by Lance Hill | Mar 28, 2023 | How To, Mirliton
There has never been a scientific study for home gardeners on how to best fertilize mirlitons, so we get to invent the science ourselves. In the growers guide that I wrote several years ago, I recommended 8-24-24 fertilizer. I don’t advocate that specific one anymore. Any fertilizer with a lower percentage of nitrogen (the first number) such as 5-20-20 will work fine and old-fashioned 8-8-8 or MIracleGro are good choices. A couple of tablespoons at planting and again in July is sufficient—as long as the vine is vigorously growing and green.
But there are two important fertilizing principles I have learned from experienced growers:
(1) Use a slow-release fertilizer such as manure. A mirliton’s nitrogen needs vary throughout the growing season. You don’t want to jolt their tender young roots when you first plant them. They like a buffet where they can eat light, but return for more helpings when they need it. Manure provides that. Ideally, work into your soil or planting pit before you plant, but you can side-dress throughout the season. Rabbit manure is the best choice, but any manure will do the job.
(2) If you are using fast-release fertilizers, stop before the flowering season. A dose of fertilizer can delay and disrupt flowering.
I asked our home gardener mirliton scientists last year to tell us how they fertilized mirlitons. What were the signs it was helping or hurting? Did the experiment with different techniques? I got these thoughtful responses. Click here to read them.
by Lance Hill | Mar 6, 2023 | How To, Mirliton
Excessive rains and prolonged droughts make it nearly impossible to know if we have the right soil moisture for mirlitons. Extremes in soil moisture–too much or too little–can stress the plant and cause diseases. Mirliton growers in Brazil long ago took the guesswork out of determining exactly how much available moisture lies below the surface. They use an inexpensive “soil sampler” which allows them to take a core sample of their gardens/fields and see and touch the soil at all levels. You can’t beat that.
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You can buy a small soil sampler for less than $20, or if you are like me and have an old worn-out back, you can get a 36” one with a footstep. Once you pull up a core, you can pop it out onto a table touch the soil at each level and to feel for moisture levels. A mirliton’s primary root zone is in the top 7” of soil, so no more drowning or dehydrating your plants. Watch this clip on how easy it is to use.
Buy the 12” one here
Buy the 36″ one here
Here’s a short video on how to use the “sight and touch” method for the core sample you take.
by Lance Hill | Feb 25, 2023 | How To, Mirliton
- Select a plant site. The most important thing to keep in mind is that water-saturated soil can drown a young mirliton. Even if your plant survives intense rains, excessive soil moisture later in the summer will stress the plant leading to anthracnose. Choose the best well-drained site on your property–away from roof run-off and preferably near a tree drip line. The vine does not have to initially be in full sun because mirlitons are sun-seekers and will follow a trellis to available sunlight. Make sure you have room for an overhead or vertical trellis.
- Make a bed or a pit. Mirlitons thrive in loamy, well-drained soil. If you have that, prepare a bed at least 10′ x 10′ which will allow for an overhead trellis that can double as an enclosure for frost protection. Till the soil and add amendments if necessary (if you are using a raised bed, tilling the soil beneath is imperative to ensure bed drainage). But most growers are not fortunate to have good soil and certainly don’t want to waste a $35 seed on a $1 hole. In that case, I recommend a planting technique taught to me by Ishreal Thibodeaux of Opelousas: the pit method. It has been successfully used around the world wherever gardeners have clay or any poor soils. With this pit method, you are essentially building a container below ground and filling it with your preferred soil mixture, just as you would with house plants. First, dig a pit 2’ x 3’ x 18” deep. Then fill it with a mix of equal parts: (1) the topsoil you removed from the hole, (2) commercial potting soil, (3) compost, and (4) manure (rabbit, if available). Make enough mixture to also build the hill on top (below).
- Build a hill. Make a 2’ x 2’ hill on top of the pit using the same mix. Transplant your mirliton into that in April or after the normal last frost date and add a wire cylinder trellis so the vine can climb to the overhead trellis.
- Assemble your defense force. Prepare now for rain, pests, and diseases. We suggest you buy a: (1) rain gauge, (2) a soil sampler for testing soil moisture (3) potassium bicarbonate for powdery mildew, (4) BT for preventative management of vine borers, (5) sevin for preventative management of stink bugs, and (6) a shade cloth for the first two months of the plant.
I will post on each step of the growing season in this series, including, disease and pest management, identifying subsurface soil moisture, fertilizing, inducing early flowering, hand pollination, and frost protection through sprinklers and temporary enclosures.
Links:
Soil Sampler for Testing Soil Moisture
Potassium bicarbonate
BT Concentrate
Sevin
by Lance Hill | Jan 25, 2023 | How To, Mirliton
The video at the bottom of this post explains in 60 seconds the simple bamboo skewer stick soil moisture technique that will prevent you from drowning your young mirliton.
If you get a mirliton sprout and it’s too early to ground-plant it, we recommend that you plant it in a 3-5 gallon container or grow bag filled with potting soil. It can remain in the container for more than a year and can be pruned back if necessary. Watering is the main problem you may encounter. The mirliton needs very little water the first several weeks because it comes with its own water source–the fruit. You should initially thoroughly water it and leave it alone for some time so you don’t drown the roots. The only way the container will lose water is through evapotranspiration—by natural evaporation of the soil and loss of small amounts of water through the leaves (transpiration).
The best way to check the soil moisture is the bamboo skewer stick test. It works better than any expensive electronic tester. Insert and withdraw the skewer quickly and visually examine it. It will provide you with a graduated reading–each particle of soil represents the available moisture at that specific level. The bottom of the stake will show the moisture at the deepest level. If a few soil particles adhere to the skewer, that means they are moist, which means you have good soil moisture. If it comes out clean and dry, it needs water. If it comes out smeared and muddy, that’s too much moisture. After visually examining it, run the skewer between two fingers to feel the moisture at the different levels. You will develop a good sense of when it’s not drenched or dehydrated.
The “appearance and touch” method is similar to the one that soil labs to assess clay content for a soil sample–they roll the soil between their fingers and use their senses to judge the clay content.
Then leave the stick out to dry for the next test.
When you move the plant outside, it may lose moisture and need to me monitored more regularly. Here’s the quick and simple video: bit.ly/3w6vJ8o
In addition, you can use the skewers to help peel the mirliton! View the 60-second tutorial here.
by Lance Hill | Oct 14, 2022 | How To, Mirliton
Sprouted Mirliton
You can ground-plant a fall mirliton sprout as late as October, and a spring sprout as late as June. The June planting will have to be initially shaded. See here. Outside these two windows of opportunity, you will have to plant the sprout in a 3-gallon container until you transplant it into the ground. (see below how to container and trellis it). Get the plant growing in a container as soon as possible.
1. If your mirliton has not sprouted, (fig. 1) place it horizontally in the warmest room of your house. At 75 degrees, the mirliton should begin to sprout in 2-6 weeks.
Fig. 1. Unsprouted mirlitons.
2. If your mirliton has already begun to sprout (tongue sticking out) (fig. 2), you are ready to overwinter it to help it develop a root ball.
Fig. 2. Sprout first emerges (above) and shoots extending (below). These are ready to plant.
3. Over-wintering: Once your mirliton is sprouted, plant the whole fruit at a 45-degree angle about 2/3 of the way down with the sprouting end down in a 3-gallon container filled with good potting soil (fig. 3). Water thoroughly the first time. Mirlitons don’t need much water during the overwintering. Here’s how to use a bamboo skewer to test soil moisture. Or you lift the container slightly every few days to gauge if the soil is drying out, and only water if it is noticeably light. David Hubbell has an excellent video on overwintering a mirliton here.
Fig. 3. Sprout planted “sprouting end down” at 45-degree angle with about 2/3 underground in a 3-gallon container.
4. Trellising: Use a 24” – 36″ tomato cage as a trellis. You can prune it back for months to keep it compact, and that won’t hurt the vine. To get it to fill out, you will have to keep it outside in full sun and bring it in when there is the potential for a frost or freeze. The goal is to develop a good root ball. When you transplant it into the ground in the spring, the vine can be unwound from the tomato cage, and the canopy can be attached to your garden trellis (see below images).
Vine trellised on a tomato cage.
Top-down view of vine trellised on a tomato cage.
Vine untangled from the tomato cage is ready to transplant into the ground.
5. Transplanting: When the possibility of a spring frost passes, you can transplant it into the ground. If your container plant is well-developed, you can even get a small spring crop! See Mirliton.Org for instructions on building a grow site and general procedures for watering, fertilization, shading, and plant pests and diseases. Click here for Mirliton.Org to find answers to all your Mirliton growing questions. Join the national mirliton gardeners Facebook Group and post questions and follow the progress of other Mirliton gardeners here.
by Lance Hill | Sep 2, 2022 | How To, Mirliton
Meet The Squirrelator
Well, it doesn’t eliminate them, but it does scare them off, and anyone who has ever grown mirlitons knows that squirrels eat the vine endings and steal the fruit. What to do? A wise old extension agent in Mississippi once said, “If there are 100 cures for something, probably none of them work.” I tried a 100 for squirrels: CDs, noise repellers, and cayenne on the bird seed (the cajun squirrels loved it). None of them worked. This motion-activated sprinkler shoots a short burst of water in an arc over your vine.
David Hubbell tested it for the last two years —complete with a game camera that he used to monitor it. The thing works. It is based on the simple principle: Did you ever see a squirrel dancing in the rain?
They work for other crops and will also keep your neighbors from pilfering your garden at night.
It’s available at most online stores, but here’s the Amazon link.
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