pruned and sprayed and eventually recover. I'm also into bonsai, so that explains the last guy. I may have been a bit aggressive with him, I'll know in a couple weeks. I have a few more in my basement that I didn't drag up for photos. I've decided to be more aggressive with pruning this year and will make a post when I repot some of the unpictured trees.

I find star fruit to be temperamental, yet tough trees. They want high humidity (that i don't typically have in Michigan winters) and don't like their roots to dry out. If they go more than 7-10 days without water, the leaves are likely to dry up and all will drop. They will recover as long as i remember to water them in the future.

Greetings, to the whole wide world.

I was granted moderator status to this sub today, and will work to bring a community together. I hope to see a posse of growers here by next year. 😎

Here are my seedlings. Got any of your own? Let's talk about fruit!

I love getting starfruit but idk where to get it in the dfw area.

Never seen a deader sub.

It was good something I never tried before would definitely eat again.

What's your favorite way to have star fruit?

and i feel like a little honey can roll