Tamarind Tree

I grow very many plants such as ornamental trees, fruit trees and bushes and, most important vegetables and herbs.

One of the fruit trees that I have had experience with is my tamarind tree.  First of all, I am in zone 9a bordering on zone 9b.  My location had nothing when we bought the property 4 years ago.  Since then we have created some micro-climate zones in our small place.  The tamarind is a tree originating in India.  It has been established in many places around the world and one of them is Puerto Rico where I am originally from.  The tamarind trees I grew up knowing give very sour fruits which are used to make juice.  Later on in life I discovered the kind that is sweet.  I purchased the sweet tamarind from a supermarket, ate the pulp, and started one of the seeds about three years ago on the spring of 2010 in a one gallon container.

I used regular potting soil and the tree was doing well.  In February of the year 2011 I protected the tree by placing it in the barn.  We have a wing of the barn dedicated to keeping my tropical and some subtropical plants during the winter months.  I noticed the tree was doing good so as soon as the weather was warm I took it out to get fresh air and kept it outside until next winter.

The tree had grown but I was not sure that it would survive a winter here since I have not seen any of its kind anywhere around our area.

During the winter of 2011 - 2012 I kept it in the barn again and when it was time to take everything out for the warm weather months I forgot about the tree and it was not until the next year I found the tree under a table in the barn.  It was alive.  I had not given it any food or water.  It was now about one foot tall and it has sustained itself with some rain water that had lightly flooded the barn floor on occasions during the rainy season.

I decided to research some more information on this tree and found out that it is actually hardy on our zone 9a.  I kept the tree in the container for another year and in spring 2013 I planted it in the ground.  It has been doing very well.  So far only worm castings and worm tea as fertilizer.  Some water if there is no rain for more than two weeks.  And the only protection this winter has been about three inches of mulch.  It has all its leaves and has grown about another foot.  Photographs will follow.