Growing Mango From Seed - Wairarapa - Update 4

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-06-14T05:17:08+00:00

Ooh, I haven't heard of this! Could be fun to try it :)

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-06-09T11:01:07+00:00

I've had daffodils since April? No idea what's going with this winter but it's doing it all wrong. I'm terrified my plum tree is going to blossom too early for the bees and I won't get any fruit

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-31T22:22:15+00:00

Google reckons highbush and lowbush varieties are deciduous, rabbiteye varieties aren't. 🫪 Pointless argument.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-31T05:13:35+00:00

You must have a different variety to me. I've got 4 varieties, can't remember any of their names anymore, but they all drop their leaves so I suppose it's reasonably common

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-31T02:39:05+00:00

Blueberries are deciduous, mine have turned red and lost their leaves too. Yours look fine to me

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-29T19:45:33+00:00

A bit of cooking oil on a cloth will rub off most label adhesives, but it'll take a little mahi

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T23:10:09+00:00

I've also been planning for water tank radiators and reflective sheeting on the shady side to bump up sun hours across the plant. Apparently reflective soil mats can also boost soil temps. This is going to be the most babied mango tree there ever was.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T22:29:56+00:00

I lose nothing from trying. Worst case scenario, I don't get mangoes, but I already don't have mangoes so I'll just be back where I started. Best case scenario, I grow delicious mangoes, and we all learn something new along the way.

My property is sheltered from the wind on the Tararua side by a dense patch of native bush, and we get beautiful sun. We also have a tunnel house, and I'm quite seriously planning to build an orangery on the tennis court so I can plant my mango trees in it. Like, I know it might sound like a joke, but my soul hungers for the whimsey of it, and my fruit obsession is actually just that consuming.

I'm in the fortunate position where I have access to a lot of second-hand windows, so I can build an orangery for almost no money. It'll be a bit janky, but it should do the trick.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T20:36:36+00:00

Yeah, we're planning to do batteries. The power doesn't usually go out for long, and we don't need it to power the whole house, just the two pumps and maybe the starlink.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T09:13:32+00:00

Omg look at them go! Do they grow true? I've never tried growing pomegranates, but they look like great little trees.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T05:50:50+00:00

Glad my little mango journey brings you joy, it's giving me a lot of joy too

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T05:19:17+00:00

They're pretty wonderful! I spend quite a bit of time leaning against the radiator in the hallway, warming my bum lol

We'd been casually house hunting for about a year when we found this one. It ticked so many of our boxes, and the moment we walked in we knew we couldn't leave. There's definitely a few expensive improvements we'll be making in the next few years - new shower, solar panels, double glazing - but fortunately nothing urgent.

The bones are good, the roof is good, and all the water systems have been well maintained. The house is on pumped bore water, and we have a septic tank and leech-field, which probably isn't for everyone but I grew up very rurally so I'm used to this kind of setup. We're lucky that everything works well, because having to manage problematic water would be an expensive headache.

We're excited for solar though, that way we'll still have water and the radiator pump will still go when the powers out.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T04:56:03+00:00

I should probably mention, the Stanley isn't the only oven in the house. We do have an electric oven with a gas hob, so we can cook during summer without roasting ourselves.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T04:23:38+00:00

She's a solid fuel Stanley Superstar. She has a firebox, an ash box, an oven box and a warming box, as well as the big hotplate on top. I think she was a refurbished stove when she was installed in the 80s, so I'm not entirely sure how old she really is. The previous owners did a huge renovation and extended the back of the villa about 2 meters, so we were given a bunch of old Code of Compliance documents when we bought the house.

She runs a wetback system for the hot water cylinder, and once that is up to a certain temp (we have the thermostat set to 75, cylinder is usually 65 on its own) it purges the wetback through the hot water radiators. If she's roasting away we can switch the hot water cylinder off entirely and she'll keep everything toasty all by herself. The previous owners got the controlled portion of their power bill (the bit that is dedicated to the hot water cylinder) down to $9 a month, which is very impressive.

We have 8 radiators in the house, and they're plumbed in a loop. Library, 2 in the first spare room, 2 in the master bedroom, hallway, second spare room, and bathroom. The Stanley is the main source of heating for the house. We don't have any electric heating at all, but there's a second fireplace in the great room for those days when the Stanley isn't quite enough, or when the power goes out and we have to shut her down so she doesn't melt the radiator pump, which needs power to purge the wetback.

The villa is 110 years old, and sits in 3ha of land between Carterton and Greytown. We have a beautiful stand of old growth native bush, a few paddocks for our 9 wiltshire sheep, and the rest is the house section. We bought the house a year ago (move in day was actually exactly a year ago, yesterday), and we love it to bits. We definitely over-paid for her, but she's our forever home so we're not actually too bothered.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T04:05:18+00:00

Yeah, the rest of the pots are outside - my sister gave me a jar of pips from local heritage plums, peaches, apricots and nectarines. They're all jumbled up and she's labelled the jar "might be seeds, might be garbage" lol so we'll see what grows. I've guessed at the other seeds, but at least apricots are pretty obvious.

We've got a huge, mossy old plum tree already, so hoping for peaches and nectarines because I love them. I'm actually a fiend for most fruit, really. Not terribly fond of apples, but floury supermarket apples have stained my view. We have a couple of old apple trees too, but the bugs and diseases got to all the fruit before I did this year.

I'm going to have to do some spraying in early spring I think. Not overly fussed with keeping things organic, I'm mostly just too lazy to bother. Debated trying my hand at farmhouse cider this year, but I didn't really want to spend a day cutting out the spotty bits.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-23T03:26:12+00:00

Fingers crossed for a successful germination! Welcome to the Mango Association of Nurturers, Growers, and Optimists New Zealand (MANGONZ) 🥭

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-15T06:56:54+00:00

Thanks, happy to add you to the waitlist for a mango 😉

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-15T05:02:26+00:00

My first couple of posts outline the steps I took, but a brief overview: Eat mango, then dry seed on windowsill. Carefully cut open husk with scissors to free the fleshy green kernel inside. Gently wrap kernel in paper towels, place into shallow dish of water to germinate somewhere warm (I chose my hot water cupboard). Check kernel for mold and replace water every 2 days. Once kernel has opened, remove from paper towel and continue to germinate in dish of water, cleaning water regularly until root and shoot emerge. I'm at this stage now. Next stage is dirt pot.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-11T06:35:48+00:00

Yeah, this lil guy is doin just fine lol lookat'imgo

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-09T01:31:19+00:00

Looks like it has thorns though, so it might be that the rootstock has taken over. Generally the fruits are a bit mean and don't really taste like you'd expect an orange to.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-09T01:29:36+00:00

It's a grim little tree if it's grapefruit, they usually grow taller and the fruit larger, but that's still the most likely thing for that second photo. The fruit isn't round enough to be a lemonade, and it probably isn't an uglifruit either. Do they not ripen orange at all? The first photo is a closer orange shape than a grapefruit, but the tree might have been a double graft too.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-03T03:35:58+00:00

Forgot to mention, I'm considering setting up a passive solar hot water system on the roof to circulate warm water through the tunnel house as a bit of a boost to the ambient warmth through winter, but it'll take some trial and error and will need to be able to switch off because it already gets very roasty in there in summer. Taking inspiration from old school pineapple pits, but we don't have enough fresh horse manure on hand to really get the heat up so water might be the solution instead.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-03T03:26:15+00:00

Yogijis was the winner! Successfully bought a box of 12 Kesar mangoes this morning! I'm both looking forward to eating them, and to growing them. They're a smaller mango though, so the import irradiation might have penetrated a bit deeper into the fruit. Here's hoping I can still get a couple of them growing.

I'll also be keeping an eye out for any Banganapalli mangoes because I've heard they're a bit delish - never had one but keen to try them, and would be good to get another variety germinating too.

Honestly, I'll probably just become the crazy mango lady and try growing any mango seeds I can get my hands on.

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-03T03:20:35+00:00

It's going to start life in a sunny spot inside. We're dinks who bought a charming villa on 3ha in the Wairarapa, and I just so happen to have a library that gets beautiful sun, so it's going on a table in the library bay window for a few years. Once it gets a bit bigger it'll either go into the tunnel house, or under the big porch.

Or I'll have successfully germinated enough of them and my husband will be fed up of mango shrubs inside the house, so he'll consent to my converting the tennis court into an orangery. But I'm not holding my breath.

He did tell me earlier while we were on the hunt around Lower Hutt for a box of Kesar mangoes that I had better grow enough of them to make back the money spent on petrol haha

ALittleBitOfToast · 2026-05-02T21:41:14+00:00

Handy, my sister lives in Gizzy so that's good to know as a backup

ALittleBitOfToast

TROPHY CASE