growing Archives - SNAP Hydroponics Nutrient Solution

In the Philippines the epiphytic, fruit bearing, cactus of the Hylocereus genus, are known as pitaya. The fruits are known as dragonfruit. Pitaya, like all cactus species, is native to the Americas but has been naturalised in many parts of the world. Pitaya can be grown as an ornamental or for it’s fruits. Cactus and succulent enthusiast grow them because their stems make excellent root stock for ornamental cacti. I’ll teach you have grow pitaya and share my experience with these fascinating cacti.

Pitaya can be grown from seeds but a mature plant can be realised faster if one is to grow them via cuttings. If cared for well it will grow to be big enough to start bearing fruit. Growing pitaya from cuttings is very easy. All you need to do is bury around 10 cm (3in) of the cutting to the ground and wait for it to grow. You don’t even need to water. The cutting will be spending most of its time developing a root system and you won’t even know if something is happening. Be patient. Start watering when you start seeing shoots. Depending on the size and health of the cutting new shoots will form in 1-3 months. Frequent rains during the rainy season may cause the cactus to rot at the soil line. Just let it be. As long as the vascular bundles are intact, they usually callus and the cactus let the fleshy parts rot. You can either train the plant or let it just go about its business of growing. The fruiting season usually starts late May until September. The size of the cactus tells if the cactus will bear fruits in the fruiting season. Just make sure your cactus is healthy and thriving during the fruiting season and they’ll reward you with fruits.

a large pitaya plant sprawled over a wall — Our pitaya plant last July 2017. The cacti growing on trellis was grown from cutting the previous year and is now bearing fruits.

Pitaya’s are epiphytic, they grow on trees, in nature. They are used to shade because they grow in the shadow of a trees’ canopy. As you can see in the picture below. Parts of our pitaya plants that are exposed the direct sunlight are turning yellow while parts of it that spends part of the day under the shadow of our house is a healthy shade of green.

Picture of a pitaya plant viewed from above. — Stems exposed to full sun is turning yellow.

During the fruiting season the pitaya plant bring forth buds that develops into flowers.

A picture of a small pitaya flower bud — A young pitaya flower bud.

However, not all buds develop into flowers. Buds may sometimes turn yellow and fall off. This happens when the plant doesn’t feel like it will not be able to develop the fruit due to issues like light, water and/or nutrient availability.

A yellowed pitaya flower bud. — This flower bud has been “abandoned” by the plant. It fell off after a few days.

Flower buds develop quickly and can open in 2-3 weeks. Flowers only open at night. The surest sign that the flower will bloom during the night is if it looks like it’s going to burst and you can see parts of the white petals.

A mature pitaya flower. — This pitaya flower will open during the night.

The flowers are large, showy and fragrant. It opens around 8PM. Bloom peaks around 12AM to 3AM. By 4-5AM it is already starting to wilt. The video below is a time-lapse of the nocturnal pitaya bloom.

Pitaya’s only bloom at night because in their natural range, the unforgiving desert heat keeps pollinating insects away during the day. By morning the next day the flower has served it’s purpose and the plant abandons it.

a wilted pitaya flower — A wilted pitaya flower. The green parts near the stem ripens into dragon fruits.

The wilted flower will drop off or rot away and the remaining parts develops into dragon fruit over a few weeks.

A red and ripe dragon fruit. — A ripe dragon fruit with parts of the flower still attached.

Dragon fruit stops developing when it is taken of the pitaya plant so making sure that the fruit is ripe during harvest is important. Ripe dragon fruits have a bloated appearance. Depending on the variety, the color of the peel varies. My pitaya has a red peel and red flesh. Wait for the ripe color of your fruits to be the dominant color until only the tips of the protrusions remain green or yellow. You can also give the fruit a gentle squeeze. It should be soft but offer resistance. To harvest gently twist the fruit off. You may use snips if you don’t want the peel to be damaged. The sharp protrusions can be trimmed off.

A hand peeled pitaya fruit. — Just be showing off the pitaya I peed using my hands.

Our pitaya only gets attention when it’s flowering and fruiting yet it thrives and rewards are efforts (or lack of it) with fruits. It’s one of the easiest fruiting plants to grow. In the future I’ll be posting about how to train them. I plan on starting a separate grow where I’ll be giving the plant proper care and grooming and see how much fruits it will bring me.

If you have any question please feel free to ask. Good luck and happy growing!

Prerequisites

A sunny location

The more sun the better. I’ve grown mine on an east facing and awning protected side of the house. It receives around direct sunlight from 7am to 12nn it’s under our house’s shadow for the rest of the day.

This is the same set of seedlings on 10th October 2016.

A trellis to grow on

Cucumber is a vine that tends to grow everywhere. You’ll have to give it a trellis to grow on. I let my cucumber plants grow on window grills and plastic twine (taling straw).

Enough room for roots

Cucumber grows fast and to support this growth it develops a big root system just as fast. It’s very easy to run out of room (root bound) in your growing box and as a result the cucumber plant die.

I’ve successfully grown five of them on a single growing box but I think managing them became too much for me. You’ll need to regularly visit it because like I mentioned before they tend to grow everywhere. When they are big (and they get big fast) they drink so much water you pretty much have to top up the growing box with water almost every other day. I guess it depends on what you intend to do with the fruits. If you just need them on a regular basis, growing a couple of them on a single grow box would do. If you need them in bulk, like for example when you intend to pickle them, then 10 of them split in two growing boxes will give you lots of them faster.

Other things to consider

Leaf miners can be a little nuisance. Cucumber grows fast despite of them. Leaf miners will make the leaves look ugly though.

They can be infested with aphids. Aphids tend to slow them down and can be a big problem. If an aphid infestation starts I tend to just discard the plant and start over.

Strong winds can mangle them. Cucumbers have big leaves and soft stems. Summer is the best time to grow cucumbers if you don’t have a greenhouse.

Maintenance

As the cucumber plants grow it will take up nutrients and water from the growing box. However, the plant tend to drink more water than nutrients specially during hot seasons. The plant will do well for over a month with only water being added to top up the grow box. I replenish the nutrient solution after every four weeks and gets more frequent as the plant grows larger.

Cucumbers grown in SNAP hydroponics will start flowering in four weeks and fruits will be ready for harvest typically around six weeks. When harvesting, use snips to cut the steam about a centimeter above the fruit.

The cucumber plant’s roots tends to grow dense and heavy relatively fast and will eventually end up filling the growing box. I haven’t tried trimming the roots because I tend to start over from seed when the plant gets root bound.

This is the same growing box on the 28th of October 2016. Five cucumber plants filled up the growing box with roots in just over a month.

Thanks for reading. Feel free the leave a comment if you have any questions. Happy growing!

Tag: growing

How to Grow Pitaya (Dragon Fruit)

Growing Pipino (Cucumber) Using SNAP Hydroponics

Prerequisites

Starting From Seed

Maintenance