mangoes are a joy to grow in your garden once you see how easy it is to grow mangoes you will never
look back let's look at growing mangoes we are going to be planting our mango tree in a container
so we take a large container this is a whiskey barrel size container which is about 22
inches in diameter and we add some good quality potting mix to this container now we are using a
ready-to-use potting mix from a local nursery this is Gary's best top pot potting mix and I've
reviewed this potting mix in my earlier videos as well it's basically a permanent type potting
mix and although the bag doesn't say what's in it this is what I think is inside the potting mix now
to create your own potting mix you need to use two parts of sand this is just all-purpose sand
that you can find in any hardware store one part of pumice or perlite and one part of peat moss
you can mix in the components that you see on your screen and you can get a great quality potting mix
and all you do is just put in all these components on a tarp
and then mix it in very well to create your own cheap potting mix I've used this potting
mix for many other fruit trees that i have and it works very well now to get mangoes you first
need to get a plant although you can grow mango trees from seed I highly recommend that you get
a grafted mango tree from a reputable source when growing mangoes from seeds
the plants may not produce any fruits for 15 to 20 years so i highly recommend that you buy a
grafted mango tree from a reputable source in our case we bought our grafted mango tree from Logees
which is an online nursery but you can look around your local nurseries I'm sure you'll be
able to find a good quality grafted mango tree that you can plant in your garden so after you
get the tree the first step is to just take it out of the pot securely and then plant it well
and just pack in a little bit of the potting mix around your tree after you've planted it
as per the recommendation of the person who sold me the potting mix this is an inert medium so we
have to add some kind of fertilizer slow release fertilizer and in this case you're seeing how
we used Osmocote in this container and this is a very slow release fertilizer that will
provide nutrients to this mango plant for about six months or so and I'll show you alternative
ways of adding fertilizer how to use organic fertilizer in your plants i usually use organic
fertilizers on my fruit trees when they are in the ground and the final step then is to water your
plant very well make sure that there are no air pockets in the container and this is a very well
draining potting mix it is a permanent potting mix as well which means it has no compost and although
it's pretty expensive it's a good quality potting mix because it's also permanent but as i mentioned
you can always create your own potting mix and this is how our plant looks like once planted
and it looks like a nice plant which will be dormant for a few months but then should start
growing very soon and this mango variety is the little gem mango it's a great mango variety one
of my favorite mangoes it's a dwarf mango variety and grows to about four to six feet and produces
abundant mangoes so it's a great option if you want a compact tree that you can grow in either
containers or in the ground a small tree that produces abundantly now 66 days since planting you
can see that the plant is looking good the leaves are looking healthy and at 120 days you can expect
to see some new growth you can see new leaves being formed on the plant and you will soon see
more new leaves as the plant grows as the roots establish and start growing in the soil you will
see some new growth and mangoes grow very slowly here in southern California but usually around
the month of September or October they produce new leaves which will help the mango plant grow
larger and help it bear all those fruits in the upcoming year now since we added fertilizer at
the time of planting we will not be adding any more fertilizer now when we moved to our new home
we had to plant this mango tree somewhere so we chose to plant it in the ground and you can see
this little video here sorry for the bad quality video this is from our surveillance camera but
you can see the mango plant is being transferred from the container to the ground and when you're
transferring a plant into the ground you need to dig a hole which is at least twice as wide
as the size of the root ball of the plant and at least as deep and mix in 50 percent of the
native soil with 50 planter mix or compost and that should give you a good start to the plant
that's planted in the ground now remember this is a dwarf mango tree it will not grow to a huge size
which is why we planted it closer to the wall and our bench and it still has enough
space to grow and provide all the fruits that it can produce now somewhere around the month
of April which is 315 days since planting we could see the mango plant was in full bloom
and the mango plant blooms are just amazing you can smell the heavenly fragrance of mango flowers
from several feet away and they smell just amazing and the mango plant will produce a lot of clusters
of flowers and it over produces it produces more flowers than it can produce fruit but eventually
as you will see the flowers will shed and only the strongest ones will remain but the mango flowers i
mean they look absolutely beautiful and one year one month since planting which is around July
you can see the fruits being formed and you can see most of the flowers have dropped
which is very common the mango plant does produce hundreds of flowers out of which only a few remain
and this is how the mango looks like you can see the mango it's quite good looking compact mango
these are not huge size mangoes but they pack in a lot of flavor as you'll soon see
and they also produce abundantly which is another great characteristic of this tree
now in southern California mangoes are not extremely easy to grow but you can see that
some varieties like this little gem mango can be easily grown and it not only can be grown but it
also produces delicious mangoes and you can see some leaves here some of the leaves have some
kind of a burn or they've started becoming brown and that's because of the intense heat we've had
in the summer months in California and mangoes can tolerate heat but they can't tolerate extreme
heat but they still do okay a few leaves on the mango plant are damaged but overall the mango
plant looks quite good and you can see that we have added some mulch at the bottom to conserve
water and these plants are getting deep watered once a week all the fruit trees in this area the
mango fruits will start getting larger and in some time they will be large enough that
you can harvest the mangoes and at one year and two months since planting which is august you
can see that the fruits have now started getting larger but they're not ready for harvest just yet
you can see how beautiful the mango fruit looks and i know a lot of people love eating mangoes
which is why by looking at this video i hope this encourages you to grow your own mango tree at home
now as the mangoes ripen you will start seeing a yellowish tinge
on the fruit and the fruits were getting so heavy that we had to tie the plant with some support
so we used some support and tied the plant so that the fruits stay afloat and they don't touch
the ground because the mango fruits they do become quite heavy the mangoes get heavy as time goes by
and at one year three months since planting which is September
you can see that the fruits are now ready for harvest they have a nice yellow color on the top
and you could technically leave the mangoes on the plant to ripen but we had such intense heat and
sun that it was scalding the mangoes you can see here there are a few spots where the sun damage
had started occurring on the mangoes which is why we harvested these mangoes because at this
stage you can harvest these mangoes and ripen them indoors by keeping them in a bag of rice
or a brown bag with banana for example which will help accelerate the ripening process
but you can see the harvest it looks so beautiful these mangoes are absolutely gorgeous
very good looking mangoes and the plant itself is very prolific for
its size you can see all these mangoes they look absolutely delicious
and when we cut open the mango you can see that it has a nice orange flesh it's extremely sweet
and the taste is also amazing this is extremely close to the taste of some other mango varieties
I've had which are more expensive and difficult to grow so all in all the flavor for this mango
variety is just amazing now at one year and four months since planting which is in October
the plant will continue to grow more leaves more branches which will eventually bear fruits in the
upcoming year now at this stage it's good to add a good quality organic fertilizer
you can see here we are using this fruit tree fertilizer and I'll provide some links
in the video description you mix in some worm castings with some homemade compost and this will
form the base for our fertilizer so all you do is just remove the mulch from the base of the plant
to expose the ground you can see here the ground is a little bit dry and then you just spread
the compost and worm castings mix around the plant all the way to the drip line of the plant
so this is not a huge plant but you can see how we are spreading the compost and the worm
castings around the plant and we haven't added our fertilizer yet so at this stage we can just
take a handful of the fruit tree fertilizer and mix it in with the compost that we just added
so just mix it in with the compost and worm castings around the plant and what this does is it
not only adds a lot of beneficial nutrients to the soil it also adds a lot of beneficial bacteria and
microbes which will improve the condition of your soil and let your plant grow to its full potential
and once you're done just put the mulch back so that you conserve moisture and then you water
your plant thoroughly this is very important that you water your mango tree thoroughly once you add
your fertilizer you're all set to get delicious fruits in the upcoming year now the one thing that
you have to protect your mango plants from is cold winters if you have extreme weather in your area
or if you have extremely cold winters leaning towards a frost you need to cover your mango
plants with some protective cover while they're growing and this is extremely important in the
first year or if you're growing your plants in containers you can get them indoors during winter
so to summarize here are the tips for growing mangoes at home always get a grafted plant to
grow never grow from seed unless you're growing the mango only for leaves protect your mango plant
in the winter season protect it against cold by either covering it or bringing it indoors
choose varieties that grow well in your area the little gem mango for example is a great
variety to grow in southern California make sure you water your plant and add fertilizer
for nutrients so that the plant grows well during the growing season a mango plant doesn't have any
problems with insects or diseases so you don't have to worry too much about it but as long as
you follow these guidelines you'll be on your way to growing excellent mangoes great quality mangoes
at home very easily and we have a lot of other interesting mango varieties that we're growing
and we'll have a full fruit tree tour coming up very soon so make sure you subscribe so that
you don't miss out on these wonderful episodes so there we have it folks that was our episode
on growing mangoes if you grow mangoes already or are planning to grow mangoes after getting
inspired from this video do let us know in the comments below and if you're not already
a subscriber do hit that subscribe button we'll see you again soon happy gardening
you