HOW TO GROW GUAVAS

we will look at three absolutely delicious guava varieties and how to care for your guava trees so the first variety of guava we are looking at is the Mexican White guava now all guavas are tropical plants which means that they do not tolerate cold very well so although you can easily grow them in states like California Florida Hawaii and many other states where the temperatures are warm if you have cold temperatures the guava plants do not tolerate cold and if you have cold temperatures you can still grow guavas but you can grow them in containers so as you can see here the guava tree it sprawls into a nice beautiful looking canopy the Mexican white guava does not grow into a very large tree as you can see here but this tree which is about five feet tall and about five years old produces a lot of guavas and as you can see here the fruits are pretty large in size and the tree is absolutely loaded with fruits in fact during the months of the fruting season the tree becomes so heavy that it has to be supported and as you can see this Mexican white guava produces really large fruit absolutely large fruits that are a little bit on the firmer side compared to the other guava varieties and taste-wise they're also not very sweet so these guavas are excellent if you like guavas which are not sweet but have a mild and sour taste to them it's a mix of sour and sweetness in this guava so that's what makes this guava taste very unique it's not extremely sweet and this is the reason this is one of my favorite guava varieties to grow if you like guavas that are not very sweet if you just wanna eat them raw this is a great guava variety it also has a lot of vitamin C usually guavas that have lesser sugars have higher amounts of vitamin C so this is a great, healthy guava variety to grow out of all the other varieties now let's look at the fruits, so the fruits as you can see here are pretty large this guava produced the largest amount of fruit and the largest size of fruits as well compared to all the other guava plants as you can see her it's almost at six pounds here these four guavas so it's a very productive plant and for the plant of about five feet tall it's a great plant that you can grow in your garden and now let's look at how the guava looks like from the inside because this is a very important characteristic of every guava plant as you can see it's a little hard to cut this guava because it's pretty firm and not soft at all as you can see here so it does have seeds it has a lot of seeds hard seeds so if you have good teeth than you can chew those seeds you can eat this guava raw so to summarize the Mexican white guava has a tree that grows up to about five to six feet it produces a lot of guavas the fruit size is medium to large the guava tastes a little bit on the sour to sweet side not very sweet and then it produces guavas that have a lot of seeds a lot of hard seeds and firm pulp Now let's look at the second guava variety which is the ruby red guava now this is as tropical as a guava gets because this is a typical tropical plant as you can see here sprawling, almost dwarf kind of a tree but it spreads very wide rather than spreading tall which is a good thing because it's easy to harvest the hundreds of fruits this guava tree produces I mean this is a heavy producer this is one of the heaviest producing plants I have grown the guavas that it produces are medium sized guavas they are not very large so small to medium sized with a soft exterior and the flesh of this guava is red in color so as you can see here let's cut open this guava and see so as you can see here Red guavas that are extremely soft and the seeds are soft too so you if like these kind of guavas which can put in smoothies this is a great variety to to grow in your garden it's sweet and it's soft and it's got seeds that are not very hard this is the small guava plant we started with and this is one guava plant that really grows very well from seed as well now usually guava plants follow the same technique as other trees that grafted trees are better than trees grown from seed but I've seen that this is one guava variety that grows very well when grown from seeds so here is a summary of the ruby red guava they produce trees that are about five feet high bushy trees they are extremely heavy producers and produce small to medium fruit which are sweet and mild tasting red pulp, soft seeds and the pulp is very soft and the third and final variety of guava we will be looking at today is my favorite guava variety the White Arabian guava now this grow into a large tree as you can see here one of the largest trees not dwarf by any means but the fruits that it produces are absolutely delicious it produces small to medium fruit but the fruits have a soft skin and soft flesh and they are white and they're very sweet one of the sweetest guavas I've grown and for flavor I don't think there's any guava that tastes better than this guava variety if you like sweet guavas if you like guavas that are soft that have soft skin and soft flesh and soft seeds you will love this guava variety it's got this hint of very unique guava flavor to it which makes it so nice now pruning is one thing that you would need to do for your guava plants especially large plants like these in the winter season you can trim the canopy to a manageable size and what will happen then in the coming months the treet will start sending out newer shoots to fill in the canopy now there is one reason why you should prune the trees and the reason is to easily harvest the guavas that are growing on the trees so as you can see here in the month of march we have a lot of new shoots growing and the tree will continue to grow through the spring season and it's about in the late spring or the summer season that it will start producing flowers and blooms to produce fruits for the next fruiting season so as you can see here in September the plant has grown almost completely back to where it was and it has produced a lot of these guavas as you can see here beautiful looking guavas and are very delicious as well now the White Arabian guava does not produce a lot of fruits but whatever fruits it produces are very nice tasting so let's go ahead and open up one of these guavas the white arabian guava fruits show you how it looks like so very soft flesh there are a few seeds but not a lot at least not as much as the Mexican white guava but as you can see here very soft fruit the seeds are there they are medium soft I would say not very hard not very soft either white flesh that's very juicy very flavorful so to summarize the white arabian guava tree grows into a very big tree and must be pruned, it is a medium producer that produces small to medium sized fruit which are extremely sweet and have an excellent flavor they have soft seeds and soft fruit or the pulp which is white in color so in general for any guava variety that you grow you need to fertilize the plants every three months you can use the same schedule that I had discussed for other fruit trees for insect control you can spray with mineral oil although I have not seen guava trees being affected by any insects at all and then you can prune every two to three years to maintain the size of the plant which is very important for you to pick fruit easily and then if you're in colder areas make sure you grow them in containers they grow well in large containers and the guava plant does not tolerate frost so make sure that you do not leave it out in the cold during a freeze so there we have it folks that was our episode on growing the three guava varieties I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'd like to know from you if you grow guavas or do you like to eat guavas and are looking forward to growing guavas in your garden do let me know your thoughts