How to Grow Dragon Fruit in Pots on a Balcony, and How Many Years Until It Fruits?

More and more people now like to grow plants, fruits, vegetables and so on on their own balconies. Today we will teach you how to grow potted dragon fruit on a balcony, so let's take a look.

First we need to understand the growing environment of dragon fruit. Dragon fruit has very high temperature requirements; during the growing period the temperature needs to be between 15 and 38 degrees, and below 15 degrees or above 38 degrees will cause the dragon fruit to die.

How to grow dragon fruit:
1. Choose the seeds you want to plant. Spread a layer of small stones at the bottom of the pot to help with drainage. Add an appropriate amount of clean water to the chosen soil and mix it evenly, then spread it over the gravel. Scatter the seeds evenly on the surface of the soil, then take an appropriate amount of soil and sprinkle it evenly over the seeds. Do not make it too thick; just enough to cover the seeds is fine. Wait for them to sprout.
2. Dragon fruit has a relatively small growth amount, so fertilizing should follow the principle of sufficient, small amounts, and multiple times. For fertilizer, use some organic fertilizers: chicken manure, rabbit manure, tofu residue, urine, plant ash. When fertilizing, fertilize first and then water, generally about once a week. In the rainy season, do not water. In the rainy season, do not water.
3. For fertilizing, use organic fertilizers, and apply balanced nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium compound fertilizer over the long term. Using only pig and chicken manure, which are too high in nitrogen, is not good: it will make the branches thicker, dark green and very brittle; the fruit will be larger and heavier, of poor quality, low in sweetness, and may even taste sour or salty. (Although dragon fruit is self-fruitful, the fruit-setting rate from self-pollination is relatively low, so dragon fruit must be hand-pollinated during the flowering period.)
4. On a single branch, dragon fruit will produce many flower buds. Keep the strong flower buds and remove the weak ones.
5. For dragon fruit to fruit, prune the fruiting branches in autumn, and the cut branches can be used for cuttings. Generally, keep 3-4 newly grown branches each year to serve as fruiting branches.

How many years until a potted dragon fruit fruits? For dragon fruit grown from seed, it generally fruits in the third year. If it is from a cutting, and the branch is good, then it may even fruit in the first year.